The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“NOMINATIONS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S7323-S7324 on Oct. 25.
The Department provides billions in unemployment insurance, which peaked around 2011 though spending had declined before the pandemic. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, claimed the Department funds "ineffective and duplicative services" and overregulates the workplace.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NOMINATIONS
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the Senate begins this week with votes to confirm two more highly qualified Biden nominees--one to serve in his administration and another to serve on the Federal bench.
First, we will vote to confirm Mr. Douglas Parker to serve as an Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA. A veteran of the Labor Department from the Obama administration, Mr. Parker will be the first Senate-confirmed OSHA head since the Obama Presidency.
He has a proven track record of protecting everyday Americans in the workplace--more important now than ever before--and I look forward to his confirmation later today.
The fact that the previous administration left OSHA empty for 4 years shows how little they cared about worker safety and protecting our workers, as many of them often do difficult jobs.
Second, the Senate will also proceed to the confirmation of a truly outstanding judicial nominee, Myrna Perez, to serve as circuit judge for the Second Circuit, which includes my home State of New York. It is a good day for the Second Circuit and for the entire Federal judiciary.
If confirmed, Myrna Perez would be a remarkable, remarkable addition to the bench. She would be the only Hispanic jurist to sit on the Second Circuit and the first since Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
And just as I was proud to support Justice Sotomayor's nomination--I even suggested her name for the Supreme Court to President Obama, a fact I am proud of--I am also, today, proud to champion Myrna's elevation to the bench.
Myrna's life was the embodiment of the American dream. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she grew up in San Antonio, TX, where her father was an Army veteran who worked as a consultant with Bexar County, while her mother worked in the post office.
As Myrna herself will tell you, growing up in a family of immigrants often meant breaking through linguistic, cultural, and racial barriers. And of all places, perhaps nowhere else did these barriers leave an important imprint on Myrna than when her aunt took her to the polls on election day. It was there where Myrna realized how an election system built from Byzantine rules shut out countless citizens from the political process. This experience instilled in Myrna a thirst for making our democracy work for all, and that has become her life's work.
After graduating from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia, Myrna eventually joined the Brennan Center for Justice, becoming the director of its Voting Rights and Elections Program. Over the course of her career, Myrna has become one of the Nation's top voting rights and elections lawyers, playing a key role in making sure Americans could vote safely in the 2020 election. She also has fought unlawful purges of voting rolls, spoken out against long wait times at polling locations in diverse neighborhoods, and has played major roles preparing six amicus briefs before the Supreme Court, including one for the Shelby case in 2013.
But Myrna's qualifications are not limited to her experience as a voting rights litigator. She is also a brilliant attorney with experience in fair housing law, disability rights, and employment discrimination. In the words of one former colleague, her skills as a lawyer are simply ``off the charts.''
The cupboards of the Federal judiciary have long been filled with attorneys who have taken the traditional route on their way to the bench--a big law firm, corporate experience, prosecutorial experience. Many of those jurists have done commendably on the bench, and I have been proud to support many of them over the years. But Myrna Perez represents something different, something wonderfully different: a sorely needed boost in both the personal and professional diversity of the Federal bench.
Especially now, we need more election lawyers in black robes. We need more Federal defenders in black robes. We need more immigrants and civil rights lawyers and diverse candidates assuming positions on the bench. We need, in other words, for our courts to reflect the rich mosaic that is the American people. With Myrna Perez's nomination, I am glad we are taking a step closer to that goal, and I hope she is confirmed later today.
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