Floor Statements

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 4929, and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, vaccine mandates are morally wrong and widely unpopular. Millions of Americans are still required by this Federal mandate to be vaccinated or lose their job.

The people's elected lawmakers here in Congress haven't instituted these mandates. No, there is no Federal law putting them in place. President Biden and his bureaucrats are just treading deeply into the personal medical choices of Americans without an act of Congress authorizing them to do so.

Now, Congress has the chance to make these millions of voices across America be heard. That is, after all, our job. Our sole job is to make Federal law, to give voice to those who elected us. We can state clearly, boldly, decisively today that Federal vaccine mandates do not belong in the United States of America.

We can stand for millions of vulnerable Americans who just want to go to work so that they have the chance simply to put food on the table for their families. That is not too much to ask.

The pandemic is waning, but it is waning just as our economic problems are just beginning. If we want to control the high price of everything, the lack of availability that comes with the related supply chain crisis, and keep the American economy moving, we must stand against these illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional mandates.

Look, the American people are sick and tired of the Federal Government micromanaging every minute detail of their lives. They are exhausted from the mandates and from the bureaucrats who they didn't vote for and never could vote for and never would vote for.

The brave men and women of our military, the Federal workers, the Federal contractors, people who work for Federal contractors--even a subdivision of a Federal contractor that doesn't actually provide any Federal contract work--along with medical professionals--all these workers across every part of our great land who are sucked up into this mandate, they all deserve better than pink slips and boots out the door, simply for making their own medical choices.

So I implore my colleagues with all the urgency I am capable of communicating, to stand up for American workers, stand up for our economy, stand up for freedom, and vote to withhold funding from these unconstitutional mandates.

It is quite significant that the very first clause of the very first section of the very first article of the Constitution says that ``all legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.''

It matters that this clause comes first, before everything else. And the reason it matters is because it is there to remind us of something. The most dangerous power within our Federal Government is not with the judiciary, it is not with the executive branch; it is right here in this branch because we have the power to prescribe law. We have the power within our Federal Government to provide what should be, what the law says, what people have to do. That is why the Founding Fathers were careful not to entrust it to any branch of government other than this one, not because those who would occupy these positions would necessarily be any wiser or any brighter or inherently more cautious than everyone else, except in one critical respect: This is the Federal branch most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals. You can fire every Member of the House every 2 years. You can fire one- third of us every 2 years.

We are the branch that is accountable. That is why we have been given the most dangerous power within government, the power to make Federal law. How then does this relate to illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and wildly unpopular vaccine mandates? Well, it matters because that is an exercise of Federal law. It is an exercise of Federal law that Congress never enacted.

They have arrogated to themselves within the executive branch an authority that they do not have based on a contrivance, based on a tortured, butchered manipulation of statutory text that doesn't tell people that they have got to choose between getting an unwanted medical procedure and unemployment, unemployment in a context that it is likely to lead to unemployability. And, indeed, it was designed to do that. We know that because those who put these policies in place have told us as much.

Look, everybody has been through a lot in the last 2 years-- Democrats, Republicans alike. This virus has been no respecter of persons, of red States and of blue States. Just the same, the American people understand that we are ready to move on. We are ready to not have government dictating every aspect of our lives.

COVID is no excuse for a government to do something that is categorically immoral. It is no excuse to do something that we all know is wrong. We would never justify anyone in rendering a threat against their friend, their neighbor, their employee, that if you don't bow, if you don't defer to Presidential medical orthodoxy, I am going to make you lose your job and make it impossible for you to put bread on the table for your children. No sane, moral, decent person would do that. We must not allow them to do that. We must never allow the executive branch of government to exercise authority

that they don't have because we didn't give it to them and they could never have it because the Constitution doesn't allow it.

We have got the chance right now to bring together red States and blue States alike, because, remember, it is not just red States anymore that are ditching these kind of draconian measures within their own State government systems. No. It is blue States left and right-- Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Illinois. Many, many more blue States are joining the number of red States that have made this decision.

Enough is enough. It is time for us to live our lives. I encourage my colleagues to vote yes on my amendment, No. 4929, and let America work again.

Mr. President, the American people do not want a Federal vaccine mandate. The American people just want to be able to go about doing their jobs. They want to be able to go work. They don't want to be told by someone who lacks the authority that they have to choose between an unwanted medical procedure on the one hand and on the other hand, losing their ability to put bread on the table.

It is not just illegal; it is not just immoral; it is wrong. We all know it is wrong, and we know that it is time to end this.

Please vote yes on my amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, on February 19, 1942--and that will be 80 years ago this coming Saturday--President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the blatantly racist mass incarceration of essentially all Japanese Americans inside the United States at the time. This was an indefensible move--one that resulted in locking up about 120,000 decent, hard-working, innocent people based on nothing other than their race.

Two years later, in one of the most shameful moments in America's judicial history, the U.S. Supreme Court deferred to the Roosevelt administration's blatantly racist and equally unconstitutional imprisonment of Japanese Americans. Writing for the majority in a case called Korematsu v. United States, Associate Justice Hugo Black, a Justice with a history of bigotry, unconscionably glossed over the countless constitutional violations built into the race-based interment of innocent American citizens, who the Court acknowledged ``were loyal to this country overwhelmingly,'' based on the fact that ``[t]here was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some'' Japanese Americans and ``military authorities considered that the need for action was great.''

In a moment one might expect from someone like Justice Black, who had a history of bigotry, he cavalierly dismissed the blatant racism inherent in this action, reasoning that ``[t]o cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue.''

Tragically, Justice Black, blinded perhaps by his own intolerance and bigotry or perhaps by his loyalty to the President who had appointed him just a few years earlier, missed the obvious point: Racial prejudice was the issue. That was the whole point. I agree with the characterization later provided by now-Chief Justice Roberts, just a few years ago, in 2018, when he noted that ``Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, [and] has been overruled in the court of history, and--to be clear--'has no place in the law under the Constitution.'''

No person should ever be in prison solely due to their race. It shouldn't be even a factor in anyone's imprisonment--certainly not in the United States of America.

Japanese internment is one of the very worst examples--one of the very worst examples--of our government rejecting its founding principles. It is something that should be remembered so that it can never be repeated. Despite this mistreatment by government, Japanese Americans served faithfully in many capacities during World War II and have continued to serve our Nation and their communities in irreplaceable ways. Their contributions are worthy of remembrance and celebration.

Regrettably, the United States has failed to meet other, admittedly, far less fundamental obligations it has made to individuals and to States. One of those obligations is relevant here, ironically arising in the context of an effort to honor victims of FDR's internment of Japanese Americans. The Federal Government has neglected commitments made by Congress to Western States at the time of their admission to dispose of large swaths of Federal land. Similar promises had been made to most States that were admitted into the Union ever since the Louisiana Purchase. But for the fact that Congress honored such promises with respect to a lot of these States, including States like Illinois and Missouri, the Federal Government would still, to this day, own around 90 percent of those States. The same could be said of many, many others.

Although Utah received such assurances from Congress prior to its admission into the Union in 1896, using essentially identical language, Utah is still waiting for the Federal Government to honor its end of the bargain. However, unlike States like Illinois and Missouri, which received the benefit of the Federal bargain, Utah did not. The Federal Government still owns more than two-thirds of all the land in my State, resulting in an extraordinary amount of environmental, economic, and educational consequences that hurt Utahns, particularly those Utahns in poor and rural communities.

In fact, in a blatant insult to the people whose families settled and developed much of the rural West and their communities, the Federal Government continues to limit and restrict access, commerce, mining, drilling, and grazing on land it had promised to relinquish. Rural farms, industries, and communities are shrinking and dying because of this continually broken promise.

To add insult to injury, the Feds routinely fail to care properly for the land in their portfolio. The maintenance backlog in the National Park System is years long and $12 billion in the hole. The Bureau of Land Management controls vast swaths of the Western United States, and it controls them from Washington, DC, with little interest or regard for the people whose livelihoods and way of life depend on that land.

This relationship remains a vexing problem for everyday life in Utah. Businesses are shuttered because the Federal Government capriciously halts mineral extraction authority. Ranches go bankrupt because the Bureau of Land Management ends grazing rights in areas where families have raised cattle for generations. And just last week, Federal land managers damaged an exquisite collection of dinosaur fossils and would have continued doing so but for the intervention of a noble citizen named Jeremy Roberts, who was willing to call them out on it.

At a time when the Federal Government already owns far more land than it can manage, Congress should be really cautious about decreasing Federal land holdings. It should be going out of its way to decrease its Federal land holdings and doing that rather than increasing them. Recognition of sites like the Amache camp deserve better than Federal management. However, if

those representing the State of Colorado think the Federal Government can do better or, for whatever reason, just want it to be under the National Park's jurisdiction rather than subject to local control, then I am not inclined to argue with them.

What I would like to ask is that this land not continue to be acquired by the Federal Government with no plan in sight for dealing with the size of the Federal footprint. It is the size of the overall Federal land estate that worries me because the Federal Government has not proven a good steward of what it has got. So if we keep adding to that, it is only going to perpetuate some of these problems.

Now, I have been wrongfully portrayed by some in the media as being somehow against this historical recognition and against commemorating, as a warning to future generations and to honor the victims of the past, one of this Nation's and its government's most tragic missteps. I continue to negotiate in good faith to find a way forward with this bill. I have been in communication with the lead sponsor in the House, and I think there are ways that we can address this--to address both goals at issue.

I think we need to be able to commemorate these events and we also need to do so in a way that won't lead to the unfettered expansion of the Federal land footprint.

So, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 255, H.R. 2497. I further ask that the Lee amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the committee-reported amendments be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I have a couple of points, and I don't think we are far off in where we are on this.

It is true that it is not an expansive land that is as big as some other land transfers we see--1 square mile. On the one hand, a lot of people would regard that as large--640 acres. It is the acreage equivalent of 1 square mile.

I would note here that I wouldn't call it a federalism argument in that we have to allow this. There are Federal implications to this that extend far beyond what a local unit of government might want to do. What happens is, when you transfer it into the Federal estate, we do incur additional obligations to make sure that that land is maintained and managed appropriately. It does cost money, and it takes an expense off the books of those who would otherwise be maintaining it. So it is not without any consequence at all. In other words, it is a matter of a simple operation of federalism to say that we should allow this in this circumstance.

I would note, moreover, that we have come closer on this. The amendment that I offered a moment ago that my friend and colleague, the Senator from Colorado, objected to is one that would allow this to happen but would require an offset to be made by the appropriate Federal land managers within 1 year of the transfer of this land.

There is nothing about that that strikes me as being particularly objectionable, particularly given the fact that the Federal Government owns and manages about 30 percent of the land mass in the United States. In my State and in Colorado, it is much more than that. There is nothing about that that should be particularly objectionable.

With that said, the Senator from Colorado has shaped this legislation in a meaningful way, and because I have a desire to honor those victims of this horrific event in American history and the Senator from Colorado has offered up a separate solution, one that would involve donation rather than acquisition by the Federal Government, although that also raises some concerns--over time, I think we have to watch this because the more we enhance the Federal land footprint, the more difficult it will be for the Federal Government to keep up with the maintenance backlog.

But given that this doesn't directly impact concerns quite the way those same concerns might be implicated if we were having to purchase it at the outset, I would be inclined, if my friend from Colorado were interested in offering that amendment, to withhold any objection from that while noting that it is my hope and expectation that, in moving forward, we could be more aware of these issues and that, as we see the Federal land footprint increasing, we can take steps as a body to make sure that there is some natural stopping point even before we turn to what I believe we have still got to turn to, which is the commitment made at statehood that still needs to be honored.

Mr. President, one of the aims of American foreign aid is to assist countries in times of need. This spirit exemplifies a trait Americans and Utahns rightfully value, that of giving to those in need.

Yet, for many years, our foreign aid dollars in support of abortion have been used to impose violent cultural imperialism. Instead of helping to preserve, strengthen, and sustain the lives of women and children abroad, our taxpayer dollars have been used to harm women's lives and to end the lives of their unborn children, especially baby girls. In some of these countries, girls are disproportionately aborted precisely because they are female. U.S. aid is used not to affirm the equal dignity of women but to violently deny it.

In some of these countries, abortion is forced on women who don't even want abortions, women in countries like Vietnam and Peru, for instance, who were forced to endure the coercive abortion and sterilization campaigns of the 1990s, just to name a couple of examples.

What kind of aid does violence to women and girls? What kind of help is it to impose U.S. abortion extremism on countries that culturally and democratically reject it or contribute to international organizations that allow regimes to use abortion as a tool of oppression? What kind of progress is it to encourage sex-selective abortion and the denigration of human dignity for both the baby and the mother?

U.S. advocacy abroad for the taking of innocent, unborn life is not pro-woman, it is not pro-child, and it is not pro-healthcare. It is pro-sexism. It is pro-violence. And we must end it.

According to recent polling, the American people overwhelmingly agree. Nearly 60 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to pay for abortions, and more than 75 percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to support abortions in other countries.

Thankfully, President Ronald Reagan took steps to reverse this support, starting in 1984, instituting the Mexico City policy to prohibit foreign aid from going to organizations that provide or promote abortions or that advocate to change abortion laws in a foreign country. Since then, the policy has, unfortunately, been rescinded and reinstated again and again, repeating this cycle between changing administrations.

Another policy that used to have lasting support is the Hyde amendment. This legal provision prohibited the use of Federal funds to pay for abortion with a set of exceptions. Recently, Democrats have abandoned this bipartisan position and have placed the Hyde amendment under threat. It, too, could become a back-and-forth, ping pong policy, depending on who holds majorities within the two Houses of Congress.

The lives of babies and the dignity of women and girls are not political footballs. Women and unborn children everywhere have immeasurable dignity and eternal worth regardless of where they are from, and they are entitled to the right to life and protection from harm regardless of who happens to be in office from one moment to the next.

The Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance Act affirms this truth. This bill would permanently stop the use of our foreign aid money from funding or promoting abortions overseas.

In our laws and through our lives, we must uphold the dignity of each and every human person regardless of race, regardless of sex, and regardless of appearance, abilities, or age. The measure before us today does just that, and I urge my colleagues to support it. The lives of millions of women and children, born and unborn, depend on it.

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration of S. 137 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President.

Mr. President, I have tremendous respect for my friend and colleague, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut. He and I both acknowledge that the policy we are arguing--the nature of the policy is one in which we have seen something of a tug-of-war, a ping pong match over the years.

The Republican legislation will put in place or restore the so-called Mexico City policy, prohibiting U.S. foreign aid from going to organizations that perform or advocate for abortion overseas. It is backed by an estimated 75 percent of Americans who don't believe that we should be using U.S. taxpayer dollars especially to further the cause of conducting or advocating for abortions overseas.

He and I both agree that President Biden has rescinded that. I think where we disagree can be highlighted and traced back to the fact that we call it by different names. He refers to this as

the gag rule, a gag rule. Now, normally when we think of a gag rule, we think of something that tells someone who is otherwise free to speak that they may not speak. It is, in fact, what happens when we don't allow people to live. It is what happens to all these baby girls who are never allowed to be born precisely because they are female. And make no mistake, when we fund abortions overseas, that is what is happening. It happens a lot in countries that receive our aid in the absence of the Mexico City policy. Some of that goes to these organizations that perform abortions.

In many of these countries, sex-selective abortions are not only tolerated culturally, they are commonplace. They are excessive. As a result, these baby girls never get to be born. They never get to become women. They never get to speak in the first place. That is a form of gagging. That is not OK.

Regardless of how you feel about abortion, regardless of whether you think that is a baby, a human life, or whether you think it is something else--I am not sure what else it could be. When someone becomes pregnant, we know that is the potential of what will one day be a human being. Absent a death--whether a natural death or a death brought about by someone's actions or by the operation of a disease or medical condition or surgical intervention in the case of abortion--it is a person. We shouldn't lose sight of that.

I have difficulty accepting the premise that the only solution to this is continuing to fund organizations that perform or advocate for abortions overseas. I reject the premise that anything we do in this area to withhold those funds will necessarily result in more abortions.

As far as the suggestion that organizations could receive these funds and still perform abortions and that not translate into U.S. dollars being used to perform abortions, I reject that premise as well for the same reason that I reject the premise that Planned Parenthood isn't using taxpayer dollars to perform abortions. It is. It is spent differently. It is a matter of accounting, but it sustains and supports an organization that itself advocates for and performs many abortions. These are, in fact, human lives, and the American people are, in fact, very uncomfortable with the idea that we are funding abortions with their taxpayer dollars, and we are doing it overseas. We shouldn't do that. This shouldn't be controversial. I look forward to the day when it is not.

Madam President, the Senate is, indeed, a peculiar institution. Despite what some might expect, and despite how it might be portrayed from the outside, Senators genuinely strive to be collegial, even when--especially when--they hold strong political and policy disagreements. In fact, the Senate rules have strict prohibitions on insulting the character of another Member or a State. That is because debate is a fundamental part of the Senate. I

mean, it is part of our culture in this institution. That is how this institution earned the moniker as the world's greatest deliberative body.

Some in this body, unfortunately, want to change all that. They seek to trample over more than two centuries of precedent, procedure, and politeness. They are attempting to break the rules that require a two- thirds supermajority--67 votes--to change the rules. They want to ignore that requirement and stiff-arm this historic institution in a way that would obliterate the requirement that those in the majority hear the voices of and work with those in the minority.

That requirement--sometimes colloquially referred to as the filibuster--is one of the most powerful constraints or checks on human nature, not only in the Senate but in the entirety of the U.S. Government. If the filibuster were removed, everything from regulatory structures to tax rates, the size of the Supreme Court, the makeup of the military, the criminal code, and much, much more could change drastically every few years. Keeping track of the law and its fluctuating requirements would be impossible for the most capable of lawyers, let alone the average American subject to all those laws. Our business landscape would be obliterated under the ever-changing commands of the Federal Government. Americans would be worse off in almost every sense I can think of. In countless ways, the American people would be harmed by this unfortunate decision.

Our system is designed specifically to control those whims and those passions, to make sure that their impact on the law doesn't cause the law to become this ever-changing, ever-fluctuating creature that can't be anticipated.

Our Constitution was designed to protect the rights, the voices, and the influence of those not in the majority. Laws that significantly impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people should, in fact, be difficult to pass.

In fact, the Senate has applied these principles into almost every mechanism of the institution. Most laws pass by unanimous consent or by simple voice vote after hearty consideration and frequent amendments through a process known as the hotline. That would essentially cease to function if the minority had no significant influence. Opportunities for amending these often smaller and somewhat less controversial bills would be foreclosed, crippling the careful consideration needed. Bills would have to be forced through often on party-line votes over the objection, suspicion, or protest of the minority.

But beyond building consensus and maintaining the function of the Senate, the filibuster serves as the keel on a very large ship. It prevents the waves and passions of each new election from drastically changing the laws of the country. It is a stabilizer of sorts, one that prevents our Nation's course from being jerked around to oscillating extremes.

I was asked recently if the Senate is broken. I responded by saying that the only sense in which I think the Senate is significantly broken, or at least undermined in the way that it is supposed to operate, is in its neglect of substantive debate and opportunities for amendments for each individual Member. The filibuster protects the remaining debate, amendment, and consideration available to Members of this body, whether those Members are of the majority party or of the minority party.

So removing the filibuster, on the other hand, would irreparably render the Senate beyond recognition. The partisan vitriol and disregard for opposing Senators would eat away at this place, at our norms, our customs, and, ultimately, our Republic.

Now, at least until recently, many Senate Democrats--most, in fact-- held these beliefs as well. In 2017, 27 of them, including now-Vice President Harris, signed a letter urging the preservation of the filibuster. Many of those Members still serve today, and I encourage them to consider their past advice.

By the way, that was a letter I signed, along with nearly every Member of the Senate from the Republican Party. We signed on to that notwithstanding the fact that Republicans held majorities in the Senate and in the House and a Republican President was serving in the White House. We did so because even though some short-term gain could have been achieved by nuking the filibuster then, we all understood what I think we still all understand today, which is that it would inflict irreparable harm on the Senate, and even more than the Senate, on those represented here. It would irreparably harm the American people to do away with it.

Senator Schumer, the leader of this destructive current effort, has himself in the past given grave, dire warnings about what this tactic-- making the filibuster a thing of the past--would mean. We heard many quotes today, and in one that sticks out in my mind in particular, he said that attempts like that to nuke the filibuster are ``what we call abuse of power.'' He also said in that same quote that even if you have 51 percent of the vote, you still don't get your way 100 percent of the time. He is absolutely right. That describes the Senate, it describes its rules, and it describes so much about how our system of government works. It even describes the system of checks and balances built into our Constitution.

The vertical protection of federalism says many of our laws--in fact, most of them--are supposed to be made at the State and local level and not within Washington, and the horizontal protection--that of federalism--says that we are going to have one branch that makes the laws, one that enforces them, and one that interprets them.

In that same document, it gives both Chambers of Congress the authority to set our own rules. Even though the 60-vote cloture standard is not itself mandated by the Constitution, the authority to add it, to adopt it, as the Senate has, is in the Constitution, and its ends, more importantly, are entirely consistent with this principle of checks and balances, with this notion that Senator Schumer eloquently referred to. The mere fact that you have 51 percent of the vote doesn't entitle you to get your way 100 percent of the time. Now, this circumstance is particularly poignant given that he doesn't even have 51 percent of the votes in this Chamber, no. This is deadlocked 50 to 50.

He is also right that this is what we call an abuse of power. Indeed, breaking the rules to grab power is an abuse. This attempt is so transparent that even Senator Schumer has told the media that his Members are concerned about losing their elections and the majority if they can't use this tactic to federally take over our election system. It is sad, it is tragic, and it is unacceptable.

I warn them that the American people see through this ploy. They know what is happening, and they know why. They were promised a return to cordial statesmanship. They were promised unity. This attempt mocks both of these promises. It mocks the U.S. Senate. It mocks our system of checks and balances. Most tragically, it mocks the American people.

Mr. President, I am here on the Senate floor now for the 21st time specifically to oppose President Biden's sweeping vaccine mandates.

I have introduced over a dozen bills to one way or another limit, clarify, or counteract the mandates. Every time I have come to ask the Senate to pass what should, frankly, be uncontroversial matters, one of my colleagues or another from the other side of the aisle has come to object. This is unfortunate. It is unfortunate, really, for a number of reasons.

These mandates, while currently being challenged in court in a number of jurisdictions, show the terrible power that even the threat of a vaccine mandate can wield. Businesses across the country are suspending, punishing, and firing employees who haven't had the COVID shot. The threat of the mandate is making it harder for everyday American families just to put food on the table and to do so, moreover, in increasingly difficult economic times.

Now, these are not our enemies. These are not people to be feared. These are not people to shun or loathe entirely, as the mandates seem to suggest. No. No. These are our friends and our neighbors. These are mothers and fathers. These are people who, like far too many Americans, are just struggling to get by.

I am going to continue to fight for them and to protect them because they understand something that President Biden has yet to accept even though, deep down, I know he does know it, and that is, this isn't right. It is not right for him to do. It is not right constitutionally for about a dozen reasons, but it is also just not right morally.

It is a morally unacceptable proposition to suggest that someone should get fired just because they don't conform to Presidential medical orthodoxy. It is immoral to tell someone that their ability to put food on the table for their children depends on whether they get a shot--a shot that they may or may not want; a shot that may or may not conflict with their religious or sincerely held beliefs, that might be contraindicated by one or more conditions, resulting in their doctors advising them not to get the shot.

This is not something that anyone should do. In fact, the American people agree. According to a recent Axios poll, only 14 percent of Americans--just 14 out of every 100 Americans--agree with the apparent position of the President of the United States that if someone doesn't get the shot, they should be fired. I would imagine it is even fewer than that. Fourteen out of a hundred isn't very many to begin with, but I am pretty sure it is even fewer than that--far fewer--who would say that it is OK for one person within the Federal Government to decide to fire everyone who doesn't comply within the government and also to tell private employers that they will receive crippling, company-destroying fines--that no company, not even the wealthiest out there, could live with--if they don't fire every one of their employees or otherwise take adverse action against them in their declining to take the shot. It is not OK.

In this effort, I have, to be sure, been supremely clear. I am not in any way against the COVID-19 vaccinations--quite to the contrary. I have been vaccinated. I have encouraged people to seek out all the relevant information and be vaccinated. I believe that the COVID-19 vaccines are keeping countless Americans safe from the harm threatened by the COVID-19 virus.

This is different than that. As a matter of fact, there is an undercut, and it can't offset the fact that this mandate is pushing government control beyond the constitutional limits and into the private decisions of the American people.

That is why I am against all of these mandates for all age groups, and that is why I have come to the Senate floor repeatedly to help and to call on my colleagues and President Biden himself to end this madness once and for all, to end it before it is too late, to end it before irreparable harm is inflicted on those who, for whatever reason, can't or are otherwise inclined not to comply with his directions.

I have even offered a bill, one that should be unusually, uniquely uncontroversial, but even that one met objection. It was a simple reaffirmation of parental rights that our government has respected and honored and even protected from the beginning.

My Parental Consent for Vaccination Act would simply require that any COVID-19 vaccine mandate issued by the Federal Government--to be clear, it shouldn't be issuing any at all, but any of them that it happens to issue must be a mandate that includes a requirement that informed parental consent be provided before the shot can be administered to a minor.

Now, this one is so far afield from the broader question of whether we should have these mandates at all. It is the slightly narrower question of whether the President of the United States should administer them. It really should not be controversial.

Now, allow me to put this issue in some context here. Parental consent is required for all sorts of things. Parental consent, as every parent with school-aged children knows, is required for field trips. Parental consent is required for pretty much all extracurricular activities. For that matter, it is required for many in-class activities. Parental consent is required before most schools can administer so much as a Tylenol or a baby aspirin to a child. Everyone knows that. None of that is happening without parental consent.

That is, to be sure, the right approach. It is as it should be. Despite what some candidates have said in some recent political campaigns, parents should be informed and involved in their children's education and certainly in their child's health decisions, in matters of medical treatment.

Parents, it is important to remember, are simply better equipped to make these decisions. Parents know their children, and they know their children's medical histories. Parents know their moral, their religious, and their health requirements that are, in many cases, unique to their families. It is certainly something that no government and no school can keep track of in the same way that a government or a school does. Parents also love their children--that is important here-- and parents, because they love their children, have their children's best interests at heart when they make decisions affecting them.

The government can't do any of those things. It certainly can't do any of those things anywhere close to as well as a parent could. The reason for that is fairly simple. It is because government doesn't have arms with which to embrace children. The government doesn't have a heart with which to love children. The government doesn't even have eyes to see or ears to hear because government, of course, when reduced to its essence, when we really define it as what it is, is simply force. It is legally authorized violence.

Now, thank Heaven that God and the law have always assigned the primary care of their children to parents and not to government. Government is just the official actual or threatened use of force. We need government. It is also one of the many reasons we have to be careful with it just like other things that we rely on in so many ways--things like electricity, like moving water, like fire. They are all necessary to our day-to-day lives, and yet when left uncontrolled, they are dangerous and quickly become fatal when we don't exercise due caution.

This has, of course, been acknowledged for millennia. It has been written about widely for many, many centuries, even centuries before the founding of our Republic. And it has been acknowledged since the very earliest days of our Republic.

George Washington himself warned the people about this, warning that government is itself forced and is therefore dangerous and has to be carefully managed. That is why we have a Constitution. That is why we have all these rules about government.

If men were angels, we wouldn't need government. If we had access to angels to run our government, as James Madison described it in Federalist 51, then we wouldn't have to bother about government abusing its power, and we wouldn't need all these rules.

But we are not angels. Men and women are not angels. And we don't have access to angels to run our government, and so we have to have rules governing the use of government. And it is for our own safety.

Nowhere is this more important than with respect to our children. That is where we can really see laid bare the essential, core facts of what government is, which is the actual or threatened use of coercive force.

Now, I also thank heaven above that God didn't assign the anonymous masses on the internet to care for children. The pressure children receive through social media, through news publications, and common video sites lacks nuance and any specific understanding of a child's health condition or history or religious beliefs.

There are even reports in prominent magazines of children being advised to commit fraud or cross State lines to be vaccinated specifically against their parents' advice, circumventing parental authority.

There is a reason why the FDA requires the fine print and the sometimes very painfully exhaustive and descriptive side-effect warnings on pharmaceutical advertisements and why those ads always encourage viewers to consult their doctors. But in the brave new world of Big Brother healthcare, students aren't encouraged to consult their parents, let alone their doctors.

Unfortunately, in some places, like here in our Nation's Capital, government has completely lost the plot. In the District of Columbia school system, for example, minors can receive medical procedures without the school even informing the parents. In other places across the Nation, this slippery slope is already leading governments to consider life-changing, school-provided medical procedures without parental notice and without parental consent.

As a parent, this thought sends shivers down my spine. I know I am not alone in that respect--far from it. Most Americans, regardless of what part of the country they come from, regardless of creed, political affiliation, socioeconomic status, or any other single factor, if they are parents, they are going to feel the same way. They don't like the idea of someone else taking over the raising of their child. They don't like the idea of government taking over control of medical decisions on behalf of their child. You see, that is supplanting their role. That is moving them out of the way.

School-aged kids are also some of those least at risk of contracting, spreading, and suffering long-term or serious effects from COVID. The data has shown this all along. The vaccines, on the other hand, may pose a more serious risk to some young people than they do the general population. Various countries, including France and Germany, have ceased recommending some COVID vaccines to those under the age of 30 because of complications.

Again, I am not against the vaccines, but the thought of schools, social media, or, heaven forbid, government pressuring students into vaccination without parental consent is rightfully troubling. It is downright chilling, and it should not happen--not here, not in the United States of America.

While the Federal Government has almost no legitimate role in influencing local education decisions, we can make sure that the Federal Government does not endorse or, heaven forbid, mandate this dangerous approach to medical decisions for minors. That is not too much to ask. That is not something that should be controversial here in the U.S. Senate. That is not something that is remotely controversial among the good people of this country--left and right, rich and poor.

If they are parents, they are deeply disturbed by the thought of the cold, impersonal force that is government pushing them out of the way to make these medical decisions for them and for their children.

So let's provide assurance to parents and children. Let's reaffirm our commitment to supporting parents in making decisions for their children. Let's protect kids, and let's end these mandates.

They are illegal. They are unconstitutional, and they are morally indefensible.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I made communication with the EPA as to how to resolve a concern that I have. It should be an easy thing to resolve. I am waiting to hear back a response from them. In the meantime, I object.

Sure.

It relates to a matter at the EPA.

If confirmed as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Maria Pagan would be responsible for negotiating details of any waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement, also known as the TRIPS Agreement.

I have concerns with Ms. Pagan's nomination. Therefore, I intend to object to that until the Biden administration has given me some basic commitments regarding the administration's position on waiving the TRIPS Agreement, particularly related to some of the proposals being pushed by various countries.

As a quick recap, the TRIPS Agreement represents a vital element of international trade law protecting the intellectual property rights of U.S. businesses, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Waiving the protection of these rights for COVID-19 drugs, vaccines, and treatments under the notion of some sense of international altruism will not advance a universal solution to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, any proposal to waive IP protections would create a disincentive for continued research, development, and distribution of the COVID-19 treatments or drugs. That could mean fewer healthcare options and advancements as the virus continues to mutate into new variants with degrees of resistance to existing remedies.

As always, anytime you weaken one property right, it spills over into other areas. We wouldn't expect this to become contained to the COVID- 19 universe.

Additionally, U.S. companies would be less likely to introduce their product to WTO-member countries not enforcing IP protections. That could mean fewer options and less access for our neighbors, not more.

Intellectual property rights provide the grounds for businesses to take risks in turning novel ideas into concrete goods and services. A business

that knows its property is secure and will not be surreptitiously confiscated by government action can fully engage in developing the innovation that drives markets.

Today, in stating my objections, this is all I am asking for. I have no concerns with this individual in particular; rather, with the authority that she might wield and the assurances I am wanting to receive from the administration on that authority, some assurance that this administration will not unilaterally wipe out intellectual property protections that have resulted in the vast majority of COVID- 19 remedies the U.S. currently enjoys and have also served millions of others globally. These are the things that are on the table. All I want is some assurance from the administration.

I object.

To reiterate here, all I want is some assurance. I appreciate my friend and colleague from Oregon understanding my basic concern here. It is not an unreasonable concern. All I want is some assurance from the administration that it is not going to wipe out intellectual property protections. That wouldn't be right. They know it is not right. They give me those assurances, we can move on.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, in her 1993 Nobel lecture, Toni Morrison-- no conservative--told a story of an old woman who was approached by a group of kids, mocking her and asking her to offer her conjecture:

Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird. Tell me whether it is

living or dead.

The blind, old woman was revered for her wisdom and experience.

She responded:

I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or

alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is

in your hands.

The old woman, of course, meant whether the bird is alive or dead is the responsibility of the person who holds it.

Morrison said:

The blind woman shifts attention away from assertions of

power to the instrument through which that power is

exercised.

Now, Morrison could have been talking about Congress. I will leave to your judgment who in Congress is a mocking youth and who is the old woman, but in politics it is the instrument of power rather than the assertion of power that matters.

Just this last week, the instruments of power were used, despite assertions otherwise, to quietly pave the way for the Democrats' ``Destroy America'' bill, which they have called Build Back Better. Congress used a novel procedure to pass a bill, giving Democrats a blank check to raise the debt ceiling to pay for Build Back Better. Procedural jujitsu is hardly the stuff of base-motivating campaign rhetoric, but it is the instrument of power.

Now I will describe how this happened, but a bit of background is necessary.

Like most legislation in the Senate, raising the debt ceiling, which has been done now 99 times since the end of the Second World War, ordinarily requires 60 votes, which, in an evenly divided Senate, means Democrats and Republicans have to work together to find an acceptable outcome.

There is, of course, an exception that would allow Democrats to use a special budget reconciliation procedure to raise the debt ceiling without Republican help, with a simple majority vote--a simple majority vote that they could achieve if all 50 Democrats cast their votes. If there is an evenly divided vote at the end of the day, it can be broken by the Vice President. But they didn't want to use this special procedure, and I believe they didn't want to use it for two independent reasons.

First, it was inconvenient. The special reconciliation procedure would require too many steps and too much time for their tastes. Still, I don't know of a single Republican Senator, myself included, who would unduly stall the Democrats from proceeding to its consideration. In fact, under the rules, if they follow the right steps, it is, more or less, a guaranteed outcome, one that doesn't require a supermajority and, at the end of the day, can be accomplished with a simple majority.

Second, I suspect that Democrats didn't want to bear the political cost of raising the debt ceiling without some Republican cover. This would ordinarily mean using the standard 60-vote process, but that is not how it happened. Instead of Democrats and Republicans working together to find consensus on the appropriate way to raise the debt ceiling, likely in exchange for spending reforms, some combination of Senate and House leadership concocted a new mechanism.

On a 60-vote bill, Republicans agreed to let Democrats pass an entirely separate bill to raise the debt ceiling--without any Republican votes--by whatever amount they want. So, rather than negotiating a reasonable number, Republicans agreed to ensure that the debt ceiling was increased by as many trillions of dollars as the Democrats might need to fulfill their agenda. There is an actual blank space in the bill where Democrats can write in whatever number they want.

In exchange, Republicans would be protected from scrutiny for insisting that Democrats follow the established rules for raising the debt ceiling through the reconciliation procedure and would be able to launder this vote to appear as something other than helping Democrats raise the debt ceiling, which they had publicly committed--in writing, no less--not to do.

To make matters worse, congressional leadership tied this to a bill preventing automatic Medicare cuts. This sent a clear message: Give Democrats a blank check or there would be Medicare cuts. Some of my Republican colleagues couldn't allow them to shoot that hostage, that hostage being held captive by Democrats.

The playbook is written. The idea that this is a onetime thing or is somehow similar to other expedited procedures--for example, those found under the Congressional Review Act to disapprove of executive Agency rules--is preposterous. The comparison doesn't work. These are very different creatures. I am sure this vicious tactic, the one used here, has not seen its last use--far from it. I am certain it will be used in the future to enact other progressive agenda items, including many that are simply unable to garner the 60 votes necessary under the normal and transparent Senate filibuster rules.

With a blank check and a new special procedure, Democrats are able to raise the debt ceiling by whatever amount they deem necessary to accommodate their ``Destroy America'' bill, which they call Build Back Better. They have set that price--and we know this now as of just the last few hours--at $2.5 trillion. This is the behemoth bill that would seek to grant a form of amnesty to illegal aliens; to further the Green New Deal agenda; to overturn State right-to-work laws; to increase vaccine mandate fines on private employers to $700,000; to infuse critical race theory indoctrination into medical care; and to grow the IRS by 87,000 agents. That isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

The blank check to remake America was a gift to progressives from those within the Republican Party who decided to grant it. I regret deeply their decision to do so, and the filibuster--the major instrument of power preserving the unique identity of the U.S. Senate-- was all it cost.

As to who was the old woman and who were the mocking children from Toni Morrison's story, I can't say, but America is the bird.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it is an honor to stand here today to recognize and celebrate the career of Police Chief Michael C. Nelsen of the Brigham City Police Department. For the last 42 years, he has diligently served and protected the people of Brigham City. His positive impact on the lives of many will be remembered as he transitions into retirement.

I wonder if, as a young pre-law student at Rick's College in Rexburg, ID, Mike Nelsen ever sat back to imagine the impact his life would have on so many others? I wonder if, as a student of criminal, justice administration at Brigham Young University, Mike Nelsen ever dreamed of leading a police department to new heights and great successes? However, I hope that at the sunset of an impressive career, Chief Nelsen realizes the significance of the mark he has left on the lives of countless others and the new heights and great successes he has achieved.

During his career as a police officer, Chief Nelsen climbed through the

ranks. He rose from corporal, to sergeant, to lieutenant, and--most notably--to chief. Yet, despite the grandeur of his rise through the ranks, he always remained a faithful and committed public servant. Humility, sacrifice, and character have all been exemplified during his years of police work.

Early in his career, Chief Nelsen earned a reputation for being willing to go the extra mile. From day l, he set a standard for community engagement outside of day to day policing. Perhaps the best example of this extracurricular community engagement is Chief Nelsen's avid support of the Special Olympics.

Despite his many responsibilities as a police officer, Chief Nelsen has dedicated hours of service to his role as the director of the Box Elder Torch Run for the Special Olympics. For his service, he has had the honor to run in the International Torch Run for the Special Olympics in Alaska and to carry the Olympic Torch for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. He has been an emissary of Brigham City and of Utah to the world.

Public servants like Chief Nelsen deserve high praise. Their dedicated and faithful service sets an example for those who follow in their footsteps. I know that Chief Nelsen will be missed. However, thanks to the foundation that Chief Nelsen has laid over the last four decades, I have no doubt that the department will continue to flourish.

I am grateful to Chief Nelsen for the commitment he has shown to a difficult, but meaningful job. Without individuals like him willing to shoulder this responsibility, our communities would not prosper as they do. Both he and his family have faithfully made sacrifices for the good of their community for decades. I thank them for their dedication. As Chief Nelsen transitions into retirement, I hope he does so knowing that his community has prospered as a result of his service and the memory of his servant leadership will live on.

Mr. President, Pfizer released a study this week showing how antibodies from its vaccines respond to the Omicron variant in a lab.

The company claims that three doses should provide some protection against the variant. It also showed that those who had previously had COVID and recovered demonstrated stronger immunity to the Omicron variant.

While natural immunity comes at a cost, studies have shown throughout the pandemic that it works. Those who have recovered from COVID have significant protection from both catching the virus again and from the most severe symptomatic infections. While this is not always the case, and vaccination may improve immunity further, natural immunity is real. There are data to prove that.

A study conducted in Italy showed that natural immunity is more effective than vaccines at reducing risk of future infection. Another study of half a million people in Denmark showed that natural immunity provides significant, lasting protection against infection.

Finally, a study from three separate hospitals in Israel found that natural immunity from a previous COVID infection was ``twenty-seven times more effective than vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic infections.''

This, of course, is good news, especially considering that natural immunity is combining with vaccinated immunity in the general population. Recent data from the Nationwide Blood Donor Seroprevalence Survey shows that almost 92 percent of Americans over the age of 16 have COVID antibodies from vaccination or infection. The vast majority of Americans have at least some protection against COVID-19--92 percent.

I believe the vaccines are generally safe and effective. I have been vaccinated, as has my family. I see these vaccines as a miracle, one that is helping protect many millions of Americans from the dangers associated with COVID-19.

But I also recognize that millions of Americans are separately protected, separate and apart from anything else that might be there, as a result of immunity built up through their natural defenses because they have previously contracted and then recovered from COVID.

Now, the science shows that this immunity is strong, that it is effective, and that it is really widespread in America. Astoundingly, that information is not frequently shared in the media and never mentioned by the Biden administration. In fact, the administration makes no effort to recognize natural immunity in its mandates or in its formal guidelines.

I have asked the Biden administration to provide clarity on its research on natural immunity as well as meaningfully address the research being conducted by other countries that show natural immunity is strong and effective and valid. However, the Biden administration has yet to respond to my inquiries, inquiries that I asked, reasonably, to be answered no later than the beginning of this week.

Tragically, tens of millions of Americans have superior protection against the virus, even from new variants, and yet this administration would still fire them if they don't comply with the administration's mandates regarding vaccination. It is as irrational as it is cruel.

I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who are worried about losing their jobs due to the mandate. They are just a few of the half a million workers who are at risk of losing their jobs in my State. There are 45 million Americans altogether who could lose their jobs due to this unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral overstep.

The Senate, thankfully, recognized that these jobs were worth saving last night. Fifty-two Senators, including Democrats and Republicans, stood with American workers. Now, that resolution could, of course, fail in the House, but it could, of course, be vetoed by the President. Nevertheless, regardless of that outcome, the Senate's statement last night rings loud and clear.

Moreover, I hold out hope that the American people are being heard-- they are being heard in the Senate, as evidenced by last night's vote; they are being heard in the House of Representatives, which will take up this measure in the coming days.

I hold out hope that the House, too, will pass this measure, and I implore the President to consider allowing it to become law.

But regardless of what else happens, these workers need immediate, real, lasting protection from the threat of the mandates. One way to have a significant portion of these jobs protected is to recognize the benefits of natural immunity.

So today I am offering a bill that would require that Federal Agencies recognize, accept, truthfully present, and include natural immunity in any regulation. This bill does not say that vaccines are bad or unhelpful; it merely asks the Federal Government to respect widely available science.

I am glad to be joined in this effort by Senators Braun, Tuberville, and Sullivan, who are with me as cosponsors.

This bill would keep Americans employed and help us beat the pandemic in a smart way. I urge my colleagues to support it.

To that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 2846 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, it is important to remember that the fact that someone holds a government post and is an expert in a field does not make that person capable of making laws.

Yes, there are lots of experts in our government; some of them hold high bureaucratic or other executive posts. It doesn't mean that they may make laws.

By operation of the Constitution, we are the experts for purposes relevant to making law. We are the only organ of the Federal Government that may make law.

And so anytime someone starts to say they are the experts, therefore, they get to make the law, that is a problem.

To call this a ``nonsense idea,'' to refer to this as an idea that wastes the time of the American people, ignores the plight of almost 45 million Americans whose jobs are being threatened right now.

My friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington, has made an argument against this that doesn't match her conclusion. What she is stating is not that natural immunity makes no difference-- although her conclusion would seem to suggest that--what she is saying instead is that someone who has had COVID and recovered and therefore developed natural immunity could develop additional resistance to future infections by also being vaccinated.

I understand this argument. In fact, it is an argument that I myself have used. I had COVID, I recovered from COVID, and I have been fully vaccinated. But the question is not whether you can gain additional protection from that; it is whether or not you can look at an original COVID infection from which someone has recovered and accept the fact that it offers at least a comparable degree of protection as one can obtain from a vaccine.

So let's be honest about what we are and are not talking about here. We are talking about 45 million Americans whose jobs are being threatened as they head into the holidays at a time when economic conditions make that unusually intolerable--intolerable as a result of many conditions that the Federal Government itself put in place.

In all events, this is really a bare minimum of what we can do for the American people. The burden should not be on them to prove why they should not be fired--fired by a company being threatened by the President of the United States with crippling fines. This is cruel. It is barbaric. It is not authorized by statute or the Constitution. And in this circumstance, they are ignoring science.

I object.

Mr. President, it is important to remember every Agency within the Federal Government has an inspector general. Inspectors general play an important role in every Agency, and they are there for the purpose of independently reviewing the actions of those who operate that Agency.

Everywhere you look, these inspectors general serve with independence, and what we see from them is work product that is publicly released and can be digested by the public. It is a helpful resource not only for the American people but also to us personally as Members of the U.S. Senate, who, in our capacity as Senators, have the ability and, in fact, the duty of exercising oversight over Federal Agencies.

With respect to the U.S. Department of Justice, a body that really is all about law and has a lot of lawyers, to put it very mildly, you end up with a dichotomy--a dichotomy that can't be found anywhere else.

In every other Federal Agency, the inspector general is able to do his or

her job, to conduct research, to do evaluations, issue public reports. And those reports allow us to exercise our oversight responsibilities. They also allow the American people to know what is going on in the Agency in question.

We have got a difference within the Department of Justice. If you are a lawyer within the Department of Justice, you are covered by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Now, I want to point out a couple of differences within the Office of Professional Responsibility--between OPR, as it is called, and the Office of Inspector General. These don't reflect any idea that one is bad and the other one isn't. They are just different.

The Office of Professional Responsibility does operate on a confidential basis. It operates in secret. And I don't use that term denigratingly. It is there to perform a specific, highly specialized role.

See, lawyers have a separate set of ethical rules and standards they are expected to abide by. The Department of Justice, employing a lot of lawyers, wants to make sure that there is some degree of consistency and discipline within the practice of law. They want to make sure that the relative interests, the privacy, and the professionalism of the attorney can be balanced with their other investigative demands.

But the inspector general has a different function. The inspector general isn't there to evaluate whether or to what extent and in what way any of the highly specialized, sometimes complex, nuanced rules of professional responsibility affecting lawyers in the practice of law are concerned. No. The inspector general has a much different role.

So that is one difference, is that one has a public-facing role; the other one has a private-facing role affecting the individual attorney or attorneys under investigation.

Secondly--and this one is perhaps even more significant in its impact--the inspector general operates independently of the Attorney General. The head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, by contrast, reports directly to the Attorney General of the United States and can be fired by the Attorney General of the United States.

This is a big difference, and it is a difference we don't see replicated in any other Federal Agency--not with lawyers, not with any other regulated professional class that I am aware of--nor should we, because, if we were to do that, we would end up creating problems.

So this is not about a perceived inadequacy or a perceived culture of corruption within the Department of Justice created by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

That is not at all what I am saying. In fact, I believe the people who operate the Department of Justice, the lawyers of the Department of Justice, including those who operate the Office of Professional Responsibility, by and large do their job and do their job well and faithfully. But insofar as we allow them to do their job in such a way that it precludes any ability by the inspector general of the Department of Justice to penetrate section 8E of the Inspector General Act insofar as it insulates the operations of the U.S. Department of Justice from investigation of the sort that we have come to expect and rely on from the Office of Inspector General, it is going to be a problem.

Within the Department of Justice in particular, it is a big problem. I think it would be unwise in any Federal Agency for us to say: OK, the IG can do anything that the IG needs to do unless there is a lawyer involved. I think that would be dangerous anywhere because you do have lawyers involved, but it is especially dangerous at the Department of Justice because so much of what they do is law, is necessarily performed by people who are lawyers.

What happens is that we see countless dead ends where, because the Office of Professional Responsibility has jurisdiction, the inspector general may not tread. They hit dead end after dead end. In the absence of evidence of actual criminal misconduct, they can't proceed, and nobody else can penetrate it. It ought not take evidence of criminal accountability--of criminal liability to enable the inspector general to do his or her job.

There are myriad circumstances where someone might engage in unseemly, unethical, unwise behavior within the Department. Whether they are lawyers or whether they are not and separate and apart from whether those deviate from the professional standards imposed by the State bar of any State, by the rules of any court, or the professional standards for lawyers operating within the U.S. Department of Justice, there is an adequate, independent, freestanding interest that the American people have in being able to gain access to that information. But, alas, since 1988, section 8E of the Inspector General Act has precluded his visibility. This needs to stop.

As my friend and colleague the Senator from Illinois stated so well moments ago, this bill is not either Republican or Democratic; it is not liberal or conservative. I have been a proud supporter of this bill and sponsored this bill during a Republican administration because I believe that regardless of who is in power, we need visibility into the Department of Justice--visibility that we have in every other Federal Agency, every one. We lack it here. We lack it here with respect to a whole lot of what the Department of Justice does because of this loophole in section 8E. What benefit does this bring to the American people? To the extent there are benefits there, I respectfully submit, they don't even come close to offsetting what we lose in terms of visibility.

We need this. We need it now as much as ever. I implore my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I agree with and echo the observations made by my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Illinois. I would like to add a couple of things in response to the observations and remarks presented by the Senator from Arkansas.

One of the points that he made that I feel compelled to respond to is he expressed concern about what he describes as potential weaponization of--I feel compelled to respond, in particular, to his argument that the Inspector General Access Act could result in the weaponization of allegations of attorney misconduct within the Department of Justice and that this could be used in circumstances to intimidate, threaten, and harass Department of Justice attorneys, including prosecutors, for either taking or not taking actions in retaliation to the same.

This is always a concern. It is a concern that follows government, generally. It is, in particular, a concern that follows Federal prosecutors. It is also not a concern that is unique to the Inspector General Access Act.

With or without passage of this, there is always a risk of that happening. Nothing about that risk that we immunize ourselves from by leaving intact the loophole--and it is a loophole. It is a deliberate carve-out in Section 8E of the Inspector General Act. It is a loophole. And my friend from Arkansas is right, it is not unintended. It is intentionally created. It was there for a reason. I don't mean to suggest any nefarious motive on the part of those who created it, but it might have been a shortsighted move at the time. It has, at least, in time, exposed a vulnerability in Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

If the risk is weaponizing allegations of professional misconduct against Department of Justice lawyers, that is not something that we are immune from today. It is something that I am certain the Office of Professional Responsibility deals with all the time. It doesn't mean we make ourselves more vulnerable to it. It is simply by allowing the inspector general of the Department of Justice to do his or her job without regard to who is a lawyer and who is not, and without regard to this special carve-out for this one Federal Agency that makes it different from every other Federal Agency, including what makes Department of Justice lawyers different from attorneys in every Federal Agency.

If the risk is that you might have people who, for bad reasons, might make up allegations of misconduct, there is no more risk of that with an inspector general than there is with the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Here, again, they perform different functions. One of them is there specifically to deal with the rules of professional responsibility within the practice of law by Department of Justice lawyers. That is their focus. Their focus is not a broad one. Their focus does not include or extend to issuing a public report to inform the public about abuses of power.

My friend from Arkansas is right. They can go in--if there are allegations of criminal misconduct and if they have evidence of the same that they have to pursue--yes, they can do that. That doesn't mean we don't need an inspector general capable of doing the job of the inspector general.

He also made the argument that there is no expertise among and between inspectors general with regard to handling allegations of attorney misconduct. If that is true, the same can be said of all other attorneys and all other departments.

My friend from Arkansas does correctly point out that attorneys within the Department of Justice--at least some of them do--perform different functions than what we see from attorneys in other Federal Agencies. That part is true. But that doesn't mean inspectors general assigned to the Department of Justice don't have the expertise necessary to investigate the types of allegations that they typically investigate.

My friend from Arkansas also points out inspectors general tend to focus on allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse. Yes, this is absolutely true, and this is absolutely why we should not limit the access that inspectors general in the Department of Justice have to attorneys. Remember, this is a department that is all about law. It is focused on law. It is, therefore, not surprising that they have an unusual abundance of lawyers.

You know what the Office of Professional Responsibility is not focused on--is not really their role; they are not involved in; they are not trained in--their focus is not on issuing public reports and informing the American

people of allegations of things like waste, fraud, and abuse, generally. They have a much narrower function and perform that function especially well. They perform it laudably, and they do a great job of doing it.

It is not the same thing as an IG. We need IGs with access to visibility into the Department of Justice. We don't have it now. We haven't since 1988. Thirty-three years is long enough. Let's close the 8E loophole and give the Department of Justice inspector general the access needed.

Madam President, when the Grinch stole Christmas, it was a relatively simple operation, one that required a relatively simple solution.

Unfortunately, cold, unfeeling regulations and entrenched bureaucracies do not have undersized hearts; hearts that can somehow grow three sizes.

Protectionist laws and labor support shortages do not warm to holiday cheer.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused our already deeply troubled economy problems, and it has caused our already deeply troubled supply chain to become mired with challenges of all sorts, including truckdriver shortages, outdated port technology, lack of container storage capacity, port labor difficulties, and scarce freight equipment.

In fact, as situations become more dire with the supply chain crisis, with inflation, and with shortages all over the country, our own regulations do a whole lot to delay and disrupt solutions that we need the most at the time we most need them.

Americans are feeling the pain of skyrocketing prices, of shipping delays, and empty shelves as our laws and bureaucracies fail to respond to shipping backlogs and labor shortages. The system just is not working. And President Biden's press release policies have not fixed it. In fact, they have made it much, much worse.

Like so many problems during his Presidency, President Biden is not touching them with a 39\1/2\-foot pole.

As the holidays are here, we see the problems continuing to mount. And these problems needed solutions many, many months ago, but there is still hope. My STOP the GRINCH Act can help us fix the supply chain crisis and save Christmas.

This is a bill that focuses on the problems that are actually slowing down our supply chain, and it is a bill that, if enacted, would get products off of ships, onto trucks, and into stores so that people in Utah and across the Nation could get the things they need for everyday life and especially for Christmas.

By suspending a number of Federal restrictions on ports, on ships, and on trucks, we can help clear the backlog at our ports, get products onto shelves, and get the presents under the trees.

The bill will help solve our truckdriver shortage by temporarily lowering the commercial driver license age to 18 for interstate travel, and it would waive for 1 year the hours-of-service requirements, specifically, for those involved in transporting containers into and out of ports.

The bill would allow for more ships to move more freely and to move cargo between American ports by waiving the Jones Act, and it would also allow for Federal land that has been designated as appropriate for multiple use to be used to temporarily store cargo containers. That would do a lot in and of itself to help us break our port logjams. A combination of these things would do so masterfully.

And, finally, my bill would help ease the lack of freight equipment by allowing excess Department of Defense equipment to be used to help move cargo. A lot of our problems can be traced to a lack of available truck chassis, and if we open up those that are deemed excess, we can do a lot to move freight.

While this bill doesn't address every challenge with our supply chain, it does provide tangible solutions that, if enacted into law, would solve real problems right now.

Look, we can end this nightmare before Christmas. We can stop the Grinch, save our holidays, and secure our economy.

My STOP the GRINCH Act is the start to a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the Senate, today, will pass a bill that, quite literally, gives a blank check to President Biden and the Democrats. They will use it to pass the ``destroy America bill,'' which they call Build Back Better.

There is literally a blank check in the bill. It is literally a blank check. The Senators who gave that blank check don't want you to know that they did it. They used procedural jiujitsu to hide their votes. Republicans are hiding behind Democrats, and Democrats are hiding behind Republicans, but the American people see through it.

They closed the doors, held their noses, and created a new way to pass bad bills and claimed that it was just this one time.

Mark my words: This bill will be one more tool repeatedly used to abuse the American people.

This debt ceiling increase is a blank check for the Democrats' reckless tax-and-spending bill. It should have never happened.

Mr. President, On December 2, 2021, the Senate confirmed C.B. Sullenberger III to be Representative of the United States to the International Civil Aviation Union--ICAO--with the rank of Ambassador. After receiving responses to a series of written questions to the nominee, I remain concerned about this nominee's approach to the Ambassador position.

In response to questions on balancing regulation with the need for an open environment for innovation, Mr. Sullenberger emphasized a position that favored more regulation at the expense of innovation, as well as deference to standards established internationally rather than those generated in the U.S. I do not disagree with the need for essential safety standards to protect the flying public; however, I believe Mr. Sullenberger's views cross a threshold in which the automatic preference for government regulation, particularly international government regulation, risks stunting the growth of aviation startups in emerging technology, entrench the largest players, and result in the exclusion of State and local jurisdictions from conversations in emerging areas of unmanned flight below the airspace of manned aviation.

Finally, based on Mr. Sullenberger's responses, I am not convinced that he would properly advocate that the United States lead at ICAO in setting standards that would swiftly bring civil supersonic air travel to fruition. For these reasons, I did not offer my consent to confirm Mr. Sullenberger unanimously and instead requested a voice vote.

Mr. President, Congress, not the Executive, makes the laws in this country. National laws have to be passed by the legislative branch. Our Constitution makes that very clear. In fact, it is the very clause of the first section of the first article of the Constitution. It states unambiguously:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a

Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a

Senate and House of Representatives.

You cannot make up Federal law without going through that formula-- passage in the House, passage in the Senate, followed by presentment to the President.

In the case of COVID-19 vaccine requirements, the President of the United States has decreed mandates--mandates that threaten the jobs and the livelihoods of 45 million Americans, including over half a million Utahns whose jobs are on the line.

Now, courts across the country have started--quite correctly--to recognize that these mandates are offensive to the Constitution. They are not authorized by the law. But that doesn't diminish in any way, shape, or form our duty here as Members of the U.S. Senate, as part of the legislative branch, to assert clearly, unambiguously, and swiftly that these mandates are unconstitutional, illegal, and morally indefensible.

I have heard from hundreds of Utahns who are themselves at risk of losing their jobs and therefore their ability to provide food for their children, specifically due to these mandates. Their stories are nothing short of heartbreaking. I have heard from countless businesses in my State, businesses that are afraid of losing key workers and having to shut their doors and no longer operate specifically due to these mandates. I have heard from people who happen to have medical or religious concerns over the vaccines, and their pleas are falling on deaf ears.

These Americans aren't asking for anything extravagant or unusual or unreasonable--far from it. These are Americans who are simply worried about their ability to put food on the table and gifts under the tree during challenging economic times--economic times that are difficult enough as it now stands, economic times that have been worsened by excessive government spending, economic times that are about to get a whole lot more difficult for a whole lot more people specifically because of these mandates. President Biden seeks to make them not only unemployed but also unemployable, second-class pariahs.

Well, it is true the courts have offered temporary relief to some, but these Americans and these businesses look to Congress for immediate, lasting, and permanent relief. We do, after all, make the law. We are the only branch of the Federal Government authorized to do so.

So this will be one of the easiest votes that I have ever cast in my 11 years in the Senate. The American people agree. Only 14 percent of those polled support firing those who are unvaccinated. Fourteen percent of all Americans say that, yeah, somebody who doesn't get the vaccine ought to be fired as a result of not getting the vaccine. Even some Democratic politicians are starting to change their tune. They are souring on the mandates.

Americans understand that conditioning employment on personal medical decisions is callous, it is cruel, and it is immoral. It is certainly not something that these people want to face. It is not something that Democrats or Republicans want. It is not something they agree with. It is not something they are going to tolerate.

The economic impact of firing half a million Utahns would be disastrous,

and when you replicate the effects of doing that on State after State, where we see--according to many datasets, anywhere from a quarter to a third of the workforce in most States is being threatened by this. In some States, it is higher. It is more like 40 percent in places like West Virginia, 37 percent in Alabama, and 31 percent in Utah.

Now, in the healthcare sector alone, where keeping doctors and nurses and technicians at work has been particularly difficult, the Nation risks losing countless thousands of key professionals while the need for their very services remains most dire.

This isn't acceptable. It is not something we want to see. It is not something we should have to face.

When you add all of this up, the cumulative effect across different industries and in different States across the Nation would be catastrophic as we face supply chain troubles, inflation, rising gas prices, a labor shortage, and so, so much more. The very last thing our economy needs is to have tens of millions of Americans unemployed.

I am very, very much against these mandates. I am for the vaccines. I have been vaccinated. My family has been vaccinated; and I have encouraged people everywhere to get vaccinated, but when someone chooses not to be vaccinated for whatever reason--whether it is a medical reason or a religious reason or a reason related to a personal belief or due to a specific concern about a specific reaction they have had to something else--it is still their decision. It still doesn't warrant the overpowering hand of the Federal Government's coming in and threatening to force their employers to fire them under the threat of crippling penalties--penalties that any employer, no matter how big or wealthy or otherwise lucrative, would find incapacitating.

I have come to the Senate floor now 20 times to speak specifically against President Biden's vaccine mandates. I have offered more than a dozen bills to reduce their harms on millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Utahns.

Today, with my colleagues, I encourage the Senate to use the Congressional Review Act as it was intended. There is no clearer example in the history of the Congressional Review Act of such an egregious overstep by the Executive. There is no more blatant abuse of delegated authority or usurpation of authority that was never granted. The Congressional Review Act provides us with the opportunity to strike down this offensive mandate and make sure that neither President Biden nor any subsequent President can institute a similar rule.

I encourage my colleagues to think of the half a million Utahns, of the almost 5 million Californians, of the 300,000 West Virginians, and of the tens of millions elsewhere across the Nation. Forty-five million livelihoods are at stake of the workers and families in each of our States. These Americans demand that we take action. Today, we have that choice. I implore each and every one of my colleagues to stand with the American people, the American worker, the American family by supporting this resolution.

Mr. President, this always happens near the kick-the-can funding deadlines that we are now approaching. There is controversy surrounding what will and what will not make it into the continuing resolution; that is, the legislation funding the government for a finite period of time upon the expiration of a spending period.

In the House of Representatives, the debate and controversy continued late into last night, and may well still continue later today.

Here in the Senate, there are a number of Senators, including me, who are not inclined to give consent to expedite a funding measure that supports and funds President Biden's unconstitutional and sweeping vaccine mandate without holding a vote on that mandate and whether we should fund that part of government charged with enforcing it.

Now, to be very clear about all of this, Senator Schumer, as the majority leader, could have done this without our help if he had started this process weeks ago or even days ago. He could have held votes and passed this resolution without needing to ask for the help of those of us who feel this way, who are not inclined to help him do it.

Senator Schumer is in a bind, due to his own delay and his own denial. He is asking all of us to help him.

Now, I have offered a very simple solution, a very reasonable solution. I am not asking that a poison pill or a pet project be included, no. I am not asking for dramatic reforms or draconian cuts. Far from it. I just want to vote on one amendment. I want the Members of this body to go on record on whether they support funding--in this bill--President Biden's vaccine mandate.

The American people have a right to know, through our votes, where we stand and where we stand in connection with this bill, on a germane amendment--one that pertains to that, a simple up or down, yes or no-- simple majority vote. That is all I am asking.

Let me first explain a little bit about the recent history of this situation. While those involved in this effort have been accused by many in elected office and in the press of brinksmanship, we have been nothing but consistent and clear and open about our position for weeks now--in fact, for a month.

On November 3, a group of Senators--15 of us, in fact--declared our intentions, sending this letter to Senator Schumer. And in this letter, we made very clear that we will ``not support--and will use all means at our disposal to oppose--legislation that funds or in any way allows the enforcement of President Biden's employer vaccine mandate.''

Now, 15 Senators have signed this letter. And there it is right there in black and white--the words that I just read in that letter from a month ago. The letter--again, written back at the beginning of November--specifically mentions this funding deadline--the one we are now approaching; the one that is hitting us tomorrow night--as one for Senator Schumer and our colleagues to be aware of that we made our intentions clear. We did so out of courtesy to the majority leader and to those we represent: to the American people, those who will be affected by these matters.

And now, as a matter of political convenience, he and others are saying ``their unwillingness to come to the table,'' which is the reason we are now approaching the deadline without an agreement, somehow amounts to an act of brinksmanship on our part.

That portrayal is disingenuous, and it is wrong. After running out the clock, knowingly, deliberately not coming to the table to negotiate, and ignoring our clear, public position, Senator Schumer is now accusing us of wanting to shut down the government because we refuse to help him cram through a bill that we have already explicitly stated we are against. We are providing every opportunity to avoid a shutdown, and all we ask for is a simple up-or-down vote.

Now, I stand by the commitment I made not to support or grant consent to pass or expedite a measure that funds, supports, or allows for the enforcement of the President's vaccine mandates.

Now, it is true that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has issued an order halting enforcement of the OSHA mandate, and that OSHA has temporarily halted the enforcement of that particular mandate. That does not in any way remove our obligation here in Congress to protect our Constitutional role and to prevent unconstitutional measures, laws, and regulations from afflicting the American people.

We still don't know the final outcome of that litigation. In any event, we have an independent responsibility--constitutionally and morally--to make sure that what we do here has our oversight and that we don't spend money on things that most Americans find abhorrent.

Each of us did, in fact, swear an oath to the Constitution, and the Constitution does not grant the Federal Government the authority to implement a mandate of this sort. It just doesn't. You can search it; you will not find that authority. The Constitution certainly does not grant the President of the United States the authority to implement such a mandate without the explicit authorization of the people's elected lawmakers in Congress.

Make no mistake, this mandate is not only immoral; it is also unconstitutional. For that reason alone, I must oppose it.

But the harms certainly don't stop with the damage that is being done to our constitutional order. Millions of Americans are at risk of losing their jobs due to this mandate. While court orders are offering at least a temporary protection, these Americans are still anxiously awaiting lasting protection from Congress, and currently could receive at a moment's notice the final ultimatum to be vaccinated or lose their jobs.

In fact, in fear of the huge fines that the Biden administration is threatening against businesses that don't comply once the mandate is enforced, many companies are already imposing these requirements on their workers.

Countless businesses and hundreds of Utahns who are at risk of closure or dismissal have reached out to me. Their stories are heart- wrenching. These are good people. They are our friends and our neighbors. They are neighborhood businesses and American manufacturers, mothers and fathers trying to get by in increasingly difficult economic times. There are millions of them across the country. Over half a million workers in Utah alone are at risk of unemployment due to this mandate.

As I have said each time I have spoken on this, I am not against the vaccine. In fact, I have gotten the vaccine. My family has gotten the vaccine. I have encouraged people to get the vaccine. I am against the mandate.

I recognize that these vaccines are protecting Americans from the harms of COVID-19, and that the government has no business, no authority, and no justification to make millions of Americans second- class, unemployable pariahs. Even if the Federal Government did have that authority, which it

doesn't, the President of the United States could not exercise it unilaterally, not without an act of Congress.

Our economic condition is increasingly dire. Inflation is becoming long-lasting. The supply chain crisis has shown the prime value of American workers. You know, I can't think of a worse time to kick them to the curb.

I want to be very clear: I don't want to shut down the government. The only thing I want to shut down is Congress's funding enforcement of an immoral, unconstitutional vaccine mandate. However, if the choice is between temporarily suspending nonessential functions on the one hand and on the other hand standing idle, as up to 45 million Americans lose their jobs, their livelihoods, and their ability to work, I will stand with American workers every time. That is not a closed question.

I stand with American workers throughout Utah and across America. I stand with moms and dads needing gifts and paychecks before the holidays.

I stand by what I and others committed to as our word, that word given a month ago without response. I won't support a continuing resolution that funds President Biden's grievous, immoral, unconstitutional vaccine mandate, and I just want to vote on it in connection with this spending bill. All I am asking for is a vote. It would take 15 minutes. We could do it right now, in fact.

If Senator Schumer wants to avoid this vote so badly that he will shut down the government rather than hold it, he should explain why. We can fix this situation right now. Let's hold a vote. Let's hold it right now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 45 million Americans, 45 million hard-working moms and dads, neighbors, and friends are being threatened right now with losing their jobs. They are being threatened not due to cyclical economic conditions, not because jobs aren't available, not because of some war or other calamity; their jobs are being threatened by their own government--a government that has chosen to tell them if they don't comply with a Presidential medical orthodoxy, they will be fired.

This is unfortunate. This is most unfortunate. It is most unfortunate that this power has been exercised this way. The President doesn't have that power. Congress hasn't given the President that power. Congress doesn't have that power to begin with. This is not a power that belongs in the Federal Government to begin with.

As a result of that, 45 million Americans are being threatened with their jobs. They are being forced to choose between an unwanted medical procedure and losing their job.

Look, I want to be very clear. I have been vaccinated. My family has been vaccinated. I believe the development of the vaccine is something of a modern medical miracle. I am grateful for the vaccine. I think the vaccine is helping Americans be safe from the effects of COVID. It is not the government's job. It is not within government's authority to tell people that they must be vaccinated, and if they don't get vaccinated, they will get fired.

It is wrong. It is immoral. You don't tell someone that if they don't do exactly what you want them to do, that they are going to lose their job. The American people overwhelmingly agree.

In fact, according to a recent Axios poll, only 14 percent of all Americans agree with the President of the United States that if someone declines to get the jab, they should lose their job.

Now, this is a huge percentage of the workforce in many States--most States, in fact. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all workers are now being faced with the possibility of losing their job because of these vaccine mandates. This, at a time when Americans are struggling just to put food on the table, in part, because we have a government that is spending too much money it doesn't have.

It is churning up money, printing it, in effect, in a way that results in rampant inflation; in a way that makes limited paychecks go less far, less capable of buying bread to put on the table. And amidst all of this government-manufactured crisis, government is making it worse; threatening to not just make that paycheck go even less far than it already does because of government but to take it away altogether. That is not kind; that is not the neighborly way in which we like to do things; it is not moral; and it is not constitutional.

Look, it is tragic that this many Americans have to have their jobs threatened as a result of a Presidential temper tantrum. There is nothing about it that is OK. Deep down, we all know that it is not OK.

I will tell you, there is another thing that is not OK. It is not OK that those who want to take away those jobs, those who are just fine with the President exercising this authority fought tooth and nail to prevent the U.S. Senate from taking the vote that we are preparing to take tonight, a simple vote--a simple vote that simply allows us to weigh in and decide whether or not we are going to fund that part of government, that feature of our government that is going to enforce the vaccine mandate.

Those in this Chamber who shamefully were refusing over and over again to let us even cast a vote on that simple measure threatened to shut down all of government because they didn't want to have us have a chance, as the people's elected lawmakers, to decide whether or not we should proceed with vaccine mandate enforcement. They would rather shut down the government and make everything worse than they would stand accountable for what they are doing.

Fortunately, this part of the story at least has a happy ending. We are going to be able to vote on that tonight. We are going to be able to vote on whether or not we fund vaccine mandate enforcement at the Federal level.

This is wonderful. This is fantastic. It should not have resulted in days and days of shutdown threats and days and days of deflection, accusing other people of wanting to shut down the government when all we wanted to do was have a vote, to give a chance to the hard-working mom or dad, soldier, sailor, airman, or marine struggling to put food on the table. That is all we wanted. And all they wanted to do is use it as an excuse to deflect onto others that which they are doing.

We can do better than this. We must do better than this. The American people deserve better than this. That is why I am so glad and grateful that we will be casting this vote tonight.

But know this: This issue is not going away. I hope with everything in me that when we cast this vote tonight, that a majority of us will do the right thing and that we will vote the way that we know we should vote; that we will stand with those people who may lose their jobs. Thirty-one percent of the workers in my State--and in other States, it is higher. Thirty-nine percent of the workers in West Virginia stand to lose their jobs, 37 percent of the workers in Alabama, 33 percent of the workers in Georgia. In State after State, you see hard-working moms and dads being threatened.

This isn't right. It is not even an authority that the President has. It is not authority that the Congress has. We shouldn't be doing this. Deep down, we all know that is right. We also know that some of these problems result from the fact that when we fund the government, we have made significant mistakes as a result of the fact we have allowed so many spending decisions to be concentrated in one vote on one bill,

such that all of government tends to be funded or none of it gets funded.

Sometimes the only opportunity we have to weigh in on a particular matter of public policy, one affecting 45 million American workers in this instance--the only chance we have to do that is on a spending bill, and we don't even get that chance unless we agree we can vote on an amendment on that. That should never result in a shutdown threat.

When those threats are made, we should acknowledge who is making them. Never once has any one of us wanted to shut down the government. We wanted to give the American worker a chance for us to vote for them, a chance for us to stand with them.

I urge--I implore--my colleagues: Please join me in voting to protect the American worker. Don't take away the job of hard-working Americans. Don't fire people because they are not inclined to adhere to Presidential medical orthodoxy. Please support me in this amendment.

If you don't want to get the virus, get the vaccine.

The answer to someone not agreeing to your medical advice is not to fire them. It sure as heck isn't to have the President of the United States fine every employer in America that doesn't want to do this, whether they have religious objections or otherwise. This is wrong. We know it is wrong. We can stop this right now.

Please join me in opposing and taking down and refusing to fund for the duration of this continuing resolution that part of government charged with enforcing this immoral, indefensible, unconstitutional, and illegal mandate.

Vote on Amendment No. 4868