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Nominations
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, something happened today in Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee that I have never seen before in the U.S. Senate.
Three weeks ago, Senator Toomey--the ranking member, the senior Republican on the committee from Pennsylvania--Senator Toomey and I agreed that there would be a committee vote today for six nominees: Sandra Thompson, who would be head of the FHFA; Lael Brainard, Vice Chair at the Federal Reserve; Jay Powell, the Chair--sitting Chair, who has been nominated, to confirm him as the Chair; and then three new members of the Federal Reserve, Sarah Bloom Raskin, who would be Vice Chair of Supervision; also Philip Jefferson; and Lisa Cook.
This would be the--I think the best qualified, most diverse in terms of gender and race, but also most diverse Federal Reserve in terms of knowledge and perspective because one of the most poignant, I think, legitimate, criticisms of the Fed is how sort of the Federal Reserve has always kind of looked like me, except they think like Wall Street.
And this is the first time where I have seen a Federal Reserve with the breadth of knowledge. There is a--the President wants to appoint a gentleman who grew up right near RFK Stadium in a poor part of Washington, who now is a dean at a southern school; another, a woman from a small town in Georgia, who is now at Michigan State; a former bank regulator and Federal Reserve Governor and also was No. 2 at Treasury; in addition to the two Federal Reserve members, Lael Brainard would be elevated to Vice Chair and Jay Powell.
That is just all background to show, Mr. President, the diversity and the breadth and the depth of these five members. And they would bring a perspective on our economy that matters to your voters in Connecticut and mine in Ohio; that they don't have this lean towards Wall Street. They don't have this sort of singular view of the Federal Reserve. They understand that the Federal Reserve should look at the economy through the eyes of workers.
We have a chance right now to appoint a Federal Reserve Board--the seven members of the Board--that really will put workers at the center of our economy. We really haven't had that. We have a President who does that now, I think we have a Senate that increasingly does that, and that will mean that we will pay--the Federal Reserve will pay attention to wages, the Federal Reserve will fight inflation. That is their job. They will do a number of things that will matter to our economy.
Now, this would be the first time that there would be a full complement of seven governors on the Federal Reserve. It is a seven-
member board. President Trump never filled all seven of those jobs. President Obama, at the end of his term, tried to and didn't quite get there. So this would be the first time in a decade.
And what makes that important is that their job--they are tasked with fighting inflation.
We know part of the reason for inflation is the excess profits in the oil industry, the excess profits among the meat packers, the excess profits among the shippers and companies that are really taking advantage of shortages and taking advantage of the pandemic. We know that drives inflation. And we also know that some of our best tools are the Federal Reserve to fight inflation.
So what I said earlier, I have never seen something happen like happened today.
Three weeks ago, Senator Toomey and I, as I said, agreed to have this vote for these five nominees to the Fed and also the nominee for the Federal Housing Finance Agency and do those all together today. We agreed three weeks ago.
Senator Toomey didn't like the answers from Sarah Bloom Raskin. He said: I don't like the way she answered.
And how this works--for people that aren't in the Senate and do this every day--how this works is, after a hearing, Senators on a committee can simply write questions. It is called QFR--
questions for the record--that they didn't get to ask in their 5-minute slots in committee.
Well, Republicans, led by Senator Toomey, sent almost 200 questions to Sarah Bloom Raskin. It is clear Republicans don't want her. She has been too strong standing up to Wall Street, too strong speaking out about climate in the role that the Federal Reserve has in assessing risk based on climate in loan--in lending decisions of the Fed. She is not allocating credit or telling banks whom to lend to, she is just saying we should assess risk.
For instance, you don't--it is not really very good policy to loan--
to write a loan for somebody in a flood plain when they have had hurricane damage year after year after year after year and to loan a lot of money for a business. I mean, things like that that the Federal Reserve needs to assess--the banks need to assess the Fed needs.
So what happened today is Senator Toomey, because he didn't like Sarah Bloom Raskin's answers--as I said, he sent almost 200 letters. She answered 200 letters from Senator Toomey and his colleagues in 48 hours, and then another Senator--another Republican Senator sent her several more letters, and she answered those--several more questions, and she answered those when she didn't have to. So she lived up to her side of the agreement and then some.
And so Senator Toomey didn't like her answers, so he pulled away every Republican member from our committee. So when we met today at 2:15, as planned for 3 weeks, as noticed by the committee officially about a week ago, no Republican showed up.
And maybe that wouldn't matter, except the Senate rules are you have to have one Republican at least show up. You need 13 members of the committee to conduct business. So we had 12 Democrats sitting in the room, and the other side of the room was empty; and we couldn't take action.
So what that means is we now have Jay Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve--nominated to be Chair of the Federal Reserve, sitting, waiting; we have Lael Brainard, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, nominated, sitting and waiting; we have three people who aren't even on the board of the Federal Reserve yet--Sarah Bloom Raskin and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson--who are just in abeyance. And maybe it doesn't matter about the three of them. They are public servants; they chose to do this. What does matter is the Federal Reserve Board only has four people on it now, and I don't know when we are going to fill it because Ranking Member Toomey and the other 11 Republicans on the board have decided that they don't want to show up and do their job.
I mean, when we come to the Senate--I think the Senator--the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from Connecticut, knows this--you aren't given a little sheet that says here is what you do here. You vote yes--check the box yes, no, or I don't think I am going to work today. I think I am going to boycott a vote. That is not what you do. You vote yes or no. They have full rights to vote no and oppose these nominees--I assume they will oppose some of them--but they really don't have the right to just decide: I am going to take my ball and go home; that I am not going to work today; that we are going to boycott this vote.
So we all took an informal vote. All 12 of us voted--well, 11 of us voted for all 6, 1 of us voted for 5 of 6--and would have confirmed them overwhelmingly if Republicans had shown up and split their votes or whatever they would have done.
You know, it is just too bad. It breaks my heart. That is not how we have ever done things in the Banking, Housing Committee. I don't argue our committee is always bipartisan; it is not. But I do argue that most of the--pretty much all of us pretty much all the time, show up and cast votes and do our jobs.
I see there are new pages here on both sides of the aisle. This is the beginning, I think, of their second week. And, you know, I am sure they have learned from their textbooks, their college books. I am sure they watch us here and they think: Well, you know, I don't really like that Senator much or--he's kind of a nice guy, but he votes whatever. But they also know we take positions. You vote yes; you vote no.
And the last thing, and then I will yield the floor, is I have heard so many Republican Members talk about inflation day after day after day, and it is a problem we have to address. It is a problem we absolutely have to address. And they, of course, blame President Biden for everything, and that is OK. I expected that.
But they talk about inflation, but then at a time when we actually could address the problems with inflation, one of the most important tools in the Federal Government to address inflation is the Federal Reserve. And the Federal Reserve--seven members of the Federal Reserve sit with the 12 Fed presidents from around the country and they make decisions on monetary policy and they debate and discuss with a wide perspective of voices and a wide array of voices.
That is just not going to happen until they decide let's vote on these five members of the Federal Reserve.
So I wanted to inform my colleagues of that. Twelve of us showed up today, and 12 members didn't. They didn't have a really good reason except they don't like the answers that one of the Fed nominees gave, and that is simply not a good reason to refuse to do your job.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 30
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