Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, last week, I came to the Senate floor no fewer than three times and invited my colleagues to pass bills to protect millions of Americans at risk of losing their jobs, their livelihoods, due to President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Unfortunately, due to objections from the other side of the aisle, these bills were not adopted. But I committed then, as I do again today, that I will be back with additional proposals for as long as it takes to beat this sweeping mandate.

Since I began this effort against the mandate, there has been a massive outpouring of support from across the country. I have heard from Americans in countless sectors, from multiple States, who are at risk of losing their jobs. These Americans just want to make their own medical decisions--a right that has always been afforded and not challenged since the beginning of our Nation.

In Utah alone, I have heard from no fewer than 184 people who are at risk of losing their livelihoods. They and so many others, those who share the same concerns, are our neighbors; they are everyday Americans, and they have legitimate medical concerns about getting the vaccine.

But President Biden doesn't care. He said simply, ``This isn't about freedom or personal choice.''

Well, to the millions of Americans who face the punishment of being made unemployable if they do not succumb to the President's will, this very much is about freedom and personal choice. There must be a more reasonable answer. There must be a more compassionate answer.

The COVID-19 vaccine has been deemed generally safe. I don't dispute that. In fact, I, along with my entire family, have been vaccinated. I see the development of these vaccines as a miracle and a blessing. But there are some people with preexisting conditions or complications. Many of these individuals have been advised by their trusted, board- certified doctors that they should not receive the vaccine. These Americans, they deserve to be able to make their own medical decisions, and they should not be forced by the President of the United States to go against the advice of their doctors.

Now let's look down the road at what will necessarily follow this vaccine mandate. Countless Americans who follow the recommendations of their doctors would lose their jobs in an already troubled economy. These individuals and families would not be just unemployed; the President of the United States would deem them unemployable, second- class pariahs. Businesses that dare to employ the unvaccinated would be subject to crippling fines and risk closure.

The President of the United States, unilaterally, without any say from the people's Representatives in Congress, is set on imposing financial destruction on many American families and businesses. He is even targeting those with complicated medical conditions and forcibly removing them from the economy and much of broader society.

So today, I am offering the Senate an option to take a more compassionate, reasonable approach. My bill, the Your Health Comes First Act, would exempt from the President's mandate individuals with personal health concerns related to the vaccine.

Simply put, Americans who are worried about how the vaccine would interact with or compound their existing medical difficulties would not be obligated to get it. Those who have been advised by their doctors not to get the vaccine due to preexisting medical conditions would not be forced to go against the recommendations of their doctor.

This bill is a reasonable and a compassionate solution to allow concerned Americans the dignity and autonomy we all deserve.

This isn't the only flaw with the mandate. As I have said before, the President lacks authority to do this. Neither the Federal Government, in general, nor the President of the United States, in particular, has the power under the Constitution to implement a broad mandate of this sort.

Whether you think government ought to be mandating it or not, whether you think government ought to force people out of their jobs if they refuse to get it or not, that is a different, analytically distinct question in our constitutional system from whether the Federal Government has the authority, generally, or the President, in particular, has the authority. It doesn't, and he does not.

These arguments need to remain at the forefront of the conversation: questions regarding the constitutionality and the constitutional authority to issue this in the first place.

I will be back tomorrow with another proposal, and I will be at this for as long as it takes to end this unconstitutional and uncompassionate mandate.

2848, and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I appreciate the insight from my friend and distinguished colleague, the Senator from Connecticut.

I want to be very clear: The limited focus of this bill--the bill that I offered up for passage in the Senate today--is narrow.

It has one purpose: For those Americans who have a medical concern and who have been advised by their doctor, based on some condition associated with their health, that they should not get it, they shouldn't have to choose between getting vaccinated and losing their job.

My friend from Connecticut goes so far, I think, as to implicitly acknowledge that there ought to be an exception made for those people. One, he says, President Biden's vaccine mandate accommodates them.

Well, there is a problem with that. President Biden hasn't issued anything. He has suggested, along with members of his administration, that there might be a somewhat accommodation for them. I am not sure what that means, neither is corporate America. A lot of corporate America, acting on the advice of legal counsel and human resources departments, tends to be adopting rules already. Some of them take exceptions like these into account; others do not.

Look, it is really not too much to ask. I suggest that if you are going to impose a sweeping mandate like this, that you ought to have some protection for people with complicating medical conditions, who, on the advice of a board-certified physician, choose not to get it.

Now, again, this does not mean that I am OK with the rest of the mandate; I am not. And I respectfully, but very strongly, disagree with my friend's characterization that this is just fine for the Federal Government to do.

The Federal Government lacks general police powers. The lion's share of the authority within government in our system lies with the States and their political subdivisions.

Our national government is in charge of just a few basic and distinctively national matters: national defense, a uniformed system of weights and measures, trademarks, copyrights, and patents, regulating trade or commerce between the States with foreign nations and with the Indian Tribes.

There are a number of others, but there is no power in there that just refers to providing generally for laws that make the American people safe and healthy.

Those powers exist in America; they just aren't vested in this government. It doesn't mean that States and localities will always exercise that power wisely or prudently or compassionately, but it means insofar as you are going to act through government, that is the appropriate place and not this one.

Now, my friend from Connecticut then responds by saying, ``Yeah, but the power is still there anyway.''

Even if I were to assume his point that the power of the Federal Government somehow extends to an individual vaccine mandate, which it doesn't--and I would challenge him or anyone else to cite what provision of the U.S. Constitution it is that that provides that authority--but even if we were to accept the premise, just for purposes of discussion, that the Federal Government may exercise such authority, the President may not exercise that authority alone.

The very first clause of the first article--in the first section of the first article of that Constitution says: ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in our Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.''

Article I, section 7 then makes clear that in order to pass a law, a Federal law in the United States--that is, in order to adopt a policy of the Federal Government, enforceable through the overpowering force that is the Federal Government--you have to follow the article I, section 7 formula, which means you have to take a legislative proposal--a bill--you have to pass it in the House, and you have to pass it in the Senate with the same language--and it has to be submitted to the President for signature, veto, or acquiescence.

If you don't undertake that process at all, there is no authority in the executive to do anything like what they are describing. What President Biden has done is to arrogate to himself powers that he not only characterizes as Federal, but, really, are legislative powers that he doesn't possess.

The President of the United States is the chief executive. He is not a lawmaker. And he certainly is not the entire legislative branch. And so that, really, is quite beside the point.

It doesn't make a difference with his Federal authority. The fact that Federal authority is asserted to exist, which it is not, and we can't identify a single clause of article I, section 8, or another part of the Constitution that can fairly be read, especially against the backdrop of its original public meaning, to convey that power--but even if you concede that point, there is no reasonable, plausible, defensible argument that would say the President of the United States may wield this authority unilaterally.

That is what despots and tyrants would have the power to do. And if there is one thing that is very consistent and uniform in our constitutional structure it is that no one person, no one group of people, is ever supposed to be able to accumulate dangerous degrees of power and that the President of the United States is neither a lawmaker nor the entire legislative branch. He may not step into those shoes.

As to the assertion about science, my friend and colleague referred to this as somehow a war on science. It is not a war on science to suggest that the President lacks authority to do something unilaterally. I would call that a war on the Constitution, frankly.

It is not a war on science to say that whenever a government acts, it ought to do so out of an abundance of caution and out of respect for the people to provide reasonable accommodations to individuals who have medical conditions that make them uniquely vulnerable to what the government is inclined to require.

Again, this mandate is unconstitutional. It doesn't make the vaccine bad. In fact, the vaccine is a blessing, and I think the American people have been made safer as a result of it.

That doesn't mean every American must get it. It certainly doesn't mean that it is any of the Federal Government's business to tell people that they have to choose between getting the vaccine and losing their job, especially with regard to individuals who have preexisting medical conditions that would make it dangerous for them to do so in the judgment of their board-certified medical physician. That is wrong. That is absolutely wrong.

Now, look, COVID-19 has imposed a lot of tragedies, and it is heartbreaking. A number of people we have lost, including the individuals who have died in the last month at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, who he mentioned--every one of those lives is of infinite eternal value. Those are unrepeatable lives lost to a deadly pandemic. My heart goes out to each one of those souls who has departed, along with their families.

We are reminded of the lives that have tragically been lost to COVID- 19 by an exhibit that has been up on the Mall, up around the Washington Monument. It is beautiful, really. There are little flags--small flags--each of them white, each one representing one of the Americans who has been lost to COVID-19 since it broke out just over a year and a half ago. There are about 700,000 of those around the Washington Monument. From a distance, it looks a little like snow.

I come from a State where there is usually snow at the top of mountains. It looks familiar to me when I see what looks like snow from a distance, but it is somber as I remember what they actually represent.

If we want to talk about the loss of human life, we have to talk about the loss of all human life, and we also have to talk about the right of each individual to live and to continue living and to follow the advice of medical doctors based on the individuals' own medical conditions.

I sometimes find staggering the accusations that those who have concerns with this are somehow committing a war on science. Against which science? Who exactly is it that is against science--the science that tells us that unborn human life can experience and respond to pain in the womb in 15 or 20 weeks of gestational development?

What would it look like if we had a separate memorial with little red flags instead of little white ones, each representing one of the human lives lost every single year to abortion?

You see, every single year we lose about the same number of human lives to abortion as we have lost to COVID since it first broke out. If for the last 50 years we had a little red flag, each marking one of those human lives lost, there would be a sea of red. It would take up not just the grass all around the Washington Monument, which is large, it would probably take up all the grass between the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. It would be a sea of red.

So, no, no, you can't say that this is a war on science to be concerned about individuals being able to make their own decision about whether to get this vaccine.

If you want to accuse people on the other side of the aisle of doing something, you have to stop and think about other decisions that we make--other decisions that some are willing to defend, decisions that involve a whole lot of human suffering and a whole lot of loss of a whole lot of human lives.

I get that a lot of people disagree on these things, but the fact that we disagree on them doesn't mean that they don't exist. It certainly doesn't mean that we can stand by and watch as if a vestigial legislative organ--as one single man steps into the shoes of 435 Representatives or 100 Senators--makes, as it were, a law that, on its own, fails even to accommodate good-faith medical concerns backed up by medical science.

It is too bad that we couldn't pass this simple law today. We could have; we should have; I wish we would have. I will be back. This issue isn't going away. Neither am I.

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