Nomination of Vanita Gupta
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, before yielding to my colleague from Rhode Island, I would like to respond very briefly.
My, have we come a long way since we had a President who, for 4 years, refused to disclose his tax returns--first time ever. Oh, they are under audit. I will get back to you at some other time later.
Now we have witnesses and nominees coming before the committee, suggested by President Biden, who are producing the documentation and the things that are being requested by this committee so that everyone knows the answers.
So did Ms. Vanita Gupta produce 100 pages of documents? No. Did she produce 1,000? No, she produced 11,000 pages of documents, answering every question that was to be asked. And the suggestion the senior Senator from Texas raises--he raised it before in committee--that somehow, because her family made a business decision about selling a chemical, legally, into the nation of Mexico, she should be held responsible as a shareholder or as a member of the family?
You will notice, if you listen very carefully to what the Senator said, he is not saying there was any wrongdoing. He is saying there was an article once which made that allegation, and he has referred the question to others to decide. That is a long way from saying Vanita Gupta is responsible for whatever the company did, if it did anything, wrong. She has made that full disclosure, and I think raising this is unfair, just fundamentally unfair.
Secondly, on the question of decriminalizing drugs, narcotics, she says her position on it has evolved. Well, I think the Senator from Texas would be the first to acknowledge that the position of America has evolved on the question of drugs; has it not? Hasn't the position of Texas recently evolved on the decriminalization of some drugs and the possession thereof?
We are thinking differently about it. We are trying to find the most effective way to end addiction and save lives. We no longer want to lock everybody up, nor should we. We are deciding that there are some drug violations that shouldn't merit any time in jail, that some people just need help to break their addiction.
If Vanita Gupta has been part of that conversation in America over 9 or 10 years, she is in good company. We have all been part of it. Virtually all of us have been part of it.
And this notion of defunding the police--do you honestly believe the Fraternal Order of Police would be endorsing her if she wanted to defund the police?
She made it clear, as others have too, that reallocation of funds for law enforcement is just common sense. Putting a social worker in a delicate situation, putting a psychologist in a delicate situation, may spare a policeman a terrible choice that he has to make, and I think most of us agree that it is common sense.
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