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[Page S5728]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, on this past Friday evening, on Rosh
Hashanah, our Nation lost a giant of our Supreme Court. We lost a
trailblazer for women's equality, a woman who, though diminutive in
size, was a giant and a force for justice.
For my daughter and for all Americans, I am so grateful for the work
and the service and the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg. Having passed on Rosh Hashanah, the tradition of the Jewish
people teaches that she is especially blessed, particularly righteous.
It is heartbreaking that her dying wish, dictated to her
granddaughter, was that the voters should choose the next President,
and that next President her successor, and, already, there are some who
are racing to undo that wish.
This was her wish because she understood the consequences of this
decision for the Senate, for the American people, and for the Supreme
Court, to which she dedicated 27 years of service.
If we push through a nominee now, just 43 days before an election, as
half of our States are already voting, the very legitimacy of the
Supreme Court may be undermined by further politicization in an already
divided country.
My friends, my colleagues in the other party, used the argument in
blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 that we must give
the American people a voice for the selection of the next Justice. That
argument was advanced 10 months before the next election. Here, today,
on this floor, the exact argument is being advanced just 43 days before
an election in which half of our States are already voting.
As a colleague from Alaska recently said, the precedent set by the
majority in 2016 is the precedent by which they should live now. Fair
is fair. I cannot agree more.
On the ballot, on the agenda, on the docket of the Supreme Court is
healthcare. This decision will have an impact on all Americans of all
stripes and backgrounds. One week after the election, a case will be
argued in front of the Supreme Court, Texas v. United States, which
seeks to remove all that is left of the Affordable Care Act's
protections--protections against preexisting condition discrimination
for 100 million Americans and health insurance itself for 20 million,
in the middle of a pandemic in which 6 million Americans have been
infected and have new preexisting conditions, and, in some ways most
gallingly, that provision of the Affordable Care Act which prohibits
gender discrimination by insurance companies.
All of this is at stake, as are protections going forward after this
election for clean air and clean water, for equal pay for equal work,
and the right to organize. It is all on the ballot and will be on the
docket.
Let me close by calling on my colleagues to do what is fair and what
I believe is right: to respect their own precedent and let the American
people have a voice in just 43 days and then proceed, after the
election, to honor Justice Ginsburg's dying wish; to focus on
delivering relief to the American people in a package to address this
pandemic in our next few weeks, rather than diving deeper into
division.
It is my fervent prayer that we can yet find a way together to listen
to the voice of the people and the voice of this most storied Justice.