On the recordFebruary 15, 2022
I greatly respect my colleague from Minnesota, and I have enjoyed working with her on the Rules Committee, but her objection to this resolution provides an unfortunate but clear answer: No, Democrats don't support reopening the Senate. Hopefully sometime soon, my Democratic colleagues will wake up to the fact that Americans are sick of endless lockdowns and the condescending message that it sends to the American people that they need government to tell them what to do. With regard to the objection that we need a more measured process in consultation with various officials, I talked to the Capitol Police Chief last week, and we can work with his team and the Sergeant at Arms to address any specific operational issues. We can also work with the Attending Physician. All of that is downstream of the basic question here, which is whether the Senate supports reopening. If the Senate supports reopening, then we can figure out the rest. Senate leadership sets the policy for the Capitol Building and the office buildings that are under Senate jurisdiction. That is why we have different COVID policies than the House. If it was up to the Attending Physician or the Capitol Police, the policy probably wouldn't change at the midpoint of the Capitol Building, as it does today. We are the elected officials in the building. We are the ones who were elected to make decisions.…





