Nomination of Xavier Becerra

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I have to tell you, you can always tell how controversial a nominee is by how fast his supporters work to finish the confirmation process, and last night, at 6:12, we found out that the Democrats tried to pull a fast one on Xavier Becerra's nomination. They were trying to fast-track this, and I was able to object to that hotline request, but the fact that they tried it shows that they are worried about this nominee, and they should be. After two unimpressive hearings and seeing the split vote on the Finance Committee, I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have come to realize that his lack of experience in the healthcare sector is one of those big things.

You know, we have over 400 healthcare companies in Tennessee and tens of thousands of employees in that sector. They all--each and every one of them--have more healthcare experience than the Biden administration's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

His greatest hits from his job keep coming back to haunt him, and as much as his allies here in the Senate try to spin his record, they just can't seem to convince people that he is fit to lead. I was curious how wide the divide is between Tennesseeans and the Becerra nomination, so I asked my staff to look through our mailbag and see what people were calling and writing about.

This nomination was in the top five issues of concern. People in Tennessee are not happy. As I mentioned, healthcare, our religious organizations--what they are seeing is somebody who has crossed the line too many times. They do not see him as fit to lead.

His lack of experience in the healthcare industry explains why so many people would oppose him. He thinks it would be a good idea to take private health insurance away from 160 million Americans and throw them into a disastrous single-payer system. If that is what you want, then he would be a great Secretary of HHS for you.

If he has his way, he will use his new position to further undermine our immigration laws. He has admitted--his own admission--that given the chance, he would decriminalize illegal entry and extend Medicaid benefits to anyone who manages to make it across the border. It is like winning the lottery. If you get across that border, we are going to give you healthcare benefits, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

We cannot afford to keep confirming nominees who have zero respect for the rule of law--zero--and even less respect for the value of human life. Throughout his career, Mr. Becerra has made his appallingly radical positions on abortion very well known. He is proud to support abortion up until the moment of birth. He even opposed the 2003 partial-birth abortion ban. He defended a truly evil California law that forced pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to advertise abortion services offered by State-run clinics.

Recently, a physician friend of mine made a comment about Mr. Becerra's nomination that has really stuck with me. She said:

I'm horrified--

Bear in mind, this is a physician.

I'm horrified by his position on abortion because he would abort a baby that I would resuscitate. He would abort a baby that a family is willing to adopt.

Now, think about that. This is a guy, in his congressional career and in his job as the attorney general for California, he is a radical on abortion--a radical. You have physicians who stand there to resuscitate these babies that have difficulty during birth. He would allow those babies to be aborted when a physician would choose life, would choose to help that baby live.

According to Mr. Becerra, religious exemptions should be a thing of the past. He relentlessly harassed religious employers like Hobby Lobby and nonprofit organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor as part of his crusade to uphold ObamaCare's contraception mandate. I think it is clear why the Finance Committee split their vote on this nomination. It has nothing to do with politics.

Xavier Becerra's obsession with dismantling American society and rebuilding it in his own image can't be boiled down to a simple policy position. Instead, it signals his desire to force Americans to live their lives according to his twisted world view.

He may have the approval of leftists, but the American people and thousands of Tennesseans have already written him off as radically unqualified, and, frankly, so have I.

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this motion to discharge and opposing the nomination. He is radically anti-life, anti-religion, anti-border security, anti-free speech. He is unqualified to lead.

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