[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 58 (Tuesday, April 4, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2390-S2394]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Cloture Motion
Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination
of Neil M. Gorsuch, of Colorado, to be an Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Mitch McConnell, Mike Crapo, John Kennedy, Jerry Moran,
Mike Rounds, Chuck Grassley, Jeff Flake, Todd Young,
John Cornyn, Cory Gardner, Thom Tillis, Marco Rubio,
John Thune, Michael B. Enzi, Orrin G. Hatch, Shelley
Moore Capito, Steve Daines.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum
call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the
nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch, of Colorado, to be an Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States shall be brought to a close,
upon reconsideration?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 55, nays 45, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 110 Ex.]
YEAS--55
Alexander
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Flake
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heitkamp
Heller
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McCain
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott
Shelby
Strange
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NAYS--45
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Harris
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Markey
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Peters
Reed
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 55, the nays
are 45.
Upon reconsideration, the motion is agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The majority whip.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the Senate has just restored itself to
an almost unbroken tradition of never filibustering judges.
We have actually restored the status quo before the administration of
President George W. Bush. It was during that administration when some
of our friends across the aisle, along with some of their liberal law
professor allies, dreamed up a way of blocking President George W.
Bush's judicial nominees, and that was by suggesting that 60 votes was
really the threshold for confirming judges, rather than the
constitutional requirement of a majority vote.
It has been a long journey back to the normal functioning of the
United States Senate, and it is amazing that it
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has taken a nominee like Judge Gorsuch to bring us back to where we
were back around 2001.
We have been debating and discussing this nominee for a long time
now, and the opponents of Judge Gorsuch have tried time and time again
to raise objections to this outstanding nominee--a nomination that no
one in the Senate opposed 10 years ago when he was confirmed to a
position on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. They claimed he wasn't
mainstream enough. They said this was a seat that really should have
gone to Merrick Garland. They have even accused him of plagiarism. All
of these arguments have no merit whatsoever and really represent
desperate attempts to try to block this outstanding nominee. Their
claims were simply baseless, and that much became even clearer as folks
from across the political spectrum and newspapers from across the
country urged our Democratic colleagues to drop their pointless
filibuster and allow an up-or-down vote.
What also came to light is the type of man Judge Gorsuch is--a man of
integrity, a man of strong independence; in other words, exactly the
kind of person you would want to serve on the Supreme Court.
They even claimed that Judge Gorsuch went out of his way to side with
the big guy against the little guy, ignoring the fact that during his
10 years on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, where these judges sit
on multi-judge panels, he was part of the majority decision 99 percent
of the time, and 97 percent of those cases were unanimous in multi-
judge panel decisions on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals--hardly
radical. It actually is a remarkable record of a consensus-builder,
someone who uses his great intellect, his education, and his training
to build consensus on a multi-judge court--exactly the kinds of skills
that are going to be so important for him to use on the Supreme Court
of the United States.
As I said, ultimately today was the culmination of years of
obstruction by our Democratic colleagues when it came to judicial
nominees.
When I came to the Senate in 2003, the Democratic strategy was well
underway to obstruct lower court judicial nominees from the George W.
Bush administration.
Later, in 2013, when there was a Democrat in the White House and it
suited them to do so, they decided to do away with the same tool they
used and went nuclear, lowering the threshold from 60 to 51 majority
vote for circuit court nominees and district court nominees.
It took a Gang of 14--7 Democrats and 7 Republicans--to try to work
through the differences back around the 2006 timeframe, which resulted
in half of President George W. Bush's nominees to the circuit court
getting confirmed and half not being confirmed. The standard was
adopted by the so-called Gang of 14 that only under extraordinary
circumstances would the filibuster be used, but that agreement expired
in 2013.
Well, the minority leader and his colleagues like to say that back
then it was necessary to restore a majority vote. He did that just last
Sunday. He said: ``Our Republican colleagues had been holding back on
just about all of so many lower-court judges, including the very
important DC circuit'' court, that they were forced to engage in the
nuclear option back in 2013. But the facts really belie what the
Democratic leader claimed in terms of the necessity of going nuclear
back then. In fact, prior to 2013, the Senate had confirmed more than
200 of President Obama's judicial nominees and it rejected just 2--more
than 200 confirmed, 2 rejected. That hardly rises to a level of extreme
obstruction or partisanship. That is a 99-percent confirmation rate for
President Obama.
So let's make it clear just how this began. It started with
Democratic obstruction under a Republican administration in 2001, and
it is been continuing now under a new Republican administration in
2017. So we really have come full circle to restore the status quo
before 2001, when our Democratic friends started down this path.
President Trump has, by all accounts, selected a judge with
impeccable qualifications and the highest integrity. Not one of our
Democratic colleagues has been able to offer a convincing argument
against him, and that is why several of our Democratic colleagues have
crossed the aisle to support his nomination, and I thank them for that.
I think more would join if they didn't fear retribution from the
radical elements in their own political party.
So today Republicans in the Chamber are following through on what we
said we would do. We said we would let the American people decide who
would select the next Supreme Court nominee and then we would vote to
confirm that nominee. The American people, on November 8, selected
President Trump. President Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch. And
tomorrow we will confirm that nominee and deliver on that promise.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, over the next several hours, we will have
the final opportunity to debate the confirmation of Supreme Court
Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch. This has been a lengthy process this
week, as we have heard from Senators on both sides of the aisle who
have come to the floor and talked about their support or their
opposition to Judge Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court.
I have had several opportunities over the past weeks and months to
personally visit and speak with Judge Gorsuch, whom I have known from
Colorado, the opportunity to listen to a number of my colleagues
address the Chamber, to watch the Senate confirmation hearings in the
Judiciary Committee--the day after day, it seemed, that that
confirmation hearing proceeded--and of course we have gotten to know
Judge Gorsuch over the past several years. We are proud that we have a
Coloradan nominated to the Nation's highest Court and that he would be
the second Coloradan to serve on the Supreme Court, the other one being
Justice Byron White. Justice Byron White also led the NFL in rushing
one year, and while Gorsuch will never live up to that part of the
Supreme Court legacy for Coloradans, we know that Judge Gorsuch is an
avid outdoorsman, a fly-fisher, expert-level skier, and somebody who
understands public lands. I think having that kind of expertise and
experience on our Nation's highest Court will serve this country well.
I think it is important to understand that his roots represent the
roots that built the West. He is a fourth-generation Coloradan,
somebody who hails from a State that is independent, that takes great
pride in its libertarian streak, its love of the outdoors, recreational
opportunities, understanding agriculture, energy. It is a State that
really does have it all. From the Eastern Plains to the Western Slope,
there is great beauty in our State.
Neil Gorsuch understands that. He served on a court, the Tenth
Circuit Court, that is housed in Denver and represents 20 percent of
the landmass of our State. Judge Gorsuch's family, as I mentioned,
really does show the grit and determination of those who built the
West. His grandfather was someone who worked in Union Station, someone
who grew up driving trolleys back in the time when Denver was a trolley
town. His other grandfather, of course, was a physician, and both were
experts in their fields. One grandfather helped found a law firm,
Gorsuch Kirgis, a very prestigious firm in Denver.
But it is Judge Gorsuch's experience, his high qualifications of
academics that he brings to the Court, having received his degrees from
Columbia, Oxford, Harvard, as I mentioned previously--the most
important academic experience being the University of Colorado, where I
think he spent at least some time in the summer attending, and also
teaching a course as a professor at my alma mater, the University of
Colorado School of Law. This has all helped him build what he is today;
that is, a very mainstream jurist, an incredibly exceptional legal
mind, one of the brightest jurists this country has to offer, someone
who is known as a feeder judge, providing clerks to the Supreme Court,
and who has the respect of the Colorado legal community.
I want to talk about some of these things because I have come to the
floor multiple times, and I have talked about his qualifications. I
have talked about the people who know him best,
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not the people in Washington, DC, but the people who have practiced in
front of his court in Denver, the people who know him personally out in
Colorado.
Here is what those individuals have said. They believe that Judge
Gorsuch deserves an up-or-down vote. Bill Ritter, former Democratic
Governor for the State of Colorado, believes that Judge Gorsuch
deserves an up-or-down vote. Now we will have it. We have invoked
cloture. We will have a final debate on Friday night and a final vote
on whether or not he should be confirmed.
People like Steve Farber, the cochair of the Democratic National
Convention in 2008 in Colorado, have talked about the need to confirm
Judge Gorsuch.
So the debate that we enter now is not one of whether he will have an
up-or-down vote. He is going to have an up-or-down vote. But it is
whether we should confirm him, actually give him the ``yes'' vote.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of
Judge Gorsuch's confirmation. Some of the arguments that I have heard
over the past several weeks on the floor, listening to some of the
arguments on the floor--it is quite interesting to me that some of the
arguments we hear seem to be at odds with each other.
Presiding over the Senate yesterday, I heard people talk about how
they don't think Neil Gorsuch will stand up to the President. They are
concerned that he will not express the kind of independence the
judiciary commands, that he will not be someone to stand up to the
President of the United States. They often cite some of the comments or
tweets that the President has made and then fail to mention the fact,
though, that at the very time one of those tweets was mentioned,
questioning the judiciary, Judge Gorsuch, in a meeting with one of our
Democratic colleagues, actually had objections. He said he objected to
the statements the President had made, expressing his independence,
talking about how what he had heard was demoralizing--very much showing
independence.
But the second argument you often hear, for those who have decided to
oppose this mainstream jurist, is that they are afraid he won't show
enough independence from the President, and then they say they are
concerned about his language as it relates to the Chevron doctrine--
whether Judge Gorsuch is going to be willing to overturn the Chevron
doctrine.
I find those two arguments kind of interesting because, on one hand,
you have an argument saying we are afraid he is not going to stand up
to the President of the United States, and then, on the other hand, you
have an argument saying that we are afraid he is not going to stand up
to the administrative state of the President of the United States--
because that is what the Chevron doctrine does; it gives great
deference to the regulatory body, to the administrative state.
Here is another irony. The Administrator of the EPA in 1984 was Neil
Gorsuch's mother, Anne Burford--the Administrator of the EPA. She was
the first woman to serve as EPA Administrator who was the subject of
the Chevron doctrine.
Not only is he willing to stand up to the President and the
administrative state of the President, but he is willing to overturn a
case that was a subject that his own mother was a subject to.
I have also heard comments from colleagues on the aisle that Judge
Gorsuch is not a mainstream jurist. This argument, I think, can be
dealt with in a couple of ways because there are some pretty good
statistics to refute these arguments.
Ninety-seven. Ninety-seven percent is the number of times in the
2,700 opinions that he was a part of--97 percent represents the times
that the decisions were unanimous. Judge Gorsuch did not serve only
with conservative-appointed judges. He didn't serve with only
Republican nominees. Judge Gorsuch served with Republican and Democrat
nominees, appointments approved by the Senate. In 97 percent of the
cases, Judge Gorsuch ruled--decided--in unanimous decisions.
The other statistic that I think is even more revealing, of course,
as to whether Judge Gorsuch is a mainstream judge is 99 percent.
Ninety-nine percent is the amount of times that Judge Gorsuch ruled
with the majority of the court; he made decisions--opinions--with the
majority of the court.
I heard a comment yesterday from a colleague who said that Judge
Gorsuch was never intended to be a mainstream nominee. If Judge Gorsuch
was never intended to be a mainstream nominee, do you think we would
see a judge before us that has support from the 2008 Democratic
National Convention Chairman? If Judge Gorsuch was never intended to be
mainstream nominee, do you think we would have decisions by the
Democratic Governor of Colorado, former Democratic Governor of
Colorado, to demand or ask for an up-or-down vote? If Judge Gorsuch was
never intended to be a mainstream nominee, do you think that the
President would have nominated somebody who agreed 99 percent of the
time with his colleagues on the bench, colleagues who came
from appointments given by Republican Presidents and Democrat
Presidents?
The arguments over whether Judge Gorsuch is going to be with the
little guy or he spends too much time defending the big guy--well, let
me again go back to the people who know Judge Gorsuch the best, who
have practiced in front of his court. Here is a statement from a Denver
attorney and Democrat on representing underdogs before Judge Gorsuch.
This is from the Denver Post: ``He issued a decision that most
certainly focused on the little guy.''
Yet the story from the opposition here, out of 2,700 cases, is: Oh,
my gosh, this is a person who has never defended the little guy. Well,
here is somebody who has practiced in front of his court who absolutely
believes he focused on the little guy.
So we have a judge who agrees with the majority of the court most of
the time--99 percent of the time; 97 percent of the time it is a
unanimous decision, and lawyers practicing in front of him believe that
he represents the little guy. We have heard from leading Democrat
voices in Colorado who support him. The ABA gave him its highest
qualification, rankings, ratings. They believe it.
Then the question becomes, What are we looking for in a Justice?
Maybe that is the biggest argument here. Maybe the argument should be
about what are we looking for in terms of philosophy, ideology?
Well, we have seen his ideology and his philosophy in what he has
testified before the Judiciary Committee, what he has stated in the
past through writings. He is someone who is going to follow the law. He
is someone who is going to take a decision where the law leads him, not
somebody who is going to take an opinion or decision where his personal
beliefs or politics take him. That is the kind of judge we want on the
highest Court. That is the kind of Justice we want--someone who is not
going to decide a policy preference from the bench of the Supreme
Court, not somebody who is going to take a look at a public opinion
poll or someone who is going to take a look at a focus group and make a
decision but someone who will rule by the law.
I have heard colleagues come to the floor and talk about their
experiences where they were given decisions to read without being given
the law. They were given just the facts of the case. They said: How
would you have decided this case? Then they showed him the actual
ruling, the actual holding in the case.
Some people believe, well, that is not the way we would have decided
because we don't feel that was a good outcome; we don't feel that was
the right policy.
It is not the job of a Justice to put their thumb on the scale of
policy; it is the job of a Justice to be a guardian of the
Constitution, to defend the Constitution, to follow the law and to
decide cases based on the law not on feelings, politics, polls, public
opinion.
We have a judge, nominated for Justice, who has said that a judge who
agrees with every opinion that they have issued is probably a bad
judge. He is paraphrasing other judges and Justices throughout our
history. It is because he knows it is not his job to issue opinions or
decisions or to decide a case based on being a Republican or Democrat.
It is not his job to decide a case based on whether he was nominated by
President Trump or President Obama or President Bush. It is his job to
look at the law, to leave policy decisions to the legislative branch.
That is what we have to do. That is what Judge Gorsuch has said he will
do.
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So these arguments just don't hold water. It doesn't hold water that
he is not looking out for the interests of our citizens, because here
clearly he is. Democrats who have practiced before him in court have
said as much. The argument that he will not stand up to Trump
administration--we know it; he said in front of our Democratic
colleagues that he would stand up to the President.
He has said that he rejected attacks on the Court. We also know that
when it comes to the Chevron doctrine, which seems to be sacred ground
now, that there are these ironic arguments taking place, because you
want someone who will stand up to the administration, but then you are
concerned that he is interested in or concerned that we have taken the
Chevron deference--the doctrine of Chevron deference too far.
Now which is it? Do you want a judge who is going to stand up to the
administration or do you want a judge who is not going to stand up to
the administration? It sounds as though the arguments are trying to
have it both ways.
The bottom line is that we know Judge Gorsuch to be a person who is
eminently qualified, a mainstream jurist who has the respect and
admiration of judges around the country, who has the admiration and
respect of fellow jurists and legal professionals throughout Colorado,
and we know that he will make this country proud. He is certainly going
to make Colorado proud as he receives his confirmation to the Nation's
highest Court.
I hope, as we spend these hours debating, that we can realize this
Senate should operate in a bipartisan fashion, that we should confirm
judges who are clearly mainstream.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, today is a day when many Senators are
speaking about Judge Gorsuch and about the Supreme Court. As I think
many know, in the last week, in the Judiciary Committee hearings and in
other settings, I have announced that I will vote against Judge Gorsuch
on the final vote tomorrow. I believe I have made my reasons for my
opposition clear. I have thoroughly reviewed and considered Judge
Gorsuch's record and where he fits within American jurisprudence, and I
have no second thoughts about my decision.
As I look around at what has just happened on this Senate floor, I am
sick with regret. So I rise now to speak in defense of the Senate.
The Senate has been hailed by many, including our nominee to the
Supreme Court, Judge Gorsuch, as the world's greatest deliberative
body. Yet today I think one more blow has been struck at that title and
reality.
The late Senator Robert Byrd, who served in this Chamber for 51
years, would famously remind new Senators that ``in war and in peace,
[the Senate] has been the sure refuge and protector of the rights of
the states and of a political minority.''
Of course, although Senator Byrd was the longest serving Senator, as
a Delawarean, I grew up in the tradition of Senator Joe Biden, a 36-
year veteran of this body who left its ranks only to ascend to the Vice
Presidency and spend 8 more years as its Presiding Officer.
Since I have had the honor of assuming Senator Biden's former seat, I
have committed to following his example of working across the aisle,
through Republican and Democratic administrations, with whoever is
willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work for the American
people. I know my colleagues share in this foundational commitment to
serve our constituents and country.
As I look around at what just happened on this floor, with too little
discussion of its lasting consequences and too little visible concern
or even emotion, I must ask the question: Where are we headed?
You can't see it, but around this Chamber are white marble statues,
busts of former Presiding Officers, of former Vice Presidents of the
United States. They are in the halls outside this Chamber. They are at
the upper level of this Chamber, in the Galleries. All the former Vice
Presidents are memorialized in white marble busts.
Former Vice President Adlai Stevenson, the grandfather of the
Illinois Governor who ran for President in the middle of the 20th
century--former Vice President Adlai Stevenson, when he delivered his
farewell address to the Senate on his last day in office as the
Presiding Officer of the Senate in 1897, said:
It must not be forgotten that the rules governing this body
are founded deep in human experience; that they are the
result of centuries of tireless effort . . . to conserve, to
render stable and secure, the rights and liberties which have
been achieved by conflict.
By its rules, the Senate wisely fixes the limits to its own
power. Of those who clamor against the Senate and its mode of
procedure, it may be truly said, ``They know not what they
do.''
In this Chamber alone are preserved, without restraint, two
essentials of wise legislation and of good government--the
right of amendment and of debate.
It was exactly that right, those rules that were assaulted today, but
they have been under assault for a long time.
In recent days, I have reached out to my Republican and Democratic
colleagues, trying to see if there was some way we could reach a
reliable consensus agreement to safeguard these institutional values
and avoid the events of today and tomorrow.
I told my colleagues that I was not ready to end debate on Judge
Gorsuch's nomination until we could chart a course for the Senate to
move forward on a bipartisan basis when considering future Supreme
Court nominations.
I think for us to get to any constructive conversation about moving
this Senate forward requires owning the role that all of us--each of us
has played over our time here, whether a few years or decades, in
bringing us to this point.
I, for one, will say I have come over time to regret joining my
Democratic colleagues in changing the rules for lower court nominations
and confirmations in 2013. Of course, I could give an entire speech on
the obstruction that led us to that point. I could document the
Republican and Democratic deeds and misdeeds of the last Congress and
the Congress before that and the decade before that.
As my more seasoned and senior colleagues demonstrated in the
Judiciary Committee deliberations, those who have served here longest
know best the record of grievance of Congresses in decades past.
I anticipate that many of my colleagues will come to regret the
decisions and actions taken today in this Congress and in Congresses
ahead. Instead of focusing on that shared regret, I want to work
together not to continue to tear down the traditions and rules of the
Senate but to find ways to strengthen and fortify and sustain them.
I worked to try to find a solution to get past this moment on the
brink. I wanted to ensure our next Supreme Court nominee would be the
product of bipartisan consultation and consensus, as was safeguarded
for years by the potential of the 60-vote margin. I wanted certainty
that the voice of the minority would still be heard when the next
vacancies arise. Among many, this effort to forge consensus was met
with hopelessness or even hostility.
Back home, thousands of constituents called my office, urging a vote
against Gorsuch and urging I support the filibuster. Some even urged me
to stop talking about any sort of deal. In fact, back home in Delaware,
some national groups ran ads against me when there was even a rumor of
a hint that there might be conversations about avoiding this outcome.
There were even Senators on both sides of the aisle who told me that
an agreement was impossible. They said any agreement is based on trust,
and we simply do not trust each other anymore.
Given the events of the last years, the disrespect and mistreatment
of Merrick Garland, the course of the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, I
can understand how there is a raw wound right now in this Chamber,
where each side feels the other has mistreated a good and honorable and
capable nominee for the Supreme Court.
Let me say my last point again. Senators on both sides told me we
could not find a durable compromise because we do not trust each other
anymore. If we cannot trust each other anymore, then are there any big
problems facing this country which we can address and solve?
This morning, I gave an address at the Brookings Institution about
the
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threat Russia poses to our democracy, to our allies, to our national
security, and to the endurance of our Republic. If that threat is not
something that deserves determined, bipartisan effort, I don't know
what is.
There are many threats to our future I could lay out today, but let
me simply emphasize that in the absence of trust, this body cannot play
its intended constitutional role, and without trust, we will not
rebuild what is necessary to sustain this body.
Everyone likes to point the finger at the other side as the source of
this distrust. The reality is, there is abundant blame to go around.
Folks like to remember the good old days when Justice Scalia was
confirmed by this body 98 to 0, when Justice Ginsburg was confirmed 96
to 3, but if we look at our five most recent nominees to the Supreme
Court who got votes, you can see a clear trend: Nine Senators, all
Republican, voted against Justice Breyer. Then 22 Senators voted
against Justice Roberts. Then 42 Senators, mostly Democrats, voted
against Justice Alito. For President Obama's nominees, Justices
Sotomayor and Kagan, more than 30 Republican Senators opposed each one.
Only nine Republican Senators voted for Sotomayor, and only five
Republicans voted for Justice Kagan. We have been on this trajectory--
both parties--for some time.
Then, of course, we have Chief Judge Merrick Garland, the first
Supreme Court nominee in American history to be denied a hearing and a
vote, and we have Judge Gorsuch, the first to be the object of a
partisan filibuster on this floor.
We did not get here overnight. We have become increasingly polarized.
How can we work together to repair this lack of trust so we can face
the very real challenges that face our Nation?
My own attempts of recent days--although I was blessed to be joined
by Senators of good will and good faith and great skill in both
parties--were ultimately not successful. I wish I had engaged sooner
and more forcefully. I wish I had been clearer with my colleagues how
determined I was to seek a result, but this doesn't mean I am
disappointed that I tried, and it also doesn't mean I am going to stop.
I am not going to stop trying to fix the damage that has been done,
trying to find a better pathway forward.
I ask my colleagues: If you know what you have done today, then what
will we do tomorrow? How could we avoid the further deepening,
corrosive partisanship in this body? What past mistakes can each of us
own up to? What steps can we take to mend these old wounds? What more
can we do to move forward together?
We sometimes talk about the dysfunction of this body as if it is
external to us, as if we bear no accountability for it, but at the end
of the day, here we are: 100 men and women sent to represent 50 States
of this Republic and 325 million people. In many ways, we have all let
them down today.
I can tell you what I am going to do tomorrow. I commit to working
with anyone who wants to join me to try to strengthen and save the
rules and traditions of this body and its effectiveness as an
absolutely essential part of the constitutional order for which so many
have fought and died. It is what all of our predecessors would have
wanted.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.