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[Pages S2063-S2064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE GREEN NEW DEAL
Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Madam President, on an entirely different matter,
this week, the American people saw our Democratic colleagues go on
[[Page S2064]]
the record on a truly astonishing policy proposal--a truly astonishing
policy proposal.
After months of enthusiastic declarations of support, after tripping
over one another to prove their devotion to the far-left core of the
new Democratic Party, the vast majority of our colleagues across the
aisle were unable to vote against even an obviously ludicrous proposal
to tank the U.S. economy and to leave American workers out in the cold.
You might think that after their radical proposal met with such an
inglorious end, my colleagues might choose to pause and take stock.
Well, think again. Just yesterday, our Democratic colleagues introduced
a Senate version of Speaker Pelosi's sweeping legislation to rewrite
the rules of American politics to benefit one side--new Washington
rules for how citizens can exercise political speech, new Washington
systems to funnel taxpayer dollars into the pockets of political
campaigns, and an unprecedented Washington intrusion into State and
local election law all across our country.
As I have argued before, it conveniently turns out that the vast
majority of their proposed changes seem tailored to help more Democrats
get elected and stay elected; hence my name for this legislation: the
Democratic politician protection act.
Apparently, our friends are under the impression that if Democrats
aren't winning as many elections as they would like, then the entire
process by which we elect our representatives must certainly be broken.
If Democrats don't like an outcome, then the rules themselves need to
be tossed aside. This seems to be emerging as a kind of pattern on the
other side of the aisle.
When our Constitution, our institutions, or the American people
disappoint our Democratic colleagues, instead of taking the hint and
perhaps making their own positions more mainstream, they instead look
to change the rules.
After they failed to defeat the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh last
year, liberal leaders decided the underlying structure of the American
judiciary needed to be radically overhauled to suit their whims.
They set out to rehabilitate the absurd notion of ``court-packing''--
a term that since the 1930s has been synonymous in American history
with the idea of an unprincipled power grab.
The idea that Democrats sometimes lose Presidential elections and
that Republican Presidents sometimes subsequently appoint Supreme Court
Justices is apparently no longer tolerated. Instead of filling the
existing vacancies, why shouldn't the next Democratic President just
make up a bunch of new ones--create a bunch of new ones--so the far
left can stack the Court? Forget about nine Justices. Forget about
judges who don't wear red robes or blue robes but black robes. Forget
about interpreting and applying our laws and Constitution the way they
are written instead of how partisans might wish they were written. The
far left wants to forget about all of that because Democrats would
rather rewrite the rules.
So out of the ash heap of history came this talk of ``court-
packing''--a notion that would threaten the rule of law and our
American judicial system as we have long understood it. It is a truly
radical proposal that has been dead and buried by bipartisan consensus
for almost a century. But now President Obama's Attorney General, Eric
Holder, says: ``We should be talking even about expanding the number of
people who serve on the Supreme Court, if there is a Democratic
president.'' One of our Senate colleagues, who is currently running for
President, called this an ``interesting idea that I would have to think
more about.'' The New York Times reported that at a recent campaign
event, another Democratic candidate said that he is open to the idea
after being asked about it by a member of a new far-left group that is
literally named--this is their name; listen to this--``Pack the
Courts.''
I hope the lion's share of our Democratic colleagues will speak out
forcefully against exhuming this thoroughly discredited idea. I hope my
colleagues will have the courage to look these far-left agitators in
the eye and tell them that some traditions and some institutions are
more important than partisan point-scoring. But given that we have
already seen Democrats rush headlong to embrace schemes like the
Democratic politician protection act, Medicare for None, and the so-
called Green New Deal, I have to say, at this point, that kind of
courageous statement would come as a pleasant surprise.
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