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Rand Paul

Official · Congress

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Official · Congress
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The profile

Kentucky's Republican senator tested positive for the coronavirus days before the CARES Act vote and missed it. He voted against two later relief packages that year, and as the Small Business Committee's ranking Republican he spent 2021 pressing SBA over PPP loans to Planned Parenthood affiliates.

  • Office: U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Republican, since January 20111
  • Relief-era role: Ranking member, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (2021–2022)
  • Since 2025: Chairman, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs2

On March 23, 2020, Senator Chuck Schumer told the Senate that "in the past 24 hours, we got word that a Member of this Chamber, Senator Paul, has tested positive for coronavirus."3 Two days later the Senate passed the CARES Act 96 to 0, with Paul among the four senators recorded as necessarily absent.45

Votes on the relief laws

On September 10, 2020 the Senate voted 52 to 47 on cloture for a pared-down relief amendment, No. 2652, which failed for lack of 60 votes. Paul was the only Republican to vote no; he joined 46 Democrats and independents.6 On December 21, 2020 the Senate voted 92 to 6 to pass H.R. 133, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, which carried the second round of PPP. The six no votes were Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Paul and Rick Scott.7

In January 2022, as ranking member, Paul released a report titled "The Hidden Tax." His release said "$4.9 trillion in COVID-19 stimulus spending" had led to "one of the highest and most sustained levels of inflation" in the country's history and cited a 7 percent twelve-month rise in consumer prices. The report's first conclusion: "COVID-19 stimulus is directly responsible for rising prices."8

Planned Parenthood and the PPP

Much of Paul's PPP oversight as ranking member concerned Planned Parenthood. On May 19, 2020, SBA had told Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates that under its affiliation rules they were ineligible, and asked 38 affiliates to return more than $80 million in PPP loans.910 In 2021, with Paul as ranking member, the committee's Republicans took the issue up again:

  • On April 15, 2021 they wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, SBA Inspector General Mike Ware and Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman. SBA data from March 23, they said, showed that most affiliates had not returned the money and that two had been approved for second-draw loans.9
  • A May 10 follow-up said SBA had not answered and had approved loans to at least two more affiliates, one for $10 million.11
  • At a May 26 hearing Paul questioned Guzman; his release said SBA had approved at least six more loans to affiliates, for $17.6 million, since her confirmation.10
  • On September 29, in floor remarks, he said SBA had approved nearly $100 million in PPP loans to affiliates in all. Committee Republicans, he said, would not allow a vote on SBA's nominee for deputy administrator until the agency moved to recover the money.12

By December the nomination was still in committee. On December 16, 2021 committee chair Ben Cardin asked unanimous consent to discharge the nomination of Dilawar Syed as deputy administrator, and Paul objected for the second time. The committee's release said Republicans had denied a quorum each time Cardin tried to hold a business meeting on it, and that the post had been vacant for more than three years.13

Paul raised the loans again in 2025. On March 7, Joni Ernst, by then chair of the Small Business Committee, and Paul, as chair of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, asked SBA how Planned Parenthood affiliates had received the money and had 34 loans forgiven. Their letter put the loans approved in 2021 at nearly $40 million and listed four unanswered requests from 2021 and 2022.2

Small Business of the Week

The ranking member's office also issued a steady run of releases honoring Kentucky firms as "Senate Small Business of the Week," among them the Lenoxburg General Store.14

  • Ben Cardin — Small Business Committee chair whose motions on the deputy administrator nomination Paul blocked.
  • Joni Ernst — co-signed the 2025 letter on Planned Parenthood's PPP loans.
  • Isabella Casillas Guzman — SBA administrator Paul questioned in May 2021.

Sources

  1. @unitedstates project, congress-legislators dataset, legislators-current.json (retrieved Sept. 29, 2026). https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-current.json (we do not have a copy). ↩
  2. Senate Small Business Committee, "Ernst, Paul Demand Answers on Planned Parenthood Receiving Millions in PPP Funding" (Mar. 7, 2025). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=5F96640E-C30B-4975-99F5-2EB432D783A9 ↩
  3. Congressional Record, Senate, Mar. 23, 2020, p. S1920. Original: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2020-03-23/pdf/CREC-2020-03-23-pt1-PgS1920-2.pdf ↩
  4. Congressional Record, Senate, Mar. 25, 2020, p. S2059 (Rollcall Vote No. 80, CARES Act). Original: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2020-03-25/pdf/CREC-2020-03-25-pt1-PgS2059.pdf ↩
  5. Congressional Record, Daily Digest, Mar. 25, 2020. Original: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2020-03-25/pdf/CREC-2020-03-25-pt1-PgD320.pdf ↩
  6. Senate Roll Call Vote 168, 116th Congress (Sept. 10, 2020): cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 178 with Amendment No. 2652, rejected 52–47. ↩
  7. Senate Roll Call Vote 289, 116th Congress (Dec. 21, 2020): motion to concur on H.R. 133, agreed 92–6. Original: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1162/vote_116_2_00289.xml ↩
  8. Sen. Rand Paul, "Dr. Rand Paul Releases Report on Inflation's Effect on American Families and Small Businesses" (Jan. 18, 2022). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=965DAA70-C3FF-4C57-A52A-99BAF6D83E48 ↩
  9. Sen. Rand Paul, "Dr. Rand Paul Leads Letters To Investigate Planned Parenthood Affiliates For Violating PPP Eligibility and Not Returning PPP Loans" (Apr. 16, 2021). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=F3E9876A-DD9B-4E49-8695-491AEA20DA06 ↩
  10. Sen. Rand Paul, "Dr. Rand Paul Demands Answers from SBA Administrator Guzman On PPP Loans Funding Planned Parenthoods Across America" (May 26, 2021). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=050B937C-DA74-4B78-A356-4F55116B2374 ↩
  11. Sen. Rand Paul, "Dr. Rand Paul Continues to Lead Fight Against SBA's Illegal Funding of Planned Parenthood" (May 11, 2021). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=C92C67A1-D511-4FEA-A6F6-60B616481339 ↩
  12. Sen. Rand Paul, "Dr. Rand Paul Holds Democrats and SBA Accountable for Illegal Planned Parenthood Funds" (Sept. 29, 2021). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=78220C08-C3F3-41FA-A3FA-CBB2483E5040 ↩
  13. Senate Small Business Committee, "Republicans Again Block Cardin's Attempt to Forward Critical SBA Nominee" (Dec. 16, 2021). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=D6424D32-95EC-4BB3-80DB-879818B75E7B ↩
  14. Sen. Rand Paul, "Dr. Rand Paul Honors Lenoxburg General Store as U.S. Senate Small Business of the Week". Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=6F5B3667-A2A2-4229-9835-11CEF3926792 ↩
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