WASHINGTON – In an interview today on Fox News, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) discussed Democrats’ attempt to federalize elections, the Supreme Court’s recent decision on vaccine mandates, and record high inflation levels hurting working families.
CLICK HERE to Watch Blunt’s Remarks
Following Are Excerpts of Blunt’s Interview:
On Democrats’ Attempt to Break the Senate, Enact Federal Takeover of Elections:
“Well, I think what the Senate is going to be doing is moving forward as the unique body the Senate is where we have the ability to reach some consensus before you move forward. The option is what happens in the House every time the House changes parties. They send a lot of bills over to the Senate that aren’t going anywhere because they are too drastically headed in one direction. And then, the next time it changes parties, they send bills over that would have reversed those bills, that those bills would have ever become law. That’s certainly not what you need. And also what we’ve got here is an attempt to, once again, federalize something that’s been working well for a couple hundred years. I think states and local election officials are the place for elections to be conducted. There’s generally been a consensus on that for decades, including President Obama in 2016 saying the diversity of the election system in America was one of the strengths of the system. You know, the bill that came over from the House is [735] pages. It is not a reiteration of the 12 page 1965 Voting Rights Act. It’s a federal takeover of elections. It’s not the right way to go, and I think Democrats are not going to be able to get this done. But more importantly, you had Senator Sinema, and I think other Democrats may now step up and say, ‘we’re not for changing the rules. We don’t want the House to become the Senate.’ The economic impact of that uncertainty, the regulatory impact of that constant uncertainty would all be bad. And I hope we can continue through the rest of this Congress to maintain that unique ability that the Senate has to where you have to work with the other side.”
On Democrats’ Misguided Election Legislation, Efforts by Republican States to Expand Access to the Ballot:
“What the Democrats are doing here is destroying faith in a system that people should have every reason to have faith in. They’re looking at states that leaned forwardin [2020] and did some things they’d never done before because of the pandemic environment. When that election was over, those states looked back, and I think in virtually every case, they kept some of the things that they thought should become permanently part of the system. But other things they might have done, like drive-in voting and mailing ballots to everybody that in various states, didn’t meet the long-term standard. I haven’t found a state yet that made any, that hasn’t made really steps forward in this process from 2018 than this list of states the Democrats are talking about. They generally have more early voting, more places to vote, more days of voting than states like New York or Connecticut or Delaware. I think the idea that Republican legislators are trying to take away voting rights and Democrat legislators are not is just not true. I’d be glad to debate this bill on the floor. But it’s not what our friends on the other side say it is, and the more people look at it, the more they begin to realize that. You’ve got money for politicians, tax money for politicians for campaigns. You make the Federal Election Commission a partisan entity. There are so many things in there that people don’t want, and eliminating so many things like voter ID and no ballot harvesting that people want to see continue to be where they are now.”
On the Supreme Court’s Decision to Strike Down the Biden Administration’s Vaccine Mandate for Large Employers:
“Well, I’m not very surprised. I do think maybe I’m going to take a little different tack here than probably most of the people you’ve talked to. I think one of the big winners today was probably the Biden administration by not having to go forward with something that had all kinds of consequences that they hadn’t anticipated. We just heard the person you had talking about various businesses where you could go from the 100 employer business to the 90 employer business. You could go, Charles, from the 100 employee or more police force to the 20 employee police force or the fire force. People working at grocery stores that have more than 100 employees, what happens if they decide they can make just as much money working somewhere across the street? And suddenly, if you even had things to put on the shelves—another problem we’re facing right now—even if you had things to put on the shelves, you wouldn’t have people to put them on the shelves. There might be some secret sighs of relief going on at the White House right now that this is a problem that they can now think about in a different way. I’m pro-vaccine, but I’ve been anti-mandates because I think the mandate actually has had a counterproductive impact on people getting vaccines.”
On the Impact of Inflation Levels at a 40-Year High:
“Well, it has dramatic impact on people who are at the lower economic part of the scale. The things that you have to have—a way to get to work, away to heat your house, groceries from the store—when those go up 50%, 20%, 15%, you don’t have any real options except to cut back on those necessities. And, whatever you would have done two years ago with the extra money from the same paycheck, you don’thave the opportunity to do now. It is an insidious tax on people if the government doesn’t manage the economy in a way that maintains a low inflation rate. Putting $1.9 trillion in the American Recovery Plan into the economy in a very short period of time,something Democrats did all by themselves in March, has had an inflationary impact. And the Build Back Better or Build Back Broker campaign effort would have had the same impact. I hope we can continue to resist adding a bunch of new government programs ontop of an economy that’s already overheated.”