October 21, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 180 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S6339-S6340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Mr. President, on the Supreme Court, the Republican leader has 
announced the Senate will vote next Monday on Judge Amy Coney Barrett 
to be a Supreme Court Justice, capping what will be the most rushed, 
most partisan, and least legitimate process in the entire history of 
Supreme Court nominations.
  Leader McConnell continues to defile the Senate more than any other 
Senator has done in a very long time. Let us hope that Leader McConnell 
hasn't ruined the Senate for good with this nasty 180-degree turn, 
holding up Merrick Garland, and rushing this judge through while people 
are in line at the polling places.
  The idea ``let's wait for the next election'' was total hypocrisy--
total hypocrisy.
  The U.S. Senate has never--never--considered a Supreme Court Justice 
this close to a national Presidential election. I doubt it ever will 
again. I don't think we will ever have the combination of Donald Trump 
and Leader McConnell, who so don't care about what they said in the 
past--McConnell anyway--who so don't care about trying to pick a 
Justice who will look at the law as opposed to ideological views. I 
hope it doesn't happen again. I pray it doesn't happen again.
  Just 4 years ago, we all know the Republican leader, the former 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the current chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, and nearly every single Republican Member argued 
that President Obama's nominee didn't deserve a hearing or a vote on 
the floor of the Senate because there was a national election 8 months 
away.
  Mere hours after the passing of Justice Scalia, Leader McConnell said 
the American people deserve a voice in the selection of their next 
Supreme Court Justice, not if one party or another party controlled the 
Presidency or the Senate. Absolute: The American people deserve a 
voice. That was 8 months from an election.
  Leader McConnell confirmed yesterday that the vote to confirm 
President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court will take place 8 days 
before an election. Senate Republicans could wait 8 months to give the 
American people a voice in selecting a Supreme Court Justice; now they 
can't wait 8 days?
  I am sure that if they had to, the Republican majority would confirm 
a Supreme Court Justice 8 minutes before election day. Is it no wonder 
that

[[Page S6340]]

Democrats are so angry? Is it no wonder that the American people are 
tearing their hair out, when they have said they want to wait until the 
next election, when that is only fair, that is only democratic? The 
hypocrisy is towering and enormous. And as I said, Leader McConnell 
could destroy this Chamber for a very long time.
  Why is this happening? Well, this is part of a decade-long effort to 
shift the courts to the far right so that the far right, which has so 
many Republicans in their grasp, can accomplish through the judiciary 
what they could never accomplish through the Congress.
  Senate Republicans failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We know. 
That happened right here. So President Trump and Republican attorneys 
general are suing to eliminate the law in court.
  Senate Republicans don't dare put repeal of Roe v. Wade on the floor 
of the Senate. They know it would fail. But they try to appoint 
Justices who are dedicated to repealing that vital right of a woman to 
choose and to control her own body.
  This is just an amazing moment. One of Coney Barrett's very first 
cases would be to hear arguments against the Affordable Care Act, the 
very act that this Chamber rejected repeal of.
  Republicans, as I said, could never repeal a woman's right to choose 
in Congress. They don't even dare bring it to the floor.
  The far right has never had a majority on the Court to limit Roe or 
Griswold, but if Judge Barrett becomes Justice Barrett, it very well 
might. Women of America, watch out. Watch out.
  I will remind my colleagues and the American people, when President 
Trump was asked about Roe v. Wade during his final debate against 
Hillary Clinton, he said: ``If we put another two or three Justices on 
the court, the repeal of Roe v. Wade will happen automatically.'' Is 
that what this Republican majority stands for? If they do, announce it 
to the American people. Don't hide behind this idea that Justices are 
calling balls and strikes; that they will obey precedent. Don't hide 
behind that because we know what is happening here.
  The American people should make no mistake. Their fundamental rights 
are on the line: the right to affordable healthcare, to make their own 
medical decisions, to join a union, vote without impediment, the right 
to marry whom they love--that is what this is all about.
  Now Leader McConnell has strained credulity to argue that ramming a 
Supreme Court Justice through the Senate while American voters wait in 
line to cast their ballots is completely normal. Nothing to see here, 
he says. Who believes him? I don't think a single Republican on that 
side believes him. They know what is going on.
  This is not the Senate, as he says, performing its historic function. 
It is a fiction. There is no precedent in history of the Senate for 
what the Republicans are doing.
  Abraham Lincoln, our great hero, great Republican, rejected 
nominating somebody to the Supreme Court so close to an election.
  So Republicans, at the very least, ought to go on record and admit 
this is an extraordinary breach of precedent, of comity, of fairness, 
of decency, of honor, of truth, of consistency.
  So in a short time, I will make a point of order that the Senate 
should not consider a nomination to the Supreme Court this close to a 
Presidential election. Every Senator will vote on whether a nomination 
this close to an election shall be in order. It will confirm to the 
American people what we all know to be true--that the Republican 
majority has absolutely no intention of honoring the supposed principle 
it so vehemently argued in 2016.
  That they won't follow history; that they won't follow precedent; 
that they won't follow norms and traditions of the Senate; that they 
won't even follow their own standards--that is the indelible mark on 
this Senate majority; that here in Leader McConnell's Senate, it is the 
rule of ``because we can,'' ``might makes right,'' ``because we can,'' 
as Senator Whitehouse put it, all to confirm a far-right Justice on the 
Court who would rip away healthcare from tens of millions of Americans 
in the middle of a pandemic.
  We will see how my Republican colleagues vote.
  I yield the floor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.