Further Additional Extending Government Funding Act

Floor Speech

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

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Mr. LEE. 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.

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Mr. LEE. 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.
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