[Pages S5751-S5770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

REMEMBERING JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I rise to honor the life and legacy of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Nation mourns the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, who died Friday night. She died on the eve of the Jewish new
year, Rosh Hashanah. She was the first Jewish woman on the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Rabbis tell us a very interesting thing about individuals who die
right before the new year. They say and they suggest that these are
very righteous people who die at the very end of the year because they
were needed until the very end. Under Jewish tradition, those who die
on the new year holiday are considered tzadik, a title given to the
righteous and saintly. Certainly Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was
entitled to this honor, being righteous and saintly.
At her confirmation hearing, Justice Ginsburg talked about her
immigrant experience. You see, her father was a Jewish immigrant, and
her mother was barely a second-generation American. So she talked about
American values, and then she said: ``What has become of me could only
happen in America.''
Then she spent her entire career protecting those values that make
America the great Nation it is and the reason why people come here in
order to reach their full potential. It guided her well in her public
service.
Justice Ginsburg was both an inspiration and a trailblazer in every
sense of the word. After breaking through the countless barriers thrown
in her path, she redefined what is meant to be both a thoughtful jurist
and a dedicated public servant.
Let me just briefly go over some of her incredible accomplishments:
first in her undergraduate class at Cornell University, first female
member of the Harvard Law Journal, graduating first in her class at
Columbia Law School, first female professor at Columbia University to
earn tenure.
Justice Ginsburg directed the ACLU Women's Rights Project and argued
six landmark cases before the Supreme Court, winning five of those
cases. These cases protected not only the rights of women but those of
many men who faced discrimination as well.
As the National Women's Law Center wrote about Justice Ginsburg's
death, they said:

[Her passing] is cause for us to pause and honor the
unparalleled mark she has left on this country. From co-
founding the ACLU's Women's Rights Project, to bringing the
first case striking down a law that discriminated against
women, to building the case that defined the standard for sex
discrimination cases, Ginsburg was a visionary who
revolutionized the gender equality movement--and the law--
long before becoming a Supreme Court Justice.
For our country, Ginsburg's ethos was greater than just the
law. She was an icon and a living symbol of a north star, so
we must unite and do for her what she did for us--fight for
what is right.

As a litigator, Judge Ginsburg helped to shape the law, convincing
the Supreme Court that ``equal protection of the law'' under the 14th
Amendment applied not only to racial discrimination but to gender
discrimination as well.

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Justice Ginsburg herself knew discrimination firsthand, as she
struggled to find a job after graduating law school--notwithstanding
her sterling qualifications. She had that difficulty, as we all know,
solely because of her gender. She experienced gender discrimination
firsthand, and she did something about it not only for herself but for
future generations.
After serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia for 13 years, she began a 27-year career on the U.S. Supreme
Court.
There are so many of her decisions that were so consequential, so
visionary, expressing the right value, and her ability to express her
views was unquestioned. She did that in writing majority opinions, and
she is well known for doing that in writing dissenting opinions. So
many of her dissenting opinions led the way for change. She was right,
and she motivated change.
In 1996, Justice Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion of the Court in
the finding that the all-male admissions policy at the State-supported
Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional. She said in that
opinion: ``Generalizations about `the way women are,' estimates of what
is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying opportunity to
women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average
description.'' Any differential treatment, she concluded, must not
``create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of
women.''
What a difference she made in that decision.
I will always remember her dissenting opinion in the Lilly Ledbetter
case because it led directly to change. Justice Ginsburg wrote in that
fiery dissent: ``Our precedent suggests, and lower courts have
overwhelmingly held, that the unlawful practice is the current payment
of salaries infected by gender-based (or race-based) discrimination--a
practice that occurs whenever a paycheck delivers less to a woman than
to a similarly situated man.''
I heard one of my colleagues talk about precedent, but here we see
the Court reversing precedent in order to advance discrimination
against women. Her dissent led to congressional action, becoming the
first piece of legislation signed by President Barack Obama. The text
of this bill hung on her office wall for good reason, as it embodied
her spirit.
She issued a fiery dissent again in the Shelby County v. Holder case
in 2013, a case decided by a 5-to-4 vote of the Supreme Court of the
United States, which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Here is what she said in that opinion:

What has become of the court's usual restraint?

Justice Ginsburg wrote in her dissenting opinion:

The great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery
and there called for the passage of the Voting Rights Act
foresaw progress, even in Alabama. ``The arc of the moral
universe is long,'' he said, but ``it bends toward
justice,'' if there is a steadfast commitment to see the
task through to completion. That commitment has been
disserved by today's decision. . . . Throwing out
preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work
to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your
umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

I mentioned these cases to underscore the importance of the Supreme
Court Justice in the lives of all Americans. So much is at stake in the
filling of Justice Ginsburg's vacancy. It will have real consequences
on all of our constituents.
Let me just give you a few examples of what is likely to be taken up
by the Supreme Court that could affect my constituents in Maryland and
the constituents around the Nation.
Your healthcare is, literally, on the line. The Affordable Care Act
that President Trump has tried to repeal and the Republicans have tried
to repeal in this body but have failed, they are now going to take to
the Supreme Court. A hearing is scheduled this November.
This is a real risk for tens of millions of Americans who depend on
the law for their health coverage and other benefits. Twenty million
Americans could lose their healthcare, and people with preexisting
conditions could lose those protections--that is 133 million
Americans--during the coronavirus pandemic.
That is what is at risk. We are talking about pregnancy, cancer,
diabetes, high blood pressure, behavioral health disorders, high
cholesterol, asthma, chronic lung disease, heart conditions, and
numerous others that have been held to be preexisting conditions. That
protection is in the Affordable Care Act. That is on the line before
the Supreme Court this November.
That is why Americans are concerned that we follow the right process
in selecting the next individual to serve on the Supreme Court of the
United States. If the Affordable Care Act is struck down, insurers
could bring back annual and lifetime limits on coverage; adults covered
by Medicaid expansion would lose vital health services; young people
would be kicked off of their parents' insurance; and insurers could
sell skimpy plans that don't even cover essential health benefits like
prescription drugs, emergency room visits, mental health and substance
use, and maternity care.
The Affordable Care Act increased access to care for millions who
were previously uninsured or underinsured. Through Medicaid expansion,
13 million low-income Americans now have dependable, comprehensive
health.
In Maryland alone, over 1.3 low-income individuals depend on
Medicaid, including 512,000 low-income children, 107,000 seniors, and
152,000 individuals with disabilities. That is in Maryland.
We must protect the Medicaid expansion population and other uninsured
and underinsured populations from the Trump administration's effort to
eliminate their access to affordable care. It is at risk.
This vacancy is critically important to protecting healthcare, and
there are so many other issues. Women's reproductive rights--clearly at
risk. Roe v. Wade--I understand it is established precedent, but look
at what the Supreme Court has been willing to do in reversing
precedent.
We know Roe v. Wade is in the crosshairs for change by the Supreme
Court, and one more Justice appointed to support that position and a
woman's right of choice could very well be in jeopardy.
Our most vulnerable individuals are at risk as well. Let me talk
about one specific group of people--some of our immigrants. On June 18,
2020, in a 5-to-4 decision written by Justice Roberts and joined by
Justice Ginsburg, the Supreme Court held that the Department of
Homeland Security violated the law when it rescinded the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrival, DACA, Program.
There are approximately 643,000 DACA recipients in the United States,
and approximately 29,000 are healthcare workers, essential workers,
whose service during the COVID-19 pandemic has saved lives and eased
suffering. But for that 5-to-4 decision, those individuals' lives could
have been totally disrupted had they been ordered to leave our country.
These are individuals who know no other home but the United States of
America. They are our neighbors and friends--and yet a 5-to-4 decision
of the Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg will no longer be there. This
next Justice could very well determine the fate of the Dreamers.
LGBTQ community: In the Obergefell v. Hodges case, the Supreme Court,
by a 5-to-4 decision, held the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples
the right to marry. That is a 5-to-4 decision.
I always expected that, in America, we would move forward in
protecting individual rights under our Constitution; that, in each
Congress and each session, the Supreme Court would advance those rights
for individuals' protection under the Constitution of the United
States. The filling of this Supreme Court vacancy could very well
reverse a trend of protecting rights and deny many in our community
their rights.
I could cite many, many other examples of what is at risk by the
Supreme Court appointment. There are many reasons why we believe that
we should follow the proper process in selecting the next Supreme Court
Justice, so let's talk a little bit about what process we should
follow. Let's talk a little bit about fairness. Let's talk about the
integrity of the Senate. Let's talk about living up to our own words.
Let's talk about using the same rules for Democrats that you use for
Republicans. Let's talk about the fairness of the process.

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Now, I could spend a lot of time on the floor quoting the comments of
so many of my colleagues who spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate 4
years ago on the Merrick Garland nomination by President Obama and how
they spoke about the importance of listening to the voters of our
Nation, how they said we didn't have the time--and, remember, Merrick
Garland was in February of an election year--to do this; that we needed
to withhold taking up the nomination; that it was up to the voters to
act first; and that this had nothing to do with the fact that it was a
Democrat in the White House.
So many of our colleagues said: If there is a Republican elected in
2016 and the Senate is controlled by the Republicans, we would say the
same thing. Hold off. Let the voters have a chance.
Let me quote from one of our colleagues.

In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to consider the
nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama's
nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy. They would not meet with
Judge Garland, hold a hearing on his nomination, or allow a
vote for 293 days. Antonin Scalia died in February 2016.
President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a respected D.C.
Circuit Judge with bipartisan support, in March 2016. In the
case of Justice Ginsburg's vacancy in 2020, we are about 40
days away from a general election, and early and absentee
voting has already begun in several states. By contrast, in
2016, the formal presidential primary elections had just
begun to occur when Justice Scalia died.

Our colleagues spoke up then and said: Look, 4 years ago, our
Republican colleagues said not enough time, leave it up to the voters;
we would do this whether it is a Democrat or Republican.
Let me quote from one of our colleagues, the Republican leader, Mitch
McConnell. This is his quote on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. President, the next Justice could fundamentally alter
the direction of the Supreme Court and have a profound impact
on our country, so of course--of course the American people
should have a say in the Court's direction. . . . As Chairman
Grassley and I declared weeks ago and reiterated personally
to President Obama, the Senate will continue to observe the
Biden rule so that the American people have a voice in this
momentous decision. The American people may well elect a
President who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate
consideration. The next President may also nominate someone
very different. Either way, our view is this: Give the people
a voice in filling this vacancy. . . . As we continue working
on issues like these, the American people are perfectly
capable of having their say on this issue. So [let's give]
them a voice. Let's let the American people decide.

Senator Mitch McConnell.
We have the McConnell rule, established by the Republican leader.
Let's follow the McConnell rule and let the American people pick the
next President and Senate so they can weigh in on this decision just as
Senator McConnell argued in 2016 with President Obama's nominee,
Merrick Garland, for Justice Scalia's seat.
Let the Senate honor Justice Ginsburg's legacy by continuing to fight
for the rights she fought for in her entire career, both as a litigator
and circuit judge and, finally, as a Supreme Court Justice.
Let us honor Justice Ginsburg's dying wish: ``My most fervent wish is
that I will not be replaced until a new President is installed.''
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I rise at a time of great grief in our
country. We have seen 200,000 fellow Americans perish due to COVID. In
addition to that, we have seen heroes in our Nation fall during this
period as well. Still, we have a heavy heart as we have seen the
passing of civil rights greats like C.T. Vivian and, of course, our
colleague in the House of Representatives, John Lewis.
In many ways, we are walking through the valley of a shadow of death,
but as our fellow Americans fall, it is apt that we give tribute to
their character, to the values and virtues which marked their lives,
and to the truth and ideals that they carried for their lives and how
they advanced to us so that we might have better lives.
Truly, if we are recognizing those values and those virtues, then,
the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a time that calls upon Americans
to pause and recognize her extraordinary life. She was a woman of small
physical stature, but she was truly a giant amongst us.
Even before her years as a Supreme Court Justice, she championed the
rights of Americans and the ideals we hold so dear. She advanced the
cause of liberty and equality and the understanding, as it says,
literally, on the Supreme Court wall, of ``Equal Justice Under Law.''
This spirit that she fought for was buttressed by her massive
intellect, her acumen, her skill, and her strategy that were seen in
her career as a lawyer, as well as her opinions and work as a Justice.
She understood more, or as much as anyone, that the decisions of the
Supreme Court literally have a profound impact on the daily lives of
Americans, that the decisions of the Supreme Court will affect some of
the most fundamental ideals. It could mean the difference between life
or death, the difference between economic security and economic ruin,
the difference between environmental protection and devastation
It affects not just the balance of power in institutions like the
Senate but also the balance of people's lives and their well-being at
their kitchen table.
She knew that our laws are tools through which we could either make
our Nation live up to its promise for all or fall further away from
them. It is in this context that I want to join my colleagues this
evening in discussing Justice Ginsburg's legacy and the future of the
Supreme Court, because so many of the other things that matter most to
us are in the balance right now with the decisions that this body
makes.
Americans know that the decisions of this body as it relates to the
Supreme Court are going to affect some of the deepest issues that
affect their lives--their economic security, their bodily autonomy,
their right to vote, their civil rights, the environment in which we
all live--and the area I most want to focus on is their healthcare--
their healthcare. The ideal of healthcare is fundamental to the ideals
of our founding document. You cannot have life, liberty, and pursue
happiness if you do not have access to healthcare.
The next person appointed to the Supreme Court will make the kind of
decisions that will quite literally affect the quality of healthcare
and, therefore, will affect life-or-death issues.
We know that over the past 6 months, this deadly pandemic has led to
this valley of a shadow of death for our Nation and the globe and has
led to 200,000 people perishing in our Nation. This is directly
affected by the urgencies of this pandemic. Millions of Americans have
lost their jobs, and 30 million Americans weren't getting enough food
to eat. Communities that were already vulnerable have been devastated
by this public health and economic crisis.
Now, more than ever, Americans are relying on our safety nets,
especially when it comes to access to healthcare. The next Supreme
Court Justice will inevitably oversee whether the Affordable Care Act
stays in place or not.
Thankfully, because of the Affordable Care Act and, in particular,
because the expansion of Medicaid has happened in 36 States so far,
more Americans are getting insured. And now during this pandemic, more
important than ever, many Americans--millions of Americans--are staying
insured even though they have lost their jobs.
An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in August
reported: ``The ACA, having created several new options for health
insurance unrelated to employment, will protect many recently
unemployed people and their families from losing coverage.''
I know the difference that the Affordable Care Act makes, and in
particular the difference that Medicaid expansion has made, especially
for communities like mine in the State of New Jersey, like the one in
which I live, of hardworking people who are still at the lower echelons
of our economic nation.
This is why I know what the Supreme Court decision could mean if it
strikes down the Affordable Care Act. Especially right now, I know what
it would mean.
Turning again to the New England Journal of Medicine, they make it
plain, and they make it clear:

In the current context of millions of Americans losing
their jobs and an ongoing pandemic, overturning the ACA would
most

[[Page S5754]]

likely be devastating to patients, clinicians, hospitals, and
state economies. The very virus that has brought about record
unemployment levels is the same agent that makes health
insurance--and the new options created under the ACA--more
important than ever.

That is the New England Journal of Medicine.
This fall, the Supreme Court of the United States of America will
consider another challenge to the Affordable Care Act. President
Trump's Justice Department has taken the dangerous position that ``the
entire ACA . . . must fall.''
President Trump is trying to take away the security of the ACA, take
away the law that allows Medicaid expansion, take away the law that
protects people with preexisting conditions and allows them to have
healthcare--the law that, literally, medical professionals are saying
is saving lives today.
And now here we are debating a decision of whom we should put on the
Supreme Court. Will we put another--a third--Trump appointee on the
Supreme Court, one that reflects his values and his views, a Justice
that is likely now to tip the balance even further, that would most
likely overturn the ACA and means that millions of families in the
middle of a pandemic will lose their healthcare?
Days before an election, when my colleagues, just a few short years
ago, said we shouldn't make this decision. This is the conclusion of
colleague, after colleague, after colleague. In that case with Merrick
Garland, we were months and months away from an election--269 days.
Now, we are mere days. It is a decision that will affect the lives of
millions, a decision that goes to the core of our healthcare, our
health, our well-being, our ability to afford what should be a right
for this Nation--access to quality healthcare.
If they go forward with this Justice, what will it mean? It will mean
that the Federal health centers that serve communities that need them
the most would be gutted because that is what the Affordable Care Act
has done for America. It would mean that people with preexisting
conditions, from asthma to cancer to lasting complications of COVID-19,
could be kicked off their coverage at a time when they are more
vulnerable than ever. That is what this decision is about.
It would mean that many seniors who are already living paycheck to
paycheck would have to pay more for their prescription drugs and more
for the preventative services that they receive at no cost today
because of the Affordable Care Act that Donald Trump believes should
fall.
It would mean that young adults who now, more than ever, are relying
on staying on their parents' plan until 26 wouldn't be able to do so
because of the Affordable Care Act that Donald Trump believes should
fall. It would mean that countless babies who need to spend time in the
neonatal intensive unit would hit lifetime limits on care within a few
months or a few weeks of being born.
Gutting the Affordable Care Act, seeing it fall as our President
desires, would mean insurance companies would go back to spending more
of Americans' premium dollars on administrative functions than actual
care. This Supreme Court Justice will determine if the ACA, or the
Affordable Care Act, stands or, as Donald Trump wants, it should fall.
And if it falls, it would mean women would go back to paying more for
their health coverage simply because of their sex.
The Affordable Care Act falling would mean at a time when Black and
Latino Americans are disproportionately dying of this virus, reversing
the gains of the Affordable Care Act has made in narrowing those
disparities now, we would see those communities with less coverage,
less care, less access, less justice.
Donald Trump tried to influence the Court, putting a person on who
reflects his views and his values. Donald Trump wants the ACA to fail.
If he is successful, it will mean more onerous requirements and
barriers to healthcare access during a global pandemic that is already
wreaking devastation and havoc on American communities from sea to
shining sea.
In New Jersey, my State, a repeal of the Affordable Care Act combined
with the impact of COVID-19 would mean 686,000 people in New Jersey
would lose their health coverage, all while dealing with a deadly
pandemic and a recession. Nationally, it would mean 23 million of our
fellow Americans, 23 million people--children, adults, and the
elderly--could lose their coverage if the ACA were repealed during this
pandemic.
The fact is, health coverage saves lives. That is not an
exaggeration. This is life or death. Study after study has borne this
out. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the
expansion of Medicaid alone under the Affordable Care Act saved over
19,000 lives between just 2014 and 2017, and the States that didn't
expand Medicaid saw over 15,000 people die prematurely. That is just
among adults age 55 to 64.
The Affordable Care Act--think about the lives saved. Think about
those who did not have Medicaid expansion and the lives lost, our
fellow Americans. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--that is what is at stake right
now and before the pandemic hit.
We know that many of the people who have been hardest hit by COVID-19
rely on Medicaid. Since the pandemic, Medicaid enrollment in our
country has gone up as more people have been in need. It has grown for
the first time in 3 years. Because of this pandemic, more people are
hurting, and more of our fellow Americans are finding themselves in
crisis. Across the country, more families are able to turn to Medicaid
during this crisis because of the Affordable Care Act. The State of
Kentucky, which the Republican leader represents, had the highest rise
in Medicaid enrollment, with a 17.2-percent increase from February to
August.
This is how our social safety net should work. It should be there in
a crisis. When there is more disease, when there is more death, when
there is more suffering, we as a nation should show more compassion,
more empathy, and more care, not less.
We saw in 2018, when people were asked why they were voting, why we
saw a surge in turnout, it was because people were concerned about
their healthcare. And that was before the pandemic. This election will
be about many things, but most people will know that this is an
election about the security of healthcare.
One President says, again, and I quote: Let it fall. Another wants to
preserve it and put people on the Supreme Court who will defend it as
fundamentally in line with our constitutional ideals--life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. That is the jeopardy. That is what is at
stake using the logic not of any Democrat but using the logic of my
Republican colleague after Republican colleague, my Republican friend
after my Republican friend, who--I heard what they said when they
denied Barack Obama a Supreme Court pick. I heard their words. They
were clear. My friend, the head of the Judiciary Committee, even went
as far as to say: ``Use my words against me.''
If it is the final year of President Trump's term, we should wait
until after the election before we put someone on the highest Court in
the land for a lifetime appointment. What is this about? It is about
the most sacred ideals of our Nation--life, liberty, freedom from fear,
freedom from disease.
I don't know what to say because I see what is happening right now.
People speak passionately about a standard, defend themselves, cite
historic precedent, and then when things shift and they have a chance
to show consistency and to show restraint, show allegiance to comity,
show allegiance to the ideals that bond us together, they instead turn
their backs on their very words. Instead, they betray the principle and
rule that they set in place.
If it was just politics, that would be one thing, but what is at
stake is the healthcare of Americans. There are people afraid tonight.
There are people scared across our country--a parent with a child who
has a rare cancer, an adult struggling to afford their prescription
drugs, someone who is out of a job, someone with a preexisting
condition. This is not about politics. This is about them. It is about
their lives and their well-being.
Millions of Americans benefit from the Affordable Care Act. By
pushing, by rushing this through to get another Trump Justice by a
President who wants that action by Congress, who

[[Page S5755]]

wants the Affordable Care Act to fail, what will that mean? Where will
that leave us when this decision goes to that Supreme Court with three
Justices--one of whom should have been Barack Obama's?
Justice Ginsburg stood up for our ideals. She stood up for this
belief that it is the little person, it is the person with the margins
of life, it is the person who has been demeaned and degraded by
powerful forces--that they should have equality. She fought for and won
battles that my generation takes for granted.
Her last dying wish was not about one President or another but that
we should wait until after this election. I believe she said that not
just because of the conflicts of our time, she said that not just
because she believed it was right but because she believed in the
Supreme Court. She believed that the Supreme Court, no matter what the
politics of our time, should be a place that holds legitimacy in the
Republic, that America should not see that as a body that could be
politicalized by the behaviors of Congress, so she said: Wait.
Ironically, it is the same sentiment that my colleagues said we
should do when Merrick Garland was nominated. Then, they were with
Justice Ginsburg. I tell you, she may be gone, but they should honor
her in truth right now by upholding that sentiment, their sentiments,
the very idea that could possibly give us more hope--that healthcare,
that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can win the day
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from New
Jersey, Senator Booker, for an outstanding statement from the heart.
I think about this moment in history. I think about the fact that
just a few weeks ago, we were mourning the loss of John Lewis. He was a
personal friend, a champion and inspiration, one of the real pillars of
the civil rights movement of the 1960s, who lived on to this day and
carried the torch for so many years when it came to civil rights and
equal rights. I will miss him.
Now there is another loss of another giant. Although she was small in
stature, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had an amazing life story. She was an
extraordinarily bright young woman who just asked for a chance to get a
job in New York with one of the law firms, but because she was a woman,
they turned her away. That lost job must have been a disappointment to
her, but as we reflect on it in the history of this Nation, it was the
biggest break we ever had when it came to the cause of women in modern
times because she went on to become a law clerk, a professor, a judge,
and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice.
In the course of that career, she was such a powerful and effective
advocate for the cause of women across America and, I might add, for
the cause of men too. She made history. That job rejection may have
been a disappointment for a day, but as we reflect on it, thank
goodness she was steered to another path and used it so effectively.
If you left this Chamber tonight and walked across the street to the
Supreme Court, you would find a large group of people, as you have
since last Friday, pausing, reflecting, thanking, praying for Ruth
Bader Ginsburg's life. Across there tonight, they are lighting candles,
dropping flowers and notes, crying, commiserating, really noting the
loss America feels.
I was struck personally by my own family's reaction. My daughter, my
daughter-in-law, and so many others confided in me in ways they rarely
do about how much this woman meant to them. It was time for reflection
in my family and, I am sure, a lot of those across the United States.
She had one last request, one dying wish. She handed it to her
granddaughter and she said: Let the next President pick my successor on
the Supreme Court. It is understandable that she would do that. I know
she probably had a hope in her heart as to who that person might be,
but she knew, after the way the vacancy of Antonin Scalia was treated
by the Republicans in the Senate, that was the way they were going to
handle her situation--at least we thought they would.
Then, of course, Senator McConnell announced a 180-degree reversal in
principle--180-degree reversal. Instead of waiting for the election and
new inauguration of the President to fill her vacancy, he made it clear
that Republicans in the Senate are hell-bent to fill this vacancy as
fast as possible. What is the hurry? Why have they changed their
position after 4 years? Do they doubt that President Trump is going to
be reelected? Did that play into this equation? Who knows. But they are
determined to do it because they have an agenda which is more important
than consistency, more important than honor, more important than
principle. Their agenda is to turn back the achievements and progress
made by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and to leave the American people more
vulnerable in their time of need.
A few weeks ago, I took a poll in Illinois to see what the public
sentiment might be on issues. I was a little surprised how overwhelming
the issue of healthcare still is in my State of Illinois. As I
reflected on it, it made sense. We wake up every day, looking for our
masks, wondering how many more people have died, hoping that we can
protect ourselves and our families. So healthcare is on the forefront
of everyone's mind, and, of course, protection for your family is
always your first instinct. People know that without the Affordable
Care Act they will not have that protection.
We remember--many of us do--the debate in creating the Affordable
Care Act 10 years ago. I might say, in my House and Senate careers, it
is the most important issue I have ever voted on. When again will I be
able to help 20 million Americans find health insurance for the first
time? When will there be another opportunity to make sure that health
insurance sold in America treats people fairly?
The Affordable Care Act eliminated lifetime limits on payouts, which
is eminently sensible when you consider the skyrocketing cost of
medical care and how so many situations in life are so darned
expensive. It said to people: You cannot be discriminated against
because you have a preexisting condition.
I remember the day--most of us do--when applying for health insurance
was a long list of questions, and if you happened to just check one of
those ``yes,'' be prepared, because it meant you had a preexisting
condition, and you were about to be charged a higher premium, if they
would allow you to buy health insurance. Families with children who
survived cancer knew what that meant--health insurance they couldn't
afford or health insurance that wasn't available. The Affordable Care
Act changes that and says you cannot discriminate against a person
because of a preexisting condition.
When we looked at some of the preexisting conditions health insurance
companies were boldly announcing, well, of course, gender could be a
preexisting condition. Women did have to pay higher premiums, you know.
Think of that: gender as a preexisting condition. That was one of the
tricks to deny coverage or to raise premium costs.
Then, when it came to covering your kids, we remember what it was
like--many of us do--when our kids graduated college, thought they were
invincible, and took part-time jobs with no benefits.
I remember calling my daughter and asking: ``Jennifer, do you have
health insurance anymore?''
``No, Dad. I am just fine.''
Well, we got her health insurance, and it cost a pretty penny.
Now, under the Affordable Care Act, I could have kept my daughter
under my family plan until she had reached the age of 26, when she
would have had a better chance of having a better job with benefits.
That is one of the things the Affordable Care Act did, but the Trump
administration and the Republicans in Congress have been determined to
kill the Affordable Care Act from the day it passed. There were over 50
rollcall votes in the U.S. House of Representatives to eliminate the
Affordable Care Act. They all might have passed the House, but they
were not taken up by the Democratic Senate.
They waited for the day, and the day finally came. Senator McConnell
had the majority, and he was setting up to eliminate the Affordable
Care Act here on the floor of the Senate. I will never

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forget that night or that early morning. At 2:30 in the morning, those
doors opened. John McCain, who was very sick--we knew he didn't have
long for this world--had just left a phone conversation with President
Trump. He walked to that well, and he barely lifted that right arm that
had been crippled during his prisoner of war experience in Vietnam. He
lifted it just enough to say ``no,'' and John McCain's ``no'' saved the
Affordable Care Act for millions of Americans.
Did the Republicans learn their lesson? No. They decided that, if
they couldn't win it on the floor of the House and if they couldn't win
it on the floor of the Senate, they would win it across the street with
the Supreme Court. That is what this is all about. That is why Senator
McConnell has reversed his position--a position which he claimed to be
principled. He has reversed his position on filling the vacancy on the
Supreme Court in a President's last year and has said that he is going
to, with determination, fill this seat.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, who
is a friend of mine--and I work with him--had to explain to the
American people why he reversed his position completely on this issue.
Then he announced last night that every Republican Member of the Senate
Committee on the Judiciary was going to vote for President Trump's
nominee. You would have thought he would have waited until that nominee
had been announced, but, clearly, it doesn't make any difference. They
know that whoever that nominee will be will be hell-bent on going
across the street and eliminating the Affordable Care Act in the
Supreme Court.
That is why this issue is not just a matter of debate between the
highest ranking politicians in Washington but is a matter that affects
everyone across America who buys health insurance, and that is just
about all of us. It is to make sure that health insurance is worth
owning and will be there when you need it.
I see some colleagues on the floor, and I want to yield to them
because I know they have their own thoughts to share with you, but it
troubles me greatly what has happened to this Senate. This big Chamber,
this big room, has turned into a museum piece in Washington, DC. We
don't entertain visitors anymore because of COVID-19, but if they were
to come, they could peer down at the desks and say: Well, that is where
people used to stand, called Senators, who actually legislated. We
don't do that anymore here. It is very seldom. Instead, we take up
these partisan causes, like filling the Federal judiciary with
ideologues and violating the traditions of the Senate to fill Supreme
Court vacancies.
This Chamber is just a room, but the Senate is 100 people--100 people
bound together by history, tradition, rules, and mutual respect. What
we are witnessing now with the Senate's effort by the Republicans to
fill this Supreme Court vacancy before a new President is elected is a
violation of all four--history, tradition, rules, and the mutual
respect that is important in this body.
I hope that we can recover from it, not only for the good of the
Senate but for the good of the Supreme Court, and that we can come out
of this with a determination to try to put this Chamber back on track.
This is a sad and dark moment--a loss of a wonderful woman who served
this country so well and this effort to replace her in a manner that
does not speak to the best instincts and history of the U.S. Senate
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, this past Friday, our Nation lost a
giant of a jurist and a champion of gender equality, workers' rights,
voting rights, and civil rights. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg understood
the critical importance of the Supreme Court in safeguarding our
constitutional individual rights.
About 2 years ago, I was sitting next to Justice Ginsburg at a
dinner, and we were talking about the concerns we had about a very
divided Supreme Court. She shared her concerns that we would see many
more 5-to-4 decisions coming in the future, decisions that would roll
back civil rights' protections, workers' rights, individual rights,
efforts to address climate change, and, clearly, a woman's right to
choose--decisions that would harm everyday Americans.
As someone who had been on the Court for more than a quarter of a
century, Justice Ginsburg had understood the dangers of partisan split
decisions. She had spent more than two decades standing up for gender
equality, voting rights, workers' rights, and civil rights. She was
often also a key vote in upholding critical rights for everyday
Americans, such as clean air and clean water protections.
Within a few years of joining the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg had
written a landmark opinion in a 7-to-1 decision that had struck down
the Virginia Military Institute's traditional male-only admissions
policy. She had spoken for nearly the entire Court when she had written
that the differential treatment of men and women ``may not be used . .
. to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority
of women.''
More recently, Justice Ginsburg's powerful voice had led dissents
against partisan 5-to-4 decisions.
In 2007, she led the dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Co., where the bare 5-to-4 majority of the Court had undermined the
plain language ability to bring gender pay discrimination claims.
Justice Ginsburg took the rare step of reading her dissent from the
bench, saying: ``In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is
indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay
discrimination.''
I was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives when the
Ledbetter decision came down, and I was appalled that a bare majority
of the Court interpreted the relevant statute in a way that it had not
been intended. Justice Ginsburg invited the Congress to fix the statute
to make its intent clearer. At that time, Representative George Miller,
the chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, on which I
served, then led the way to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and
it was the first bill that President Obama signed into law in 2009.
In 2013, Justice Ginsburg wrote a scathing dissent in the 5-to-4
decision of Shelby County v. Holder, where a bare majority of the Court
once again gutted the Voting Rights Act. She wrote then: ``Throwing out
preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop
discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a
rainstorm because you are not getting wet.''
Immediately after Shelby County, as should have been expected, many
States passed voter suppression laws that made it much more difficult
for communities of color to vote. That was the intention of those laws
that these States passed. These voter suppression efforts are ongoing
even as we speak, and they will have a negative impact--a really
negative impact--on the 2020 election.
In 2018, she rebuked the 5-to-4 majority in Epic Systems Corp. v.
Lewis, which allowed companies to force their workers to arbitrate
their claims one by one instead of seeking collective action in court.
Why one by one? Because the employer thought all of these employees are
not going to fight us one by one by one.
In calling the majority's decision egregiously wrong, Justice
Ginsburg noted: ``The inevitable result of today's decision will be the
underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the
well-being of vulnerable workers.''
In fact, Epic Systems was one of the cases I brought up with Justice
Ginsburg when I sat next to her at dinner. I said that it was a
horrible decision, and she said: ``And I wrote the dissent.''
To honor Justice Ginsburg's legacy, we should honor her final wish
not to be replaced until a new President is installed. In fact, that is
the rule the Senate Republicans made up in 2016. About 1 hour after
Justice Scalia died on February 13, 2016, Senator McConnell announced
an unprecedented new rule--that the American people should have a voice
in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this
vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President. Then, for
the next 11 months, Senator McConnell blocked President Obama from
replacing Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. That vacancy existed for
almost a year.

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Back then, it didn't take much for other Republicans to join Senator
McConnell. In fact, the rumor was that the majority leader had his
Republican colleagues all lined up to side with him before he even
announced the so-called McConnell rule. That was then. This is now.
Now that the tables are turned and we have a Republican President
instead of a Democratic one, Senator McConnell and his Republican
colleagues are going back on their word. Within hours of Justice
Ginsburg's death, Senator McConnell vowed: ``President Trump's Supreme
Court nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.''
This is what is known as a 180-degree turn--or talking out of both
sides of your mouth. Of course, he is not the only one.
In 2016, Senator Gardner said: ``I think the next president ought to
choose the Supreme Court nominee, and I think it is only fair to the
nominee themselves, and I think that is only fair to the integrity of
the Supreme Court.'' Yet, after Justice Ginsburg's passing, Senator
Gardner flip-flopped, indicating that, if President Trump nominates
someone he likes, he will vote to confirm.
In 2016, Senator Tillis came to the Senate Chamber to declare: ``It
is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of
our Republic not to launch our Nation into a partisan, divisive
confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are
casting their ballots to elect our next President.''
But it took Senator Tillis fewer than 24 hours after Justice
Ginsburg's death to go back on his word and commit to supporting the
``conservative jurist President Trump will nominate.''
In 2016, Senator Graham repeatedly stated: ``The election cycle is
well under way and the precedent of the Senate is not to confirm a
nominee at this stage of the process.''
He even doubled down on his promise, claiming: ``I want you to use my
words against me. . . . If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a
vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey
Graham said let's let the next President, whoever it might be, make
that nomination.''
Then, a week after Justice Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford testified before
the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Graham said plainly to Jeffrey
Goldberg of The Atlantic: ``If an opening comes''--of course he was
talking about a Supreme Court opening--``If an opening comes in the
last year of President Trump's term, and the primary process is
started, we'll wait for the next election.''
When my Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee did what
Senator Graham asked--that we hold him to his word; we wrote a letter
to him to stick by his word--he refused. He indicated that he would
``proceed expeditiously to process any nomination made by President
Trump to fill'' Justice Ginsburg's vacancy.
There are other Republican Senators who stood up with Senator
McConnell in 2016 and now have changed their tune, including Senators
Perdue, Ernst, Barrasso, and Cornyn.
The question that American people should ask is, How can you trust
people who don't keep their word?
This is an urgent question for the millions of Americans who will
lose their healthcare and reproductive freedoms if President Trump and
Majority Leader McConnell are successful in stealing yet another
Supreme Court seat.
The threat this nominee poses to the Affordable Care Act is not some
esoteric debate we are having. It is not theoretical. On November 10,
the Supreme Court will hear yet another partisan challenge to the ACA.
I have no doubt that Donald Trump and the majority leader want a new
Justice in place to strike down the ACA, depriving millions of
Americans of their health insurance, including millions with
preexisting conditions.
The more than 6 million Americans who have tested positive for COVID-
19 will likely be deemed to have a preexisting condition. Add them to
the Americans who will be devastated if the ACA is struck down by the
Trump nominee. Our healthcare is on the line with the next nominee,
regardless of who the nominee is.
Note that the Republicans are saying that every single Judiciary
Republican is going to vote for the nominee, and we don't even know who
the nominee is. Well, obviously, it doesn't matter who the nominee is.
It will be someone who is expected to strike down the ACA.
After all, repealing the ACA has long been No. 1 on the President's
and Republicans' hit list. But getting rid of the ACA is not the only
thing the President is after.
The President's nominee will also oppose abortion rights. So that is
next on their hit list.
Let me be clear. The future of Roe v. Wade is on the line. The future
of a woman being able to control her own body is on the line.
With so much at stake with this nomination, the millions of Americans
who revered Justice Ginsburg are not just going to sit by and do
nothing while my Republican colleagues try to steal yet another Supreme
Court seat. In fact, they are showing up in droves in front of the
Supreme Court to show their support for all that Justice Ginsburg stood
for.
They are going to fight back, and you can be assured I will be right
there fighting back with them. They aren't going to fall for the
trumped-up justifications, explanations, and pretexts that Senate
Republicans are using to go back on their word. And I am confident that
in 6 weeks' time, the American people will hold them accountable.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire
Ms. HASSAN. Madam President, first of all, I would like to thank my
colleague from Hawaii for her remarks just now and for her commitment
to a more equal, more just United States of America.
I rise tonight to join my colleagues in mourning the loss of Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Justice Ginsburg was a brilliant jurist and a persistent patriot. Her
belief in our country and her vision and imagination as a lawyer left
our Nation stronger and more just.
As a litigator, she fought and she won fights for women's equality.
And on the Court, she was a powerful voice for justice, whether in the
majority or in dissent.
Throughout her career and through the final days of her life, she was
a powerful voice calling for every American to be recognized equally
and to be treated with dignity, regardless of gender or personal
circumstances, and the progress and inclusion that she helped build
throughout her life is a testament to both her tenacity and her
unmatched legal mind. It is also an illustration of what is possible in
our country when we reaffirm and stay true to our values.
Justice Ginsburg's vision of what it means to be an American and what
it means to be free changed lives. She helped move our country toward a
more perfect union, and we have to continue her unfinished work.
Like many of my colleagues, I stopped by the Supreme Court over the
weekend. It was incredible to see the outpouring of sheer reverence and
to see the number of people who came on foot, on bicycle, in cars to
pay their respects.
I overheard one mom explain to her children: ``A lot of people loved
her.'' Then, a couple of seconds later, she added for the children:
``And I want you to understand how important she was to our country.''
I hope we all take the time to think about the meaning of Justice
Ginsburg's life and what this loss means for our country. Honoring the
legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg means continuing to fight for the more
equal America that she fought for throughout her entire career.
Unfortunately, though, in a week in which America has reached a
terrible milestone of 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, the Senate majority
leader and Senate Republicans have made their priorities clear. Instead
of working with Democrats to pass the comprehensive COVID-19 relief
bill that the American people so badly need, my colleagues across the
aisle are focused on using all of the Senate's time before the election
to rush through the President's choice for a lifetime appointment to
the Supreme Court, and they are doing so in contradiction of the rules
that they themselves invented in 2016, despite the fact that this
election is not just imminent, it is already underway with voters
casting their ballots in States across the country.

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Our society and our democracy rely on the idea that all sides of
political debates will play by the same rules. That means when any
faction loses, it does so knowing that it will have a fair chance in
the next round. When that understanding is disrupted, it destabilizes
our democracy, leaving people feeling disenfranchised. It is wrong, and
it produces chaos and confusion, and it demonstrates a dangerous trend.
My Republican colleagues are making clear that they do not think the
rules apply to them. It is worth taking a closer look at exactly why
they are violating the rules that they set for themselves and applied
to President Obama's nominee just 4 years ago and what the impact of
their backward priorities will be for the American people.
Right now, the Trump administration's lawsuit to repeal the entire
Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with preexisting
conditions is pending before the Supreme Court and, as you have heard
from my colleagues, scheduled to be argued after the election. Make no
mistake, rushing through this nomination is a last-ditch effort to
repeal the Affordable Care Act through the courts after failing to do
so legislatively for years. Even worse, the Republicans would undermine
healthcare in the midst of a devastating pandemic, just when it is
needed most.
Invalidating the ACA will also mean that those who survive COVID-19--
and, as a result, will have preexisting conditions for the rest of
their lives--will no longer be protected by the ACA when they seek
insurance coverage.
Taking away healthcare from millions of Americans is just one of the
many things at stake. Women's rights, voting rights, civil rights,
workers' rights, so much of what Justice Ginsburg stood for--they are
all at risk. Senate Republicans are not just intent on filling this
Supreme Court seat; they are intent on filling this seat with a person
who will strip away some, if not all, of these rights.
The stakes could not be higher, and the priorities of the American
people are clear. We should follow the rules that the Republicans
created in 2016. We should focus on COVID-19 relief. And we should not
confirm a nominee until after the next President is inaugurated.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg believed in an America where equality would win
out, where everyone played by the same rules in liberty and justice--in
fact, in liberty ensured by justice. It would be a good thing if all of
my colleagues who have the privilege of serving in this Chamber would
reflect on that to honor the giant we just lost.
God speed, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and God bless the United States of
America
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I thank my colleague from New
Hampshire for her beautiful words.
I rise today to join my colleagues in celebrating the life and legacy
of a hero, an icon, and a woman way ahead of her time, Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg.
She was a trailblazer who exceeded all expectations and, through her
example, helped young people, young women across this country believe
that anything and everything is possible, and it is my hope that this
Chamber can follow in her footsteps and exceed expectations when it
comes to this precious democracy that we are supposed to hold and that
we are supposed to take care of.
A few years back, my daughter Abigail and I got to see Justice
Ginsburg--and I had met her a few times--but we were at an event, and
we had our photo taken with her.
Now, as you know, Abigail was in her early twenties, and Justice
Ginsburg had become a cult figure at that point in her eighties--
something we all aspire to--to the point where she had her own hashtag.
So we had our photo taken, the three of us. Afterward my daughter
came up, and she said: Mom, I got a photo of the ``Notorious RBG.'' I
am going to put it on my Facebook page. But, Mom, I hope you don't
mind; I am cutting you out. I just want one with RBG up there.
Justice Ginsburg literally made justice cool for a lot of young
people out there, and that legacy--that legacy, with all the people,
the outpouring of love and support you see at the courthouse--
continues.
When people told Justice Ginsburg that she shouldn't go to law school
because she was a woman, what did she do? She went to Harvard, became
the first woman to work on the Harvard Law Review, and then went on to
graduate from Columbia at the top of her class.
As has been recounted many times, she literally was called before the
dean of Harvard Law School, along with the eight other women who were
in that class of all of those men, and asked why they would be taking
the seat of a man. But that didn't stop her. Nothing stopped her. When
law firms in New York wouldn't hire her because she was a young mother,
what did she do? She became one of only two female law professors at
Rutgers University where she then wrote the brief that led the Supreme
Court to decide for the first time that the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Constitution should protect against laws that treat people differently
solely on the basis of sex.

When they told her that despite her expertise and her novel theories
of how to advance equal protection, when they told her that she
shouldn't argue equal protection cases before the Supreme Court, that
maybe the chances would be better if a man would do it, what did she
do? She argued six cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and leaves
with five out of six victories.
But she didn't stop there. She was nominated as the second woman ever
to serve on the Supreme Court after Sandra Day O'Connor. She was
confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 96 to 3. She served on the Supreme
Court, the highest Court in the land, for 27 years, standing up for
equality and justice, and, as I noted, she became an international icon
well into her eighties.
She did all that by never giving up, and that inspires me as we deal
with what is in front of us right now with this assault on our
democracy. When the odds don't look that good, you never give up.
One of her important majority opinions on the Court built on her work
on equal protection as a young attorney. In United States v. Virginia,
Justice Ginsburg wrote for a 7-to-1 majority that struck down the male-
only admission policy at the Virginia Military Institute. So she not
only wrote the opinion, she got a number of Republican-appointed
Justices to join her.
When she announced the opinion in Court, she said that the equal
protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits any ``law or
official policy that denies to women, simply because they are women,
equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in, and contribute to
society.''
That opinion was joined by Justices appointed by both parties,
including Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and
Justice Kennedy. It was an example of the principle that guided Justice
Ginsburg, in her words, to ``fight for the things you care about, but
do it in a way that will lead others to join you.''
But she was also known for the opinions she wrote in dissent and not
only because she would wear what was sometimes fondly called her
``dissent collar'' when the opinion was announced at the Court.
In Shelby County v. Holder, a 5-to-4 majority struck down important
parts of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with
histories of racially motivated voter suppression to seek court or
Department of Justice approval before changing voting laws, a process
known as preclearance.
Justice Ginsburg authored the dissent, joined by Justices Breyer,
Sotomayor, and Kagan, arguing that ``[t]hrowing out preclearance when
it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes
is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not
getting wet.''
After she finished reading her dissent in Court, she quoted Martin
Luther King, Jr., saying that ``the arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends toward justice'' and adding her own caveat that it bends
toward justice only ``if there is a steadfast commitment to see the
task through to completion.''
To see the task through to completion is part of our job as stewards
of this democracy. We may not see it through to completion, but the
least that we should do is do no harm, and

[[Page S5759]]

the most that we should do is to make it better. That is what she stood
for, and that is what I hope my colleagues will consider in the weeks
to come.
As we gather here tonight, we must also recognize that Justice
Ginsburg's work, as I noted, is still unfinished. Many of the values
that she fought for--equality and justice--are still at stake. The
Supreme Court will continue to make decisions about equal rights for
women, LGBTQ equality, access to clean air and clean water, fair
elections, and workers' rights.
Just 1 week after the upcoming election, the Court will hear
arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable
Care Act which could put coverage for people with preexisting
conditions at risk. That is what the court down in Texas held. People's
healthcare is literally on the line. If the Affordable Care Act is
struck down, over 20 million Americans across the country could lose
their health insurance right in the middle of this pandemic because
there would be no requirement in place to protect them from being
thrown off their insurance.
When the stakes are this high, I urge my colleagues to grant what
Justice Ginsburg described as her ``most fervent wish'' that she will
not be replaced, she said, ``until a new President is installed.''
Those are her dying words. Of course, she used the word ``fervent''
because that is how she approached her life and her work.
At its core, Justice Ginsburg's wish is about fairness. It is about
what is right and what is just.
Four years ago, Leader McConnell created a new rule for Supreme Court
nominations. He refused to consider President Obama's nomination, as is
well known, of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because the country
was 9 months from an election, and, in his words, ``the American people
should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court
Justice.''
So here we are, 42 days until the Presidential election, and people
have already started voting. They are voting in my State not only by
mail, as we speak, but also in person at early voting places all across
our State.
It is our Republican colleagues that set that precedent, and now they
must follow it.
Tonight, I urge my colleagues not to fill this vacancy until the
American people have voted. People are deciding right now who should be
President. If you go back in history, the only time a Justice died this
close to the election was during the time of Abraham Lincoln, when
Justice Taney died who was sadly, infamously, known for writing the
Dred Scott opinion. He died the closest to an election of anyone until
Justice Ginsburg.
And what did Lincoln do? He waited until after the election, until
after he saw if he won, until after he knew what the makeup of the
Senate was. He didn't do it because he was a wise man and because his
interest, as we know, was to bring our country together and to do
everything he could in his power to stop the divide and to have ``one
nation under God.''
My colleagues will have to decide what to do based on their own
integrity, their own commitment to justice. As Justice Ginsburg
demonstrated, lawyers fight for justice. If you live and breathe that
fight like Justice Ginsburg did her entire career, that is our job,
too, to fight for justice, but we have an even more extraordinary
burden and that is also to uphold this democracy and to keep this
country together.
Justice Ginsburg did it in her own way, in her own life. Despite
having incredibly different opinions about the law as Justice Scalia,
they were true friends, and she was able to work with him.
Well, we need to see more of that here. It doesn't mean that we have
to agree on who the next President is. It doesn't mean that we even
have to agree on who the next Justice will be, but our job is to
maintain stability in this country, to bridge that divide, to bring
people together, and to simply let the people decide.
I think it is because of that unique characteristic she had of being
a fighter, of being a hero, of taking risks, of never giving up but
also doing it in a way where people could feel that they knew her. Even
people who disagreed with her--including in this institution--respected
her.
Well, now the eyes are on this place, and it is our job to earn the
respect of the American people. The reason we have seen so many people
expressing their grief at the steps of the Supreme Court and across the
country is because of that respect. Justice Ginsburg opened doors for
women at a time when so many insisted on keeping them shut, and on the
Supreme Court, time and again, she made the case for justice.
For a woman of so many firsts, it is fitting that this coming Friday
she will be the first woman to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. So
let's remember her fight, her legacy, and her fervent wish--all of us--
about securing equality, fairness, and justice for every person in our
country
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, as our colleague just said tonight, you
can't even remember any other member of the Federal judiciary who
became a cultural icon, recognized only by their initials. RBG did, and
she earned her recognition and her place in history through an
astounding career fighting for gender equality, for the rights of LGBTQ
individuals, and for the rights of everybody who had been pushed to the
margins of American society.
Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have now, unfortunately, made it
very clear that they are going to pull out all the stops to unravel the
exceptional work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and they are going to break
their own rule--their own rule. It is not something that was debated on
the other side. They decided to break their own rule pertaining to
election-year appointments to undo the historical record of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg.
For a moment, I want to compare this to another time. When I was a
young man right out of law school, I served for a number of years as
codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers at home. Back then, just like
now, there were a lot of issues that were on people's minds. Just like
today, where there have been lists of issues miles long--from the
rights of LGBTQ Americans to workers' rights, to the ability of every
eligible American to vote, and much more--there was a similarly long
list of issues back when I worked with the senior citizens.
I made the judgment then, because of spending that time with older
people, that healthcare was far and away--far and away, colleagues--the
most important issue because if you and your loved ones don't have your
health, then pretty much everything else goes by the board. You can't
spend time with family. You can't achieve all you want in your job. You
can't even have a chance to walk about outside on a pleasant evening
like this. So healthcare to me and to millions of Americans is far and
away the most important issue in front of this body.
Now, this is the one issue--the one issue that will come up
immediately with the Trump-backed lawsuit going before the Court soon
after the election. So make no mistake about it, and I know it is
awfully hard to follow all the legalese and the procedural motions. At
one point my wife said--I think Senator Merkley may have heard this.
When my wife said she would marry me, she said: You are a lawyer, not
probably a particularly good one, but I am sure glad you did a good job
for the senior citizens. It is hard to follow all the legalese and all
the procedure.
When you set aside all of that surrounding the fact that healthcare
will be the one issue coming up immediately with the Trump-backed
lawsuits soon after the election, tonight we say to the American people
that healthcare in America is at stake. The Affordable Care Act is at
stake, and coverage for 130 million Americans with preexisting
conditions is at stake. If you don't trust Republicans with your
healthcare, you cannot trust Republicans with this Supreme Court seat.
Donald Trump and the Justice Department are suing to have the entire
Affordable Care Act thrown out--every last bit of it thrown out. So I
just want to walk through what this means from sea to shining sea.
If they are successful, the ironclad guaranteed coverage for
preexisting

[[Page S5760]]

conditions is gone; the ban on discrimination against women is gone;
the ban on annual and lifetime limits, gone; coverage for young people
on their parents' plans, gone; guaranteed essential benefits for all
with coverage, gone; no-cost contraceptives for women, gone; cheaper
prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare, gone; Medicaid coverage for
millions and millions of Americans, gone. Most importantly, colleagues,
because of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans can go to bed
tonight knowing that they will have secure, decent healthcare when they
wake up in the morning. If the Trump lawsuit is successful, that, too,
will be gone. That is the Trump agenda on the Affordable Care Act--
ripping it out by the roots no matter how much pain is inflicted on the
American people.
By the way, I made mention of the Gray Panthers. Let's understand. In
this country, we always love to move forward. This is a direct trip
back. The Affordable Care Act locked in protections for those with a
preexisting condition who had faced discrimination. A victory for
Donald Trump in court means you turn back the clock to the days when
healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy because that is what you
have if you allow discrimination against those with preexisting
conditions.
In 2017, the President tried and failed to get the Congress to repeal
the Affordable Care Act, so he couldn't get it done. My colleagues
here, Senator Schumer and Senator Merkley--we all remember that night
and John McCain's hugely consequential role. Donald Trump couldn't get
the Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, so now he is trying to
do it at the Supreme Court.
Donald Trump's Department of Justice is bringing to the Court--along
with dozens of Republican State attorneys general--what I think is a
lot of legal nonsense, but that might not matter to far-right activist
judges who would seize this opportunity to hand a big, big win to the
insurance companies, the drug companies, and other special interests at
the expense of Americans who are vulnerable.
Particularly after Justice Ginsburg's passing, there is a real chance
that the Supreme Court will hand down a partisan ruling giving the
President the win he wants so much over the Affordable Care Act. If he
gets to choose the person who takes the seat held by the revered RBG,
the Affordable Care Act will be gone, and the Republican healthcare
agenda is coming, and it is coming after vulnerable Americans from sea
to shining sea.
Donald Trump might tell you something different, but the American
people know he doesn't often tell the truth about healthcare. Once in a
while, the truth does come out. That is what happened one day back in
May, the last day he had the opportunity to pull out of this anti-ACA
lawsuit before the Court. The President was asked whether he might have
a last-minute change of heart, but he made his goal clear. He said:
``We want to terminate healthcare under ObamaCare.'' That was in May.
Hospitals in COVID-19 hotspots around the Nation were full of
Americans at that time who were dying alone amid a global contagion
that had shut down our country. Not even a nationwide public health
disaster could get Donald Trump to reconsider his position on the
Affordable Care Act
If Donald Trump wins the Supreme Court case, having had the
coronavirus will be a preexisting condition, and insurance companies
can use it to discriminate against you.
It obviously goes without saying that the Trump agenda would leave
American healthcare in ruins. He has fraudulently promised a new and
comprehensive healthcare plan. We stopped counting after 9 or 10 times,
but it is all a fraud because all this administration has done since
day one is make healthcare worse and more expensive for Americans.
I have tried to point out that even Medicare is headed for a crisis
because of Donald Trump and his incompetent administration. He knew the
coronavirus was highly contagious and a lethal pandemic, but he denied
it for weeks and weeks while the virus spread nationwide. When the
pandemic eventually exploded, the economy shut down, and that has been
devastating, as I have pointed out, to the finances of Medicare. The
Medicare trust fund will be insolvent within 4 years during the next
Presidential term.
So we have said on the Finance Committee, where we have jurisdiction
over Medicare, that whoever wins this election is going to be in charge
during the biggest crisis Medicare has ever faced. If Donald Trump is
in charge, I believe it will be the end of the Medicare guarantee of
defined, secure, and high-quality benefits for the older people of this
country. Seniors may have to figure out some other way to pay for
healthcare, prescription drugs.
The bottom line is, wiping out the guarantee of healthcare is what
the Trump agenda has always been about--gutting the Affordable Care Act
through regulations, bringing back junk insurance, and cutting access
to women's healthcare. If Donald Trump fills the Ginsburg seat and has
the Supreme Court totally on his side, you can bet the courts will be
siding against typical Americans and for special interests with every
opportunity.
Let me close simply by touching on one other vital healthcare issue.
Women's healthcare--particularly reproductive healthcare--is right at
the center of this debate about the future of the Ginsburg seat.
Republican lawmakers have been trying to throw that away after more
than 45 years of settled law. They have been fighting to go against the
majority opinion of the American people and overturn Roe v. Wade,
denying a woman's right to access to healthcare that woman--that
woman--says she needs.
Even today, just a few hours ago, Senate Republicans dusted off a
decades-old anti-science battle against the safe and mainstream
reproductive health medication formerly known as RU486. The bill they
proposed, which Democrats have blocked, comes down to a backdoor ban on
safe and legal medication for reproductive healthcare. Major new
regulations restrict women's access to essential, time-sensitive
medications, putting the government right in between women and their
doctors. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. It was wrong when Republicans
were waging the same ideological battle 30 years ago and wrong when you
now try to take away women's reproductive healthcare choices, because
more women will die. What sense does it make to bring this anti-science
and anti-women's health proposal forward in the middle of a raging
pandemic?
Today, the country crossed a horrendous milestone--200,000 American
lives lost to COVID-19. All that mass death and suffering. Republicans
aren't working across the aisle to close the shortage gap on personal
protective gear or expand access to care; they are busy spending time
waging an endless campaign against women getting healthcare.
With the passing of Justice Ginsburg, the campaign reaches a new
stage. In my view, it is not just a question of what happens to Roe v.
Wade or access to therapies and drugs; it is about a much bigger and
more dangerous proposition--government control over women's bodies.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party are working toward that kind of
government control, and it means government control over women's
futures. That is what is at stake. That is what Justice Ginsburg fought
so hard against.
She has left, as I call it, an astounding legacy of fighting on the
side of fairness and equality again and again for so many people who
didn't have power, didn't have clout, and didn't have lobbies. What an
American hero. In my view, she has made it clear for all of us here
that now, to protect her legacy, we have an immediate, five-alarm,
DEFCON issue, and that is healthcare, healthcare, healthcare.
As I have been saying since late Friday night, if you don't trust
Republicans with your healthcare, you cannot trust Republicans with
this election or this Supreme Court seat.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I will be brief.
First, I want to thank all of my colleagues who have already spoken
and who will speak. We have over 15 of our colleagues talking about
this issue because it is so vitally important to the American people.
Now, let me tell you a little tale. About 40 or 50 years ago, after
Barry

[[Page S5761]]

Goldwater lost for the Presidency, some of the hard-rock conservatives
realized that they had to create something that would help them realize
their goals, and it gradually grew and grew and grew and by 1980 was
very strong with the election of Ronald Reagan.
At that point, these conservatives realized that their views would
never be enacted by the elected branches of government--the article I
branch and the article II branch--because their views were so far to
the right of not only the average American but even the average
Republican. They realized that the one way they could move America in
their hard-right direction was the courts, the nonelected branch. They
endeavored to place, through many different organizations--at the top
of the list, the Federalist Society, but many others--these people,
many of whom they had cultivated since they were in law school, on the
bench.
This vacancy caused by the unfortunate death of RBG would lock in
this hard-right agenda for a generation--for a generation. All the
things that people in America believe in could be undone by an
unelected group, the Supreme Court of the United States.
As my colleague from Oregon just outlined, healthcare would be so far
away from what the American people need.
The right of a woman to choose. The right of a woman to healthcare.
The ACA, which they want to repeal, which will go before the Court, has
protections for women's healthcare--gone.
The right of unions. This Court, even without such a conservative
majority, pushed forward the Janus case. I believe their goal is to
eliminate all unions and make America a right-to-work country, as they
have endeavored to make many States right-to-work.
LGBTQ rights, passed because of the courageous actions of Justice
Kennedy, could be evaporated.
Climate, dealing with climate change--we could see the Clean Air
Clean Water Act eviscerated by this new rightwing Court.
Voting rights--one of the most awful decisions, the Shelby decision,
led by Chief Justice Roberts, where they said ``Oh, there is no more
discrimination in America; we don't need the Federal Government to
protect voting rights''--undone, and we have seen what happened
throughout the country since then.
And civil rights--just about anything that this country has made
progress on and holds dear--will be undone by this new Court.
This is not just a political debate between Democrats and
Republicans. I tell the American people: Everything you need and want--
just about everything--will be taken away inexorably, month after
month, year after year, decision after decision, by this new Court,
which, as my colleague from Rhode Island has ably documented, has been
put forward by a hard-right group led by some very narrow, greedy
people who don't want to pay any taxes and who don't want any
government regulation. They are rich and powerful. They don't want
anyone interfering with any of that.
We will rue the day--rue the day--that we add another hard-right
Federalist Society-approved jurist to this Supreme Court, and America
will have a very, very difficult time recovering.
I urge my Republican colleagues, who know the hypocrisy of saying to
Merrick Garland ``You shouldn't go forward'' but to this new nominee
``You should,'' for the sake of this body, for the sake of the country,
for the sake of progress, for the sake of the viability and forward
advance of our citizenry, think twice--think twice.
It is going to be a sad day in America and will lead to very bad
consequences for this country if a solid, hard-right majority on this
Court is able to rule over our lives.
I hope, I pray, and I will do everything I can to see that that
doesn't happen.
I yield the floor and thank my colleague for his yielding for these
brief moments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I join my colleagues here on the floor
tonight to honor and pay tribute to a remarkable legal mind, an
incredible American, an icon, an inspiration, and a wonderful human
being: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, known to the younger generation as
the ``Notorious RBG.''
RBG was born into a world in which few, if any, opportunities existed
for women beyond the role of wife and mother. She helped build a world
in which the doors were opened; the doors of opportunity were blown
wide. It was a powerful, powerful undertaking, and she was
extraordinarily successful in it.
She graduated from high school at 15. She went on to college. She
went on to law school. She graduated in a class of 500 students, and
she tied for first in her class in 1959. I was 3 years old at that
point.
Then she applied for jobs, and she faced the discrimination of ``You
are a woman, so we cannot hire you at our corporate law firm.''
Then she applied for clerkships with the Supreme Court, and the
Supreme Court Justices said: You are a woman, and our doors are closed
to you.
Perhaps this was a fortuitous moment because she went on, therefore,
to take on a job as professor at Columbia University and from that to
lead the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU. As director of the ACLU
Women's Rights Project, she argued six landmark gender discrimination
cases before the Court. Plain language, great heart, brilliant logic,
and considerable legal tactics went into winning five of those six
cases--an incredible record for anyone who has appeared before the
Court.
One of the tactics she undertook was to argue cases where men were
being discriminated against because they were men, and by winning those
cases, she established a principle where neither men nor women could be
discriminated against.
There is the Frontiero v. Richardson case in 1973, where a female Air
Force lieutenant sued to get the benefits for her husband that a male
member of the military would normally get for his wife. By winning that
case, she opened the door to the concept, the principle, that gender
discrimination is not acceptable under our Constitution.
She put forward and argued the case of Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld in
1975 just 2 years later, again, arguing for a man who, as a spouse, was
denied Social Security benefits that were available to a woman as a
spouse and, by winning that case, more deeply established the premise
that under our Constitution, you cannot discriminate on gender.
She went on to the Court and had many momentous decisions that she
wrote and dissents that she wrote. One of the cases that she wrote the
majority opinion on was an 7-to-1 case to overturn Virginia Military
Institute's men-only policy, arguing that it violated the 14th
Amendment's equal protection clause.
She wrote the following: ``Women seeking and fit for a VMI quality
education cannot be offered anything less, under the State's obligation
to afford them genuinely equal protection.''
She continued: ``Generalizations about `the way women are,' estimates
of what is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying
opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the
average description.'' And a law that ``denies to women, simply because
they are women, full citizenship stature--equal opportunity to aspire,
achieve, participate in and contribute to society,'' violates the equal
protection clause. Eight to one, that is a massive victory.
I thought it was very interesting, the point she often made in her
dissent. The Supreme Court decided in the 2007 case of Ledbetter v.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.--the majority said: Do you know what? If you
have been discriminated against in pay in your job, and you learn about
it years later, you can no longer appeal for redress because you would
had to have come to the Court at the moment the discrimination first
occurred. Of course, that was a catch-22, an impossible situation. If
you didn't know about it, you couldn't possibly come to the Court. She
addressed this, and she said: The majority does not ``comprehend, or is
indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of paid
discrimination.'' So she called on Congress to act to address, really,
this mistaken opinion of the Court. And we did so in 2009, the first
year I came to the Senate.
There is another dissent that I think was powerful: Shelby County v.
Holder.

[[Page S5762]]

The majority struck down Voting Rights Act protections against voter
suppression and intimidation, arguing that those things no longer
exist. It is as if you have a penalty for robbery that is so effective
that everyone quits robbing, so you get rid of the law; the Supreme
Court strikes down the law that says that robbery is an offense. It
made no logical sense. However, in her dissent, she described it in a
way we can all understand. She said the ruling was ``like throwing away
your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.''
The foundation she laid on gender discrimination created the
foundation for similar arguments to end LGBTQ discrimination. They came
to play in Romer v. Evans, where the Court overturned laws around the
country that criminalized gay sex, or Obergefell v. Hodges, the case
that established marriage equality, or the case of Bostock v. Clayton
County, decided this year, that banned employment discrimination
against LGBTQ workers. So her arguments reverberate in continuous ways.
Losing her is a very powerful and difficult moment because of her
championship of opportunity in this country. So on Sunday night, I went
down to the Supreme Court. I had thought about it on Friday night when
word passed of her dying. On Friday night, I thought: It is going to be
a scene of confrontation, of people with bull horns yelling at each
other and confronting each other. That doesn't fit how I want to honor
her. And I thought on Sunday night: I need to go and be at the Supreme
Court. I was so relieved to find that there was not a scene of
confrontation; there was a scene of hundreds of people coming to honor
her championship of opportunity in our country, the role that she
played for so many so often as an advocate and as a Justice.
This is a piece of what it looked like, although you have to kind of
multiply the flowers and everything you see over a huge expanse. This
is just a small portion of it.
I was very struck by watching people kneel down to write with chalk--
women, men, boys, and girls--to say what she meant to them, what she
meant to this country, and what she meant to striking open the doors of
opportunity.
Then I started reading some of the things that were being written.
This is one of them. This says: ``We can because she did. Thank you,
RBG.''
In another written sign, there was a quote:

``I ask no favors for my sex. . . . All I ask of my
brethren is that they will take their feet off our necks.''
Give us opportunity.

This is actually Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoting Sarah Grimke of South
Carolina, born in 1792. Sarah became the country's first female
abolitionist and early pioneer of the women's movement. When Ruth Bader
Ginsburg quoted her in the ``Notorious RBG'' documentary, it made this
quote famous for a generation.
I was struck by this sign, which I thought basically summed up her
entire efforts on women's rights. It is a quote of hers that says:
``Women belong in all places decisions are being made.'' You can see at
the end the massive number of flowers and signs people have left in
front of the Supreme Court.
Then I saw this, which summed up a young woman's commentary on that
principle:

I grew up never knowing there was a glass ceiling because
of you. Thank you, RBG.
So we mourn her loss. She was a champion for opportunity for all. She
was a champion for so much that goes to making this world a better
place for ordinary people--ordinary people--which brings us to the
challenge we have before the Court because realize that the Supreme
Court has become a very powerful, nine-member, appointed-for-life
superlegislature.
It is not calling balls and strikes any longer--no. It is a setting
for a pitch battle between the original vision of our country--``we the
people'' government or, as Lincoln said, government of, by, and for the
people--and a different vision for our country; a Federalist Society
vision for our country; a vision of, we the powerful minority want to
control the government for our own benefit. That is the battle that is
being waged on the Court. Is it government by and for the people or
government by and for the powerful?
This has been a battle that has been waged since our 1787
Constitution. In 1781, we had our first Constitution, the Articles of
Confederation, and the minority view of the White, wealthy, powerful
South was protected by a requirement for a supermajority in that first
Constitution, the Articles of Confederation.
The Founders said: This isn't government by and for the people. This
is not government by and for the people--no. The majority will is the
power of government by and for the people.
So that was embodied in the Constitution we have now, that vision of
``we the people.''
That minority from the South, wanting to protect slavery, said: We
need strategies to prevent the majority from eliminating slavery, and
we have to make sure that there are no civil rights granted to
individuals of color in our Nation who might undermine our complete
control of the governments at the State level.
That minority said: We are very wealthy, and we don't want any laws
that undermine our wealth, so we need a strategy to control and prevent
the people from getting fair wages and fair working conditions because
that means we make less money ourselves.
So they pursued a strategy called nullification, a strategy that said
no Federal law will have any impact on our State unless we endorse it
at the State level.
Eventually that fell before the Court, so then they pursued the
development of the supermajority blockade of decisions being made in
this very Chamber, on behalf of racism. The supermajority was forged in
the fires of racism. For 87 years, no law was blocked by this Chamber,
by the supermajority, except civil rights.
Then this battle expanded. It expanded to issues of corporate power
versus consumer rights, corporate power versus working conditions. This
is where we come to the current battle between the Federalist Society
weighing in on behalf of government by and for the powerful versus
those who believe in the vision of our Constitution of government by
and for the people.
So we have lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who honored our constitutional
vision, and we have a President and a majority in this Chamber who are
intent in packing the Court on behalf of the wealthy and powerful.
There is at this moment just tremendous damage being done to the
integrity of this body because the same party in the majority 4 years
ago said: We have a principle--the McConnell rule--that if a seat
becomes vacant during an election year, we must listen to the people
and let them decide whether the current President or a different
President decides. Will it be the Republican nominee or the Democratic
nominee?
They took that vote, and they went with it. Many spoke out in favor
of it, of the principle. Many said: This is the absolute right thing to
do--even though it was the first time in U.S. history that this body
did not debate the nomination or vote on the nomination, breaking the
protocol of our entire history in order to steal a Supreme Court seat
from President Obama and pass it on to the next President
So here we are, 4 years later, much deeper into an election year. In
fact, the election has already started, with many absentee ballots
having been delivered, having been voted, having been returned. So any
form of integrity would be to honor the McConnell rule from 4 years ago
and say: What we did 4 years ago was principled. We said we believed in
it. It helped out the Republicans enormously, but, you know what, we
are principled individuals, and so we are going to stick with the same
frame that we argued before the public 4 years earlier.
So I ask my colleagues, are there not a whole number of you who will
come together--together--and say: Yes, we have integrity with the
decision we made 4 years ago, the McConnell rule we argued 4 years ago,
the rule that gave a Supreme Court seat to President Trump and took it
away from President Obama, for the first time stealing a Supreme Court
seat in our history? But we are going to honor that same principle
today.
I ask my colleagues, search your hearts. I ask, do you want to be
remembered in this role of so fiercely advocating a principle that
benefited you

[[Page S5763]]

then and so fiercely violating it now, to your own benefit once again,
doing so much damage to the integrity of this Chamber and so much
damage to the vision and principle of government of, by, and for the
people?
Let that not be the case. Let every Member come here to the floor and
together actually hold a debate.
We see no Members on the floor today--Republican colleagues. Having--
many of them--stated that they are quite ready to violate the principle
they argued so strongly 4 years ago, we don't know where they went.
They are gone. They are not here.
So let the American people call attention because the American people
love our Constitution. The American people love ``we the people.'' The
American people love the principle of government of, by, and for the
people and do not want to see it trampled in an effort to sustain a
massive amount of corporate power against the consumer, wealthy power
against the worker, and racist power against civil rights.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, in the summer of 1920, America ratified
the 19th Amendment. This breakthrough in our history, born of decades
of setback and struggle by many unremembered women who never lived to
actually cast a vote for what to us now is a self-evident proposition
that women in this country should have the right to vote, moved this
country one step closer to equality. That is why I think it is so
fitting that, a century later, we pay our respects to the late Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, more than anyone, advanced the cause of
equality between men and women over her remarkable career.
Justice Ginsburg's commitment to equality was not the result of lofty
idealism but the hard experience of her life.
Thirteen years after ratification of the 19th Amendment, Joan Ruth
Bader Ginsburg was born to a working-class family in Brooklyn. It was
the middle of the Great Depression, and her father sold furs at a time
when no one would buy them. Tragically, her mother died of cancer
before Ruth graduated from school.
But these challenges, like others she would face, did not defeat her.
They didn't prevent her from graduating first in her class at Cornell.
They didn't exclude her from Harvard Law School, where she was one of
only 9 women in a class of 550 and had to justify to the dean why she
had taken the place of a man. She finished her law degree at Columbia,
where she once again was first in her class, and not a single law firm
would hire her. She applied to clerk for Justice Felix Frankfurter on
the Supreme Court, who said that, although she was an impressive
candidate, he wasn't ready to hire a woman.
She understood these early firsthand experiences with discrimination
not merely as barriers to her obvious talents and potential but as a
vicious threat to our country's full potential. She knew that any
country that would deny a single person's chance to make a contribution
on account of their race or their gender or their religion or whom they
loved will never fully flourish. Tearing down these barriers became the
cause of her career.
She rose to become a full professor at Rutgers Law School and founded
America's first law journal on gender issues. Later, she returned to
Columbia Law School, where she became the first woman to hold a full
professorship. She worked pro bono for the ACLU, cofounding their
Women's Rights Project. She quickly became one of the most accomplished
litigators in the country, writing a brief the Supreme Court cited in
Reed v. Reed to rule for the first time that discrimination on the
basis of sex violated the 14th Amendment. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's
argument led the Court to overcome centuries of narrow views about the
proper role of women in American life. As a result, the Court's holding
redefined American law.
Ruth's accomplishments led to an appointment to the prestigious U.S.
Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and in 1993 President Clinton
named her to the Supreme Court. Her nomination sailed through this body
with 96 votes--a reminder of a time not so very long ago when the
Senate actually understood its constitutional responsibility to advise
and consent and what that actually meant.
For more than a quarter-century on the Court, Justice Ginsburg
authored rulings that promoted fairness, advanced equality, and secured
hard-won rights. They upheld affirmative action and protected a woman's
right to choose.
Her dissent in one gender discrimination case was so powerful, it
inspired the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the very first legislation
President Obama signed.
At the same time, she could never accept decisions that nullified the
right to vote or otherwise limited our democratic values, even when it
was hard for some of her colleagues to perceive the systemic racism in
our country. When they were gutting critical protections to the Voting
Rights Act, she had the common sense to tell them, you are ``throwing
away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.''
As always, she cut legal convention and saw with clear eyes the
enduring threat discrimination poses to our elections. She knew voters
still deserved the protection of the law, and all these years later,
after State after State after State has passed laws dispossessing
people of important rights with respect to the right to vote, she has
been proved right
As we reflect on her legacy in a real sense, I would say Justice
Ginsburg herself should be thought of as a founder of our country, not
because she had an important title or wore a black robe--although, she
wore it as well as anyone in the countless images of her reproduced on
T-shirts and tote bags and onesies, as the ``Notorious RBG''--but
because she knew where we had fallen short and dedicated her life to
calling America closer to our best traditions of equality, liberty, and
opportunity for all, because the young Joan Ruth Bader knew America
would be worse off without her.
Justice Ginsburg made America more democratic, more fair, and more
free.
Mr. President, before I turn it over to my hard-working colleague
from Michigan who is here later than he should be only because that is
the kind of person he is, working so tremendously hard on behalf of the
people of Michigan and the people of this country--let me just say one
word about where we find ourselves in the Senate. I am just going to
take 2 minutes to do this.
I believe that American history can be best understood, from the very
founding of our country until now, as an epic battle between the
highest ideals that humanity has ever expressed in our founding
documents and the worst instincts of human beings. That is the founding
that took the form of the institution of slavery. You can draw a
straight line from those days to these days. There is no doubt in my
mind which side of that line Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on.
There is no guarantee that this country is going to become more
democratic, more fair, and more free. That took the work of
suffragettes; it took the work of enslaved people like Frederick
Douglass--another founder of this country who, in his lifetime, changed
the entire approach of the abolitionist movement to argue that the
Constitution was not a pro-slavery document, as they were arguing at
the time, but that it was an anti-slavery document and that we weren't
living up to the ideals of that Constitution. That is another self-
evident fact today, to us, but it wasn't at the time that Frederick
Douglass made those arguments.
There is no doubt in my mind that if we find ourselves with a 6-to-3
Court, and we have replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg not with somebody who
has an appreciation for the direction this country needs to go, which
is to enable all of us to participate fairly and justly and equally in
the society, but one where the most powerful and the most well
connected are able to get the courts to pay attention to them, while
working people all over this country can't have the basic health
insurance that everyone else in the industrialized world has come to
expect, we are going to be a poorer country for it.
My final point is--before I turn it over to the Senator from
Michigan--the fact that we got here with a majority leader who has
completely undermined any sense of integrity in this

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body with respect to the rules--not speaking personally about him--is a
real problem. It is hard for me to see how this place will ever make
enduring change that we need to make if the American people have
completely lost faith in it.
In Mitch McConnell's Senate, words have lost their meaning. The rules
are what you can get away with politically. That is the outer boundary
of where you can go. It is moments like this that I remind them this is
not the first Republic that has failed. When words lose their meaning,
when promises mean nothing, when commitments mean nothing, that is when
institutions fail.
I, for one, hope that we will put this era behind us and not return
to some old era--I am not interested in that--but build a Senate that
is actually worthy of the 21st century, worthy of the example Ruth
Bader Ginsburg set, worthy of the expectations our kids and
grandchildren have of us and that we have of them and of America's
place in the world.
We are not going to do it this way. We can't do it this way. We have
a chance to make a change, and I hope that we will.
I yield the floor.
I say to my friend from Michigan, thank you for your patience and
indulgence.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan
Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, like countless Americans, I am grieving
the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As the second woman to serve
on the Supreme Court, and the first Jewish woman to do so, she was a
pioneer, a brilliant jurist, and a historical giant who blazed the
trail for many.
When I reflect on her life's work, I think of her tireless efforts
for women; I think of her tireless efforts to end discrimination of any
kind; and I think of her tireless work to give a voice to all of those
who do not have a voice. She was fiercely committed to ensuring that
justice, fairness, and equality would reign across our country. She was
loyal not only to the Constitution but to the people whose lives she
knew would be affected by her rulings.
Within hours of the announcement of her death--as Americans across
the country mourned her loss and paid homage to her legacy--some,
unfortunately, turned their attention immediately to filling a vacancy
and also started to scheme on how to ram through a nominee before
election day--only a little over 40 days from now.
It is important to remember that our constitutional democracy is
built upon a system of checks and balances, with three coequal branches
of government. The Supreme Court plays an important role in determining
and deciding important questions of law, and it represents a core
pillar of our democracy. Its rulings profoundly shape the rights and
the lives of Michiganders and all Americans.
For example, later this fall, the Court will be taking up a case
pushed by the Trump administration to completely eliminate the
Affordable Care Act. The Court's ultimate decision will effectively
determine the fate of healthcare for millions of Michiganders and
Americans.
If the Supreme Court strikes down protections in the Affordable Care
Act, people with preexisting conditions will be at risk of losing
protections provided under the law. Insurance companies will again be
able to go back to the days of discriminating against people with
preexisting conditions--or even dropping a person's health coverage
entirely--at a time when people need healthcare the most. Sadly, being
a woman could also again become a preexisting health condition, leading
to higher costs and limited options.
Insurance companies will, once again, be able to impose annual or
lifetime limits for coverage, raising costs and making healthcare
unaffordable and inaccessible for many Michiganders. We also know that
seniors on Medicare could pay more for prescription drugs.
And anyone who has arthritis, diabetes, or cancer--or anyone who gets
sick--will see their healthcare costs go up, and far too many people
may be forced into financial ruin and bankruptcy if they get sick. In
all, 23 million Americans could lose their current health insurance.
In sum, I think it is unconscionable that President Trump, along with
Senate Republicans, are attempting to undermine critical healthcare in
the midst of a once-in-a-century public health crisis. And it is not
just healthcare that is on the line when filling this Supreme Court
vacancy.
Women may lose their right to their reproductive freedom if the
seminal decision of Roe v. Wade is overruled; the Court may further
erode protections for workers and continue to undermine unions; and the
Court may side with large corporate special interests rather than
ensure a level playing field for workers.
The appointment of a Supreme Court nominee puts an awful lot on the
line. Voting rights and the core principle of one person, one vote are
on the line. Upholding basic critical civil rights are on the line.
Equality for millions of LGBTQ Americans who seek nondiscrimination
protections is on the line, and at stake is whether the Court will
protect our air and our water.
Simply put, the Supreme Court has the final word on how we address
the major challenges of our time. In a powerful sense, it is the last
line of defense for everyday Americans.
With so much on the line, we should not rush a Supreme Court nominee
through what should be a deliberative process. Jamming the Supreme
Court nomination through now will, without question, further divide our
country and disregards the fact that the American people are now voting
or soon will be in many States. In fact, later this week, voters in
Michigan will begin casting their ballots.
Issues before the Court are life-changing, and Americans should have
a voice in selecting who will choose the next nominee--a nominee, if
confirmed, who will serve for a lifetime.
We can certainly wait for the American people to be heard. The
selection of a Supreme Court nominee can certainly wait until after
Inauguration Day.
What cannot wait is to help millions of Michiganders and Americans
suffering as a result of the COVID crisis. There is no question that
the Senate has an important duty to advise and consent on nominations,
but this body must first effectively address the unprecedented public
health and economic crisis now confronting this Nation.
To do so, we need to come together in a bipartisan manner. I know it
is possible. We were able to come together and pass robust, bipartisan
coronavirus relief legislation in March and in April, and I remain
ready to work in a bipartisan manner again to pass meaningful
legislation again.
More than 200,000 Americans have lost their lives from this pandemic,
including approximately 7,000 in Michigan. The numbers are staggering.
Behind these devastating statistics are people--mothers, fathers,
sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, and children. Tragically, some are
projecting that we could see a total of 400,000 Americans die by
January.
There are steps that Congress must take right now to stem the tide of
this pandemic. Not acting now in a bipartisan way to save more lives is
an unconscionable betrayal of our duty to protect the American people.
We must provide relief to families and workers who have lost their jobs
through no fault of their own and worry every single day about how to
keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
We must support small businesses that need Federal funding to stay
afloat and to rebuild our economy after we defeat this COVID virus. We
must support parents and schools trying to ensure students can learn in
a safe environment and keep up with their studies.
We must step up for communities across Michigan and the United States
that have been on the frontline of coronavirus response efforts. Our
communities are facing massive budget challenges that could force deep
cuts to essential services or layoffs of teachers and first responders
and law enforcement officials.
Now is the time for us to rise to the challenge. Americans are losing
their lives and their livelihoods to this cruel pandemic. I know we can
turn the tide, but it will take political will. It is not too late to
save hundreds of thousands of lives and countless jobs, but we must
focus on effectively confronting the coronavirus together, and we must
do it now.

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Our focus should not be on rushing to fill a Court vacancy. That can,
and should, wait until Michiganders and the American people have had an
opportunity for their voices to be heard and a new Presidential term to
begin.
The COVID crisis is urgent, and it must be our priority first and
foremost.
Filling a Supreme Court vacancy can certainly wait, with voting
already under way and election day only 42 days away. Let's come
together in a bipartisan way and together do the right thing.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Michigan
for outlining the stakes for the American people.
I will start tonight with the two principle reasons we gather tonight
on the Senate floor. We gather on this floor tonight to reflect upon
the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to pay tribute to her life of public
service and to outline, as so many of our colleagues have outlined
tonight, what is at stake for American families in a debate about the
next Supreme Court Justice.
Let me start with the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Nothing we could
say tonight would do justice to her story, but her story is an American
story. It is a story of hard work and struggle, a story of overcoming
discrimination--discrimination that I and so many others have never
faced. It is also a story of knocking down barriers for women, a story
of defending workers fiercely, a story of defending voting rights, and
so much more that we will talk about in the next number of days.
It is also a very human story, as much as it is an American story. It
is a human story about her heroic battles--plural--many battles with
cancer, at least two kinds of cancer, over the course of 20 years. This
struggle, this heroic struggle, this battle helped to transform Ruth
Bader Ginsburg--then Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg--into an American icon
and an inspiration to millions of Americans.
We mourn her passing, and we will, in the days ahead, continue to
laud her extraordinary accomplishments, her achievements as a lawyer
and a Federal appeals court judge and, of course, her 27 years as an
Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
At the same time as we pay tribute to her, we have, I believe, an
obligation to make it clear what is at stake, what is on the line for
tens of millions of Americans. I will focus on one subject area
tonight, healthcare. We know that after failing to repeal the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act numerous times--and ``numerous'' is
an understatement--after failing that many times, Senate Republicans,
along with the President, will try now to ram through a Supreme Court
nomination that could, and very likely will, be the deciding vote to
destroy the Affordable Care Act and all of its protections.
I will not dwell tonight on the blatant hypocrisy of this action. I
will talk mostly about healthcare. But the hypocrisy, I think, is well
known all these days, since Justice Ginsburg's passing, by so many
Republicans who said just 4 years ago that it was the wrong thing to
do, even within 10 months in a Presidential election year, to confirm a
new Justice. But here we are, and that same party, those same Senators,
on tape over and over saying that they would not do this, are here
trying to ram through another nomination.
By the way, when you consider the last number of months--the months
of May, June, July, and August--this body, the U.S. Senate, did little
else but nomination after nomination and a defense bill and little
else. There was no action, no substantial action on a COVID-19 relief
bill despite the challenges our Nation faces. I guess nominations is
all we are supposed to do in the Senate.
Here we go again on the most consequential nomination that a Senate
could consider. We know that the U.S. Supreme Court has a case before
it that will be argued in early November that could be the end of the
Affordable Care Act. In May, President Trump laid out in no uncertain
terms what he wants to do to this healthcare law: ``We want to
terminate healthcare under ObamaCare.'' Terminate healthcare is his
goal--in the middle of the worst public legal crisis in 100 years, a
worldwide pandemic that we are still suffering the effects of. We just
crossed the 200,000 death total just hours ago or a few days ago at the
most, 8,000 of those in Pennsylvania. At a time when so many families
have been devastated either by the virus and the suffering that comes
with contracting the virus or a death in the family--family members,
deaths of friends and people who folks have worked with--in the midst
of an economic crisis, a jobs crisis, in the midst of all that, we are
supposed to go along with a process to ram through a new Supreme Court
Justice and take no substantial action on a COVID relief bill.
So much is at stake in the Affordable Care Act. I will try to go
through a long list as fast as I can. We know that more than 20 million
could lose coverage who gained coverage as a result of that act. We
know that 135 million would lose their protections for a preexisting
condition. In Pennsylvania, those numbers translate into 1.1 and 5.5--
1.1 million people gained coverage, although that number is down now
because of Republican efforts over the last couple of years here in
Washington. But 1.1 million gained coverage, and there are 5.5 million
in the State with a preexisting condition.
If you go down the list of counties, which I will not do all 67
tonight, but I just want to give you some sense of what it means by
county. In terms of Pennsylvanians who gained coverage, you would
expect that the big cities had a lot of coverage gains. That is true.
At last count, Philadelphia had 225,000 people who gained coverage. But
if you go from Philly to Fulton--Fulton County happens to be a small
county of 14,000 people on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. They have
more than 1,000 people at last count, 1,028 people who got healthcare
through the Affordable Care Act. From Pike County to Greene County,
thousands of people gained healthcare. From Chester County to Crawford
County--Chester is in the southeast, and Crawford is way up in the
northwest, just south of Erie--29,000 people or almost 30,000 in
Chester and in Crawford County, more than 6,200. In my home county of
Lackawanna, almost 20,000 people got healthcare. In Luzerne County next
door, almost 30,000. Just in those two counties, almost 50,000 people
got healthcare. All of that is at risk in Pennsylvania and in countless
numbers of counties all across our country.
Medicaid expansion, which has enabled people to gain access to
treatment for an opioid addiction or other substance use disorder
issues, would be destroyed. Medicaid expansion would be gone. Medicaid
expansion also ensured women can receive a full year of postpartum care
and provided coverage for older Americans who are not yet eligible for
Medicare. Prescription drug costs would skyrocket for 12 million
seniors and people with disabilities. That is because the ACA closed
Medicaid's dreaded prescription drug donut hole. The ACA closed the
donut hole.
As I indicated earlier, for 135 million Americans with preexisting
conditions, their coverage is now in jeopardy if the Supreme Court
decision went the wrong way. Insurers would be able to drop them.
Insurers will be able to refuse to cover them or insurance companies
will be able to charge them more because of common diagnoses like
depression, anxiety, asthma, diabetes, sleep apnea, and the list goes
on from there--all the things the insurance companies were able to do
for at least a generation or more in the dark days before we had an
Affordable Care Act.
Insurers would also be able to charge you more because you are a
woman, allowed prior to the ACA, or they could charge you more because
of your age. That also will come back. Insurers will be able to
reinstate the annual lifetime caps on coverage that they provide. If
your healthcare is too expensive, the insurance companies could just
stop paying for it, even if you are a preemie, a tiny little baby in
the NICU, or an adult with a terminal diagnosis.
The essential health benefits would also go away. Insurers will be
able to carve out benefits you need, like maternity care or mental
healthcare. As a woman, you might not be able to find a plan to provide
care during your pregnancy, unless you have insurance through your
employer. For people with disabilities, the ACA is obviously essential.

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A Court that would destroy the ACA would allow for discrimination
against the 61 million Americans with disabilities--let me say that
again--the 61 million Americans with disabilities that have preexisting
conditions. Prior to the ACA, it was routine that people with
disabilities could not get health insurance. Prior to the ACA, if you
had epilepsy, autism, or spina bifida, or any disability, you could be
denied coverage. You could be charged much higher costs. A Court that
strikes down the ACA will be a Court that directly attacks the
disability community. That is why so many members of that community
came to Washington in 2017 and fought valiantly to uphold the
Affordable Care Act. They knew that their life was on the line. It
wasn't just an issue for them. Their life was on the line.
Prior to the ACA, there are stories I heard from Pennsylvanians every
day--and I am sure so many other Senators did, as well--stories about
people who, in addition to living with disabilities or facing a serious
illness or other medical needs, were worried about paying their bills.
For so many families, this isn't an issue that we are going to be
debating in Washington--some far-off, abstract issue. This is real life
for people. Mothers and fathers will be worried that their children
will not have the coverage they need, that their family will not be
covered--worries that, if they have not been eliminated, have been
greatly mitigated by the coverage and the protections of the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act.
We have to ask ourselves a question as the Court considers this case
just a few days after election day. We have to ask ourselves a number
of questions, but certainly we should ask ourselves: Will the United
States of America turn the clock back on insurance, turn the clock back
on healthcare for so many millions of Americans? Will we allow the
Federal Government, either through the Congress, which so far we have
prevented, or through the Supreme Court or any Federal court--will we
allow a Federal Government entity to rob people of the protections that
they received through the Affordable Care Act, like protections for a
preexisting condition? Will we allow all of this in the middle of a
pandemic, the worst public health crisis in a century here in America
and around the world? Will we allow any agency or any official to turn
back the clock on healthcare in the middle of a jobs crisis? We have
had double-digit unemployment in Pennsylvania for months now. They are
the highest unemployment rates we have seen since 1983, and for a
period of time this summer, they had been the highest unemployment
rates we had seen in more than 50 years. We have a jobs crisis in the
middle of a pandemic, which has caused a lot of people to already lose
their healthcare.

That is not who we are if we say we are American. America at its best
is the country that is already trying to make progress, trying to
expand protections. We have done that for generations. We made an
advancement in 2010 when we passed the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act. We cannot allow this institution--the institution
of Congress--or the Supreme Court to destroy that act and to undermine
that American progress.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I have my favorite Abraham Lincoln
quotation. One day, he was in the White House with his family and his
staff. His staff said: You have to stay in the White House and win the
war and free the slaves and save the Union, and Lincoln said: No. I
have to go out and get my public opinion bath.
I don't think that too many people in this body are getting their
public opinion baths. They are not seeing the pain out there. They
don't seem to absorb that, one day in August, in my State, as an
example, 600,000 people--just like that--lost their $600-a-week
unemployment insurance. In Wisconsin and Rhode Island, for hundreds of
thousands of people--just like that--their $600-a-week unemployment
insurance expired. They couldn't find jobs. There is massive
unemployment in our States. There are people who are hurting. What are
they to do? If you are just getting by on that $600 a week and if the
money doesn't come and if you can't find a job, what are you to do? How
are you to feed your family?
There is so much anger out there and frustration and futility. People
are hurting. Yet President Trump and Leader McConnell refuse to do
their jobs. We have asked them for weeks and months to come back here
and help us open the schools safely, to help local communities and
local governments, to help unemployed workers, to help people who are
about to lose their apartments--who are about to be evicted. Leader
McConnell says he doesn't have a sense of urgency, and President Trump
just turns his back and makes another speech.
Middle-class and low-income public schools can't open because
McConnell and Trump refuse to do their jobs. Parents and teachers are
under an overwhelming amount of stress. School districts and families
don't have the resources for the additional technology for the safety
precautions they need, so schools either open unsafely or students need
to do distance learning. None of that works for people. State
governments and local communities are looking at massive layoffs, and
small businesses are closing in larger and larger numbers, but Leader
McConnell and President Trump refuse to lift a finger.
The stock market is back up, so they seem to think everything is
fine. They are just oblivious to the families. They are oblivious to
the families who are staring at stacks of bills, who don't know what to
do, and who have no good options.
Yet now, after months of inaction, Leader McConnell gets out of his
office from down the hall, walks down here, makes a speech, and goes
back to his office. He doesn't actually do anything except confirm
young, rightwing judges. He doesn't do anything to help people who have
lost their unemployment. He walks down here, through these doors, and
doesn't do anything to help schools open safely. He doesn't do anything
to prevent layoffs in State and local governments. He doesn't do
anything to help these small businesses which are closing, and some now
have made the decision to close permanently, but Leader McConnell is
willing to drop everything and move Heaven and Earth to put another
corporate shill on the Supreme Court.
Leader McConnell has spent the last 6 months ignoring the pandemic,
ignoring the economic crisis. Now he wants to pack the Court--a Court
that is supposed to serve the American people--with another Justice who
always rules for corporate special interests and always rules against
workers. It will be another Justice who will take away, as Senator
Casey said, Americans' healthcare in the middle of a pandemic.
In my State, 900,000 people have health insurance today because of
the Affordable Care Act--600,000 people because Governor Kasich, a
Republican, and I, a Democrat, helped to expand Medicaid in Ohio. There
are 600,000 people who have insurance because of that. Yet we know this
Court will be hearing a case to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act
in just a few weeks. That insurance could be gone like that.
Leader McConnell and President Trump and their special interest
friends are trying to do what the American people rejected over and
over. They want to take away preexisting condition protections in
Pennsylvania, where Senator Casey said 5.5 million people have
preexisting conditions. In Ohio, 5 million people--essentially half the
adult population--have preexisting conditions, and that was before the
pandemic. So we know, if this Court does what it is likely to do,
especially if Leader McConnell and President Trump can pack the Supreme
Court the way they want to with another special interest, corporate
judge, we know those people's preexisting condition protections will be
gone.
American healthcare is at stake. The American people deserve to have
their voices heard. As Senator Peters said, people are already voting.
As we speak, they are casting ballots. These ballots should count. We
know what Senator McConnell and their wealthy friends want to do. They
want to award more power to themselves, and they want to take it away
from voters
We simply can't stand by and watch a bunch of millionaires with good
healthcare for all--all paid for by taxpayers--who still have
comfortable

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jobs and paychecks, while millions are out of work, and watch them try
to take away people's healthcare and take away their voices in their
own government.
Think about what is at stake. If President Trump gets his way and the
Republican majority obediently obeys Senator McConnell, as they always
do, and Senator McConnell, down the hall, obediently obeys President
Trump--meaning, if McConnell and then almost all of the, shall we say,
spineless Members of this Senate put in place a Justice who will take
away the entire healthcare law and take away the tax credits to help
people afford health insurance--then protections for preexisting
conditions will be gone. Ohio's entire Medicaid expansion for 600,000
people--gone. The ability to stay on your parents' insurance until you
are 26--gone. More affordable prescription drugs for seniors from
closing the doughnut hole--gone. Limits on how much you pay out-of-
pocket each year--gone. This will be in South Dakota, in Wisconsin, in
Connecticut, in Rhode Island, in Ohio--all over. Free preventive
services, like mammograms and bone density screenings, will be gone.
The list goes on.
That is why the Affordable Care Act wasn't repealed--because the
American public knew what it did for them, and they said to their
elected officials: Don't repeal it. Yet now we are going to have
legislation from the bench. All of these conservatives on the Court
love to talk about just being constitutional, just being
traditionalists and strict constructionists. No. They want to legislate
from the Court. They want to undo what this body did and then refused
to undo.
That is what is at stake. Five million Ohioans who are under the age
of 65 have preexisting conditions--as I said, half the population of
our State before the coronavirus.
It is not just healthcare. It is the ability to vote. It is workers'
protections on the job. We know at a packing plant in the Presiding
Officer's State--at Smithfield, a plant and a multibillion-dollar
company that is owned by the China Communist Party--it had 1,290-some
workers who were diagnosed with the coronavirus. It was the first time
the administration ever did anything to any company whose workers had
gotten sick with the coronavirus. They fined this multibillion-dollar
China Communist Party company, Smithfield, in the United States, and
South Dakota fined it $13,000. That is $10 for every sick person, for
every sick worker. Those are the kinds of people you will see on the
Supreme Court. They will be protecting those companies.
The freedom to organize a union is at stake. The progress we have
made on equality, on civil rights, and on LGBTQ equality is at stake.
Whether we can bring racial justice to our justice system is at stake.
America's privacy rights in the digital age are at stake. Women's
freedom to make their own healthcare decisions is at stake.
Earlier today, one of my colleagues came to the floor not to try to
get the $600 in unemployment for people who were laid off, not to try
to pass more help for our schools so they could open safely, not to get
more money for testing; my colleague tried to pass yet another
restriction on a woman's ability to get safe, effective healthcare.
It is pretty clear where their priorities lie, and we know what we
need to do. All Americans need to speak out and share their stories.
Make the people who are supposed to serve understand what is at stake
for you and your family--what is at stake by Senator McConnell's and
President Trump's inaction. There will be no help for unemployed
workers, no help to open schools safely, no help for local communities,
no help for the Postal Service, no help to run our elections safely and
honestly. Tell people what is at stake. It is the public who saved the
ACA in 2017, and the public can do it again.
For us in the Senate, it comes back to one question: Whose side are
you on?
Are we going to put money into people's pockets? Are we going to help
people pay their rent? Are we going to finally mobilize America's vast
manufacturing talent and ingenuity to produce the tests and the N95
masks and the other equipment we need and do what Senator Baldwin
advocates, which is to ``buy American'' with these products? Are we
going to get support for our schools and our small businesses and our
local communities or is the Senate going to follow the Trump-McConnell
plan? That means to come out of your office, to walk down the hall, to
open these doors, to go to your chair, to make a speech, and try to
confirm another conservative lifetime judge. Yet don't worry about
unemployment. There are only 600,000 people in my State and only
millions around the country who don't know what to do because they have
lost their unemployment. Don't do anything about opening schools
safely. Don't provide any dollars for local school districts. Don't
help small businesses.
Is that what we are going to do? Is the Senate going to follow that
Trump-McConnell plan? They do nothing there, but then they think: Let's
do something. We will drop everything to grab more power for our
wealthy friends.
People are tired of feeling like no one is on their side. Let's
actually listen to the people whom we serve. Let's make sure their
votes count.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I stand in a distressing place of
speaking after Senator Brown, of Ohio, and before Senator Blumenthal,
of Connecticut, but I am delighted to be here tonight because the
issues are so important.
We are in a place in the Senate that is, frankly, weird, and I don't
know if people around here have gotten used to this being weird, but it
is weird. It is not normal. In the Senate, we have essentially
eliminated legislation. We don't do that any longer. The House sends
over legislation, and it piles up in stacks on Mitch McConnell's desk.
We legislate, maybe, four or five things in an entire session of
Congress. That is weird. We are a legislative body. We are supposed to
legislate. Why the elimination of legislation?
We have smashed through and destroyed norm after norm, tradition
after tradition, rule after rule. Why is that? Do people get some
perverse glee in smashing norms and traditions? Do people get some
perverse glee in not passing legislation when they are sent here to
legislate? It doesn't make any sense.
Then you look at those on the other side and their 180 reversal. When
they wanted to stop a Supreme Court Justice, we heard about how
important it was that, before an election, the American people got to
weigh in through their votes and that you shouldn't have a nominee
appointed to the Court in the months before an election. Here we are,
weeks before an election, and, suddenly--whoop--180. Why the hypocrisy?
Did someone come and do one of those hypnosis parlor tricks on people
so they would suddenly do the opposite thing from what they wanted to
do?
What is the explanation for the elimination of legislation? for the
smashing of norms and traditions? for the reversal of the precedent on
immediate preelection confirmations? We are even seeing intense support
for a Supreme Court nominee when we don't even have a nominee.
There is a phrase about a pig in a poke. You are not supposed to buy
a pig in a poke. You are not supposed to buy a piglet in a bag when you
haven't had a look at the piglet to see what is in there.
We haven't seen the look at whatever--to use the analogy the piglet
in the bag would be. Yet everybody is already lined up to support
getting that person through quick, quick, quick. That is not normal.
That is weird. People don't ordinarily express their support for
nonexistent nominees.
So what explains all this weirdness? What I think explains all this
weirdness is that a very, very powerful group of very, very big special
interests has glommed itself together and over years, over decades, has
built up an apparatus specifically to control the Court--specifically.
If you look at the Washington Post report on Leonard Leo and his
Federalist Society perch and the bizarre little web of front groups
that he has woven around that perch, you will see that they have
documented more than $200 million flowing through that setup--more than
$200 million.
So here is how it works right now: When you have a Republican
President,

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the President doesn't pick the nominee; a special interest group picks
the nominee--the Federalist Society. Trump said so. That is where he
got his list. His lawyer Don McGahn said so. He said he was in-sourced
from the Federalist Society.
Over and over again, people involved in the process say: We take our
judicial selection picks from the Federalist Society. And when they say
that, what do they mean? The Federalist Society is just a corporate
screen. It is an entity. It does things on college campuses that have
think tanks here. But what does it really mean? It means that the
people who are putting tens of millions, hundreds of millions of
dollars anonymously into that organization are getting a voice or a
veto in the makeup of the Supreme Court. They are not even having to
show who they are, and the Federalist Society does the screening for
them.
You don't put tens of millions of dollars into a group and not expect
a result. If you give tens of millions of dollars to a university, not
only do you expect your idiot kid to get into the university, but you
also expect them to name a building after you. So if you are going to
put that kind of money into the Federalist Society, you are going to
want something for it. To say that is not rational makes no sense at
all. It is inconsistent with human behavior.
I will tell you that if you took the names off the players and asked
people in this room ``Should anonymous special interests with tens of
millions of dollars to spend be able to have a voice or a veto in who
gets elected to be a Federal judge or a U.S. Supreme Court Justice,
screened through a partisan, private organization?'' anybody in their
right mind would say ``No. That is unacceptable. That is preposterous.
Of course you wouldn't want that.''
If this were a liberal organization, my Republican colleagues would
be running around here with their hair on fire about the scandal of
secret donors deciding who is going to be on the Supreme Court and
masking themselves behind a front group.
It is not just Federalist Society money. It is not just the $100,
$200 million that flow through that network. Look at the Judicial
Crisis Network, which runs the ads for these nominees once the
Federalist Society has selected them. It gets contributions to pay for
the ads. Do you know who pays for it? One person gave a $17-plus
million contribution in the Garland v. Gorsuch row, and somebody gave
another $17 million to get the beleaguered Kavanaugh through, and
somebody else just gave $15 million.
Now, I say ``somebody else,'' but do we know it was somebody else, or
is there a perfectly logical case to be made that the same person gave
$17 million and $17 million and $15 million? That is $50 million. You
don't think that in their secret back room, wherever they arrange that,
they cut a deal that they would have a veto or a voice in who got on
the Supreme Court? That is a ridiculous proposition.
It doesn't end there. Once the Federalist Society has selected the
nominee and once the Judicial Crisis Network has done its thing to
support them with millions of dollars in TV ads and then they get
confirmed, then comes the Pacific Legal Foundation or the Washington
Legal Foundation or the Mountain States Legal Foundation or one of
innumerable, phony-baloney legal foundations, all of which, guess what,
are also supported by dark money--the anonymous money behind the
Federalist Society, the anonymous money behind the Judicial Crisis
Network, and then the anonymous money behind these groups, which then
bring carefully strategized cases before the judges who have been
selected and campaigned for by dark money.
Then the dark money groups bring the case in. So far, the five
Republicans on the Court have been very good about lowering the
standing requirements so that those cases get right in and they can
hear them. Then the case is before them, and what do you see? You see a
dozen phony front groups with anonymous funding all show up as friends
of the court--amici curiae they call it in court-speak.
I did a brief recently on the Consumer Financial Protection Board
case, and we showed the common funding of the other amici who showed
up--a dozen of them, all funded by the same organizations. They are not
separate.
A group called the Center for Media Democracy took a look at our
brief and took a look at that graph and said: You know, I bet you we
can improve on that with a little bit of research. They put their
scholars and their investigators and their researchers on it, and they
did way better. They showed much deeper connections between the funders
and the phony-baloney amicus groups.
What if--what if it is the same small group of funders who are
running money through the Federalist Society to select the judges,
running money through the Judicial Crisis Network to campaign for them,
running money through these legal foundations to tee up the right cases
to bring before the judges, and then running anonymous money into the
amici--what if it is the same big beast? It is less complicated than
many corporate structures. They are perfectly capable of doing it. With
that kind of money behind it, you can bet they will line people up in
this building, and that explains the bizarre behavior.
We are not seeing bizarre behavior because we have bizarre
colleagues; we are seeing bizarre behavior because we have a bizarre
force being applied in this whole judicial selection process. It is an
apparatus, and the reason they want to do this is because if they
control courts, they can make courts do things Congress would never do.
Even Republicans in Congress would never do the things that these
special interests can get courts to do.
Do you think you could get a bill through the House and Senate--even
controlled by Republicans--that allowed unlimited corporate special
interest spending in elections? Of course you couldn't. It would be a
ridiculous proposition. People would get laughed at when they went
home. There would be town meetings. People would throw tomatoes at
them. But you put five of the right Justices on the Supreme Court, and
they will make it the law of the land for you. Unlimited special
interest funding. Sure, we are for that. What a great idea.
Getting rid of voting rights. Disabling the Voting Rights Act. We
voted in enormous bipartisan numbers to reauthorize the Voting Rights
Act. It took five unelected, lifetime-tenured Supreme Court Republican
Justices to say: No, no, no. We know better. Racism is over. We know
that racism is over because we are such brilliant people up in our
little preserve in the Supreme Court.
They found that racism was over. We didn't have to worry about it
anymore. Pre-clearance didn't have to happen. It could never have
passed. But get five on the Court, and they did it.
And then, of course, terminating the Affordable Care Act. We know
that can't be done by Republican-controlled bodies because this
Republican-controlled body failed to do it. So where do you go? Oh,
right--to the Court, where we can get a 5-to-4 decision that does
things that legislators wouldn't do--wouldn't hold their nose and do.
And sure enough, what is up? November 10, the argument on the case
against the Affordable Care Act.
This isn't just a theory; this is real people. I have 34,000 Rhode
Islanders who have insurance through HealthSource RI, the market that
got set up pursuant to the Affordable Care Act--34,000 who get their
insurance there. I have 72,000 Rhode Islanders who get their insurance
because we took the Medicaid expansion. They wouldn't have insurance
except for the Medicaid expansion. I can fight in every way I can to
try to protect their rights here in this building, but you go over to
the Supreme Court, and five and now maybe six Republican Justices can
decide: We know better. We are going to undo the Affordable Care Act
and take away all their protections.
This is going to hurt. We have all those Rhode Islanders. We have two
of the best ACOs in the country in Rhode Island--accountable care
organizations--set up under the Affordable Care Act. It is a whole new
way to deliver primary care. They are lowering costs. They are
improving care. They are driving down their numbers. Their patients are
happier than ever. They are changing the way they are doing care. They
are making their patients healthier at less cost, with more attention.
It is a great experiment, and it is going to be undone by this--not
because anybody voted for it but because

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we crammed--with this powerful special interest apparatus behind us--
people on the Court who will obediently do these things when you trot a
dozen phony-baloney amicus curiae in front of the Court to, all in
chorus, tell them what they are supposed to do.
Nationally, we are a nation of, what, 330 million people? We are a
nation of 156 million preexisting conditions. Of course we are not
going to throw out preexisting conditions. Even the President, while he
is litigating to throw out preexisting conditions, says: I don't want
to throw out preexisting conditions. He knows he can't get away with
it. We know that it is stupid, wrong, and cruel, but pack the Court
with people who are listening to these big special interest types?
Poof. There goes preexisting conditions.
There are 11.8 million people on Medicare who have saved $26.8
billion on prescriptions thanks to the savings in the Affordable Care
Act. You would have to be nuts to take that away from seniors, but put
the right people on that Court over there, tell them what to do through
this big donor apparatus, and suddenly--boom. Poof. Gone. Because they
are accountable to nobody once they are over there. It is a lifetime
appointment.
Bridget in Tiverton is a Rhode Islander. She is in her twenties. She
has a hip dysplasia that led to premature arthritis. She was in
constant pain. In her twenties, she had to have a hip replacement.
Well, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, because her dysplasia and
arthritis were preexisting conditions, she was able to get her hip
replaced. She is now, for the first time in her life, fully employed
and pain-free. She is happy. She is an ObamaCare care success story.
Why would you want to undo that? Because you are a huge special
interest and you want things your way.
Martha from Cranston was uninsured. She had to have gallbladder
surgery. She ran up a $60,000 bill with no insurance and had to declare
bankruptcy. That is going to haunt her for a while because we don't let
her clean up after that even if it is a medical bankruptcy. But now she
can get insurance for $283 a month, which she can afford, rather than
over $500 a month, which she could not afford. So she is now an insured
person and doesn't have to worry about that kind of unexpected bill and
bankruptcy.
These are real people. And what is happening with these special
interests--I just don't get it. I just don't see how it is that people
in this body can say that it is OK to have huge special interests that
will spend $17 million at a lick, $50 million at a lick, $10 million at
a lick secretly control who gets picked to be on the Supreme Court. In
what world is that acceptable or even fair or an even decent way to do
business? It just isn't. It is indefensible. Yet that is exactly what
is happening. It is the same special interests that fund the Republican
Party. It is the same special interests that are behind the big super
PACs, and the big dark money PACs. That is why everybody has to hop
around here because if we say no to them on their selected nominee,
then they will say: Well, we are cutting you off then. You are all
done. And when they spend tens of millions of dollars on politics, it
is pretty hard to tell them: Well, we don't care. We will stand up to
you anyway. We are not going to take your money any longer. And that is
the pickle we are in right here. That is the mess that we are in, and
we have to fix it. It is wrong to be in this position. It is wrong to
be using this space on the Court to send somebody over who is going to
attack basic healthcare that we fought for and that Congress could not
undo because the American people want it.

With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am delighted and honored to follow
my great colleague from neighboring Rhode Island after that feisty,
fighting speech, which also captures the spirit of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
She was deeply concerned about the corrupting impact of money on our
political system. She was a longstanding critic of Citizens United, the
Supreme Court decision that opened the way to that dark money that has
so corrupted our system.
She was a believer in closing the gaps and loopholes because she was
smart enough and curious enough to learn what the real facts were, as
opposed to her colleagues on the Supreme Court who relied on the
stereotypes of the political system that were outdated even when
Citizens United was adopted. We live in a democracy that is threatened
by exactly that dark money in every sphere of the public square and
public office, never more than in our judicial system because it is
even less visible and more easily disguised. In part, the reason is
that people pay less attention to it. Another reason may be that the
amounts of money by comparison seem smaller. The amounts of hundreds of
millions of dollars seems small compared to the billions involved in
legislative or Executive races. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg knew that the
power of the dollar, whether it is judicial selection or legislative
campaigning, can be easily corrupted on a system that lacks limits.
So I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for reminding us about part
of the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which was to stand for principles
and people--the constitutional principles that animated her whole life
and gave breath to her matchless advocacy, the sense of righteousness
that could capture attention in a courtroom. Even though it seemed to
be surrounded by technical legal language, she made that language
accessible to everyday Americans.
And she chose her plaintiffs wisely. When she was arguing a case or
mounting against gender discrimination, she chose a male plaintiff who
was denied Social Security simply because his wife, a woman, was the
one in the military.
And she knew the power of hard work. Her work ethic was second to
none, but her commitment to her family and most especially to her
husband Marty--also a brilliant lawyer, a wonderful, warm human being--
was legendary.
I was really privileged and honored to know Justice Ginsburg
casually, informally. I knew her warmth, her compassion and caring,
sometimes to her law clerks or other friends. I was also privileged to
argue three cases before her on the U.S. Supreme Court. I argued four
as attorney general of Connecticut, and I can tell you that I feared
nobody more on that Court because her incisive, piercing, penetrating
questions cut to the core of the issues. Sometimes they actually could
rescue an arguer from a rabbit hole that some other Justice drew the
plaintiff or defendant, appellant or appellee down because she would go
to the heart of what the case really concerned. She was straight to the
point.
And that is why, straight to the point now, we need to carry on the
fight on so many of those principles. Yes, she was an icon and a giant.
She broke barriers from the classroom to the courtroom. She
demonstrated courage and conviction in her career that were unexcelled,
but she stood for principle, and that is ultimately her legacy.
Maybe it is no coincidence--a sad and tragic coincidence that this
Nation has just passed the 200,000 mark of Americans who have died from
COVID-19. That number is due to the administration's callous
indifference to science, its cruel disregard for human life. Donald
Trump's self-absorption has led to countless lies about the dangers of
this pandemic--the latest and most outrageous being that it has
affected nobody. Well, it has affected everyone in this Chamber. Think
about it for a moment. Every one of us knows someone, has worked with
someone, has a loved one or a friend who has been affected. A friend of
mine whose children grew up playing with mine passed away 5 days from
getting the virus. Yet, at this moment when we are threatened with a
continuing, raging pandemic in this country, a persistent public health
crisis greater than any in our lifetime, and an economic crisis that
prevents people from putting food on their family's table, and small
businesses are going under, we are going to rush through a nominee who
would decimate protections for preexisting conditions--which, by the
way, now includes COVID-19, because COVID-19 does great damage even to
survivors' lungs and heart and brains and other organs. It is a
preexisting condition, and along with other benefits in the Affordable
Care Act, like the ability to stay on a parent's coverage for a young
person

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up to 26 years old, all will be decimated because the Trump
administration is in the Supreme Court in a case that will be argued on
November 10 seeking to destroy it. That protection for preexisting
conditions will be gone, in part because this new Justice, we know, is
committed to eliminating it. How do we know? Because the President
himself has said a strong test will be applied. So those groups, like
the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation and others who do
the vetting and screening for this administration--the choice has been
outsourced to them--have vetted and screened that short list, and every
one of them you can bet has passed that test.

The second part of that test is women's reproductive rights. Donald
Trump has said another part of that strong test will be overturning Roe
v. Wade. Now, I was a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun in the 1974-
1975 term right after Roe was decided. So I have lived with the efforts
to overturn Roe. I have fought against those efforts. I have seen the
campaigns in the State legislatures, and they are even more present and
threatening than ever before.
The threat to Roe v. Wade is very much with us. In fact, we were
concerned even after the last Supreme Court decision on reproductive
rights that, in fact, Roe was in danger. Just 3 months ago, we held our
breath waiting for the Supreme Court decision in June Medical Services
v. Russo, the latest attack on reproductive rights, because we knew
there was more than a chance that the Court could strip away those
rights from women across the country. The Court on the slimmest of
margins upheld Roe--the narrowest of legal readings. It was a landmark
legal victory against the radical politicians who continue to attack
reproductive rights notwithstanding Roe v. Wade, but those principles
of Roe are now more in danger than ever before.
The administration and the Republican majority, instead of dealing
with this pandemic, are rushing to approve a nominee who would decimate
protections for women's reproductive rights. And there will be real
consequences for real people, as there are in many other rights that
would be at stake and at risk--voting rights, marriage equality, gun
violence protections, civil rights and civil liberties, and protection
against gender discrimination, the threat to protection from
preexisting conditions like cancer, substance abuse disorder, diabetes,
kidney disease, Parkinson's or pregnancy, and now, for an increasing
number of Americans, COVID is most striking.
An example is Conner from Ridgefield, CT. I have spoken about him
previously on the floor. Several years ago, Conner was diagnosed with
Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is a degenerative, life-threatening
disease with no cure. He was 4 years old when he was diagnosed. His
parents sought treatment and learned it would cost tens of thousands of
dollars each year, which they couldn't afford, but because of the
protections for people from preexisting conditions, it was a life
saved. Conner is in school. Conner is thriving. Conner is a fighter,
just as Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a fighter. Conner never gave up, and
neither did Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Conner endured the harsh reality of physical illness and emotional
trauma. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg reached out to people like Conner and
offered them hope. She reached out to women and she inspired a whole
new generation of women and many of us know them because they are women
in our families who decided to pursue a career in law because of her
example. She was small in stature, soft in voice, but she packed a
powerful punch, even before she was a rock star and a pop icon, because
she never gave up. She was a fighter. We cannot give up now.
We must fight for a process that is fair and gives the next President
and the next Senate the choice about the next Supreme Court justice.
That was Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish. We should fight for that
principle because it is a matter of fairness. It is a matter of people
keeping their word.
In this place, there are almost no unwritten rules. There are no
written rules. There are more unwritten rules, and one of those rules
is people keep their word. So we need to fight and make sure that the
legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is upheld, that these constitutional
principles that matter in the real lives of real people are upheld, and
we cannot give up. Her memory should always inspire us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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