Johnny Isakson: “I reluctantly rise to oppose moving forward with the nomination of Patricia Smith. I do not do so easily nor happily…”

“I reluctantly rise to oppose moving forward with the nomination of Patricia Smith. I do not do so easily nor happily because I believe the President of the United States has the right to make appointments, and I think within reason those appointments should be confirmed. The question before the Senate, with this nomination, is not whether wage and hour laws should be enforced. They should be. The question is not whether Ms. Smith has done a good job in New York State because Republicans and Democrats said she has. The question is whether the Senate will tolerate a nominee intentionally misleading a standing committee of this body. My guess is the Democratic majority would not have stood for that under the previous administration, and we should not today. Unfortunately, Ms. Smith has been consistently evasive in response to numerous questions from members of the committee, specifically with regard to a program called Wage Watch, which deputized private activist groups to inspect small businesses to look for and seek to find wage and hour law violations.”