Ted Cruz pushes for confirmation vote on new CDC chief

Senator Ted Cruz has plans to stymie President Biden’s pick to head up the Centers for Disease Control.

The Spectator exclusively obtained legislation the Texas Republican will introduce to force a confirmation vote on the controversial doctor, Mandy Cohen, who Biden wants to succeed the scandal-plagued incumbent, Rochelle Walensky. 

In the aptly named “CDC Accountability Act of 2023,” Cruz has a simple proposal: change existing law requiring a confirmation vote for the next CDC director in 2025, and instead push it up two years. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC director did not need Senate confirmation — but Senate Republicans forced a change, citing rampant distrust with the CDC, which unsuccessfully issued a nationwide eviction moratorium and shut down cruise lines. However, a confirmation vote in 2025 isn’t acceptable to Cruz. 

This strange confirmation status is exactly why Cruz filed this bill. The Spectator previously reported that Cohen, or any other CDC director nominee, currently does not need Senate confirmation, which surprised many. “I felt compelled to file this legislation,” Cruz told The Spectator, “the stakes are so high. The serious overreach by the Biden administration during the Covid-19 pandemic threatened nearly every aspect of the lives of Texans. They’ve done this before — and with Mandy Cohen at the helm, I’m very concerned they’ll do it again. It’s time now for the Senate to have a say in who serves in this position.”

“As we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, public health officials have an incredible amount of power over the lives of Texans and Americans,” Cruz continued. “Mandy Cohen was a driving force behind lockdowns and forced masking in North Carolina. Taking advantage of a pandemic to push government control over our daily lives shouldn’t be rewarded with a promotion. Texas deserves a say in who leads national healthcare conversations — and my bill would simply speed the process that Congress has already put in place, by giving the Senate a say in this important decision now instead of 2025.”

If Cruz is successful and forces a confirmation vote on Cohen, she likely can’t even count on support from her home state senators. Freshman senator Ted Budd led a bicameral effort to warn Biden that Cohen is “unfit” to lead CDC, due to her “history of engaging in partisan left-wing politics, her long history of politicizing science, promoting Covid lockdowns and mandates, and engaging in left-wing politics.” 

While Budd’s fellow North Carolinian, Thom Tillis, is not on his letter, Tillis has also expressed concern with Cohen’s “role in recommending school shutdowns and enforcing the state’s emergency declaration for far longer than was necessary.”

The Spectator previously reported on Cohen’s love of Anthony Fauci and push for excessive and unscientific school closures, which critics say mirror the outlook of the current CDC. 

Nicki Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, lamented that the current CDC is stonewalling basic document requests from her. “PDE is currently appealing a request where the CDC asserted they had ‘no responsive records,’ despite Chicago Public Schools documents that indicate CDC involvement [on its ‘gender support plans’ programming],” she told The Spectator. “If past actions are any indication of future performance, this opacity is likely to continue under Dr. Cohen, if not worsen.”

Amy Cooke, CEO of the North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation, said that Cohen “didn’t answer any open records requests regarding from whom she was seeking and getting data and advice regarding Covid-19 mandates.” Cooke’s Locke Foundation colleague, Jon Sanders, said that “Cohen’s agency was notoriously slippery with data,” telling me that “those of us who kept tabs on DHHS data releases found that previous reports of cases, hospitalizations, even deaths were subject to frequent revisions.”