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Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. 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.

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