March 5, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 39 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page S1637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Chad A. Readler

  Madam President, later this afternoon, the Senate will vote to take 
up the nomination of Chad Readler to be a judge on the Sixth Circuit. 
Mr. Readler was the man behind the curtain last year when the Trump 
administration decided to side with Texas and 19 other States with 
Republican attorneys general in suing to repeal our healthcare law. Mr. 
Readler didn't merely work on the case; he was the lead lawyer who 
filed the Justice Department brief declaring the administration would 
refuse to defend the laws of our country.
  His recommendations were so outrageous that many career Justice 
Department attorneys refused to sign it. Mr. Readler argued that 
protections for Americans with preexisting conditions should be 
eliminated. Let me repeat that. The nominee up for a vote later this 
afternoon argued that protections for Americans with preexisting 
conditions should be eliminated. Then, a day after Mr. Readler filed 
this awful brief hurting average Americans--hurting tens of millions of 
average Americans--he was nominated for a lifetime appointment on the 
Federal bench. Coincidence? I think not. You see, in the Trump 
administration, depriving people of protections for preexisting 
conditions is actually something to be rewarded. Shame. Shame on the 
Trump administration. Shame on anybody who votes for Mr. Readler, 
particularly those who claim they want to protect preexisting 
conditions. Those who say they want to protect them and vote for the 
chief cook and bottle washer who pulled them away and was given this 
nomination the next day, shame on them.
  During the past campaign, as I said, many Republicans stood up and 
said, rightly, that they supported keeping protections for Americans 
with preexisting conditions. That is all well and good, but that is 
what is so typical of our Republican friends in the Senate. They talk 
the game that we do--they are for more healthcare, they are for 
protecting Americans with preexisting conditions--but their votes on 
the floor of the Senate are exactly the opposite. It is all well and 
good to say you want to protect them, but those promises and 
pronouncements mean next to nothing if they will not vote to reject a 
lifetime appointment for the man who played the starring role in the 
legal effort to take these conditions away.
  Republicans who vote yes on Mr. Readler, I believe, will regret that 
vote in future years. A vote to confirm Mr. Readler is an endorsement 
of the Republican lawsuit to eliminate protections for preexisting 
conditions and repeal healthcare for millions of Americans.