Heidi Alexander: “I support the Senator from Iowa and his request that this bill go to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions…”

“I support the Senator from Iowa and his request that this bill go to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. In the Republican Conference, we talk a lot about the importance of taking legislation through committee so it can be amended and considered through the regular order. This is certainly important legislation. All of us would agree on that. The Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from West Virginia deserve a lot of credit for bringing this terrible story to our attention and proposing we address it. And I think we should. But the appropriate way to do that here, is to take it to the committee of jurisdiction to be considered in a markup, amended, and see if anyone has a better idea. My second reason for hoping this bill goes to the HELP committee is that I have my own idea. I think this bill poses an important question to the Senate about whether we want to constitute ourselves as a national school board. That is, in fact, what we would be doing if we passed it into law. In our country there are 100,000 public elementary and secondary schools. They all have a principal who is in charge of the employees in that school. This bill is about determining what kind of criminal background check those school employees should have. What is the principal supposed to do? Doesn't the principal have any responsibility for this? Can the principal just say that this is the job of the United States Senate, so I don't have to worry about that?…”