Xavier Becerra is Radically Unqualified to Lead
March 11, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke on the Senate floor denounce the nomination of Xavier Becerra to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
To watch Senator Blackburn’s speech, click below or here.
You can read the transcript recorded in the Congressional Records below or click here.
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.
I yield the floor.