[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 59 (Wednesday, April 5, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2741-H2745]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
participating Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my 
Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Maryland?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Congressional Progressive 
Caucus and my partner in this Special Order hour, Congresswoman Jayapal 
from the State of Washington, I rise to discuss the imminent Senate 
filibuster against President Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the 
U.S. Supreme Court.
  Ordinarily, a Supreme Court nomination like this would be an all-
consuming public matter. It has gotten a little bit less attention 
because there is so much going on all over the globe. The world is on 
fire today. We see outrageous atrocities taking place in Syria under 
the so-called leadership of President Assad. We see here in America a 
government in turmoil, as every day the curtain is drawn back just a 
little bit further on the Russian connection with the Trump White 
House.
  But we do need to take some time to focus on the U.S. Supreme Court 
if for no other reason than what we have in America today is one-party 
control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the 
White House, and, if the Supreme Court goes, too, we essentially have 
no meaningful multiparty democracy in terms of the essential governance 
of the country.
  Now, as the Senate takes up the President's nomination of Neil 
Gorsuch to the Court, I have heard a number of officials and 
commentators criticize the effort taking place in the Senate over the 
last few days and into the next few days to stop Gorsuch. I have heard 
them criticize it by invoking the aphorism ``two wrongs don't make a 
right.'' Of course, they are referring to the fact that President 
Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland, the Chief Judge of the D.C. 
Circuit Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, was stonewalled for 
9 months in the last year of President Obama's Presidency.
  Judge Garland didn't even receive a hearing. It never got to the 
point that there was a vote. He would have loved the opportunity to 
have someone filibuster his nomination on the floor of the Senate. His 
nomination never got to the floor of the Senate. He never had a hearing 
in committee--completely unprecedented in our history simply to 
stonewall, obstruct, and sandbag a judicial nominee like this. I will 
have something to say about the qualifications of Judge Garland.
  But, in any event, the Democrats now are saying: We are not going to 
proceed with the nomination of Judge Gorsuch; we are going to block it. 
In answer, I hear repeatedly from U.S. Senators and commentators this 
phrase: Two wrongs don't make a right. Of course, that truism is true. 
But what does this excellent piece of folk wisdom have to do with the 
current situation of the nomination of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court?
  If you saw someone punching out a security guard and running into a 
bank to rob the bank, it would be legally and morally wrong for you to 
go punch out another security guard at a bank across the street and go 
rob that bank. Two wrongs, indeed, do not make a right. You don't solve 
one bank robbery by committing another. But if you saw someone punching 
out a security guard and running into a bank to go rob it and you 
decided to run after the robber, pounce on him, and punch him out, that 
would be completely legally and morally justified.
  In other words, stopping the original wrong is not in itself a wrong. 
Stopping the original wrong is right. That is the right thing to do, 
and that is what the Democrats are doing. They are trying to block a 
crime in progress because, understand, we have never, in American 
history, seen something like a President send a nomination to the 
Supreme Court to the U.S. Senate to fill a seat probably for 20 or 30 
years and the Senate just says simply: We are not going to have any 
hearings about it. That is exactly what they did to Judge Merrick 
Garland.

                              {time}  1715

  Let me just say a few words about him before I turn it over to my 
colleague, Congresswoman Jayapal.
  Judge Garland is, arguably, one of the two or three most experienced 
and qualified judges ever to be nominated to the Supreme Court. He 
graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from 
Harvard Law School.
  After serving as a law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly of the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then Justice William 
Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court, he practiced law at Arnold & Porter 
here in Washington; and he worked as a Federal prosecutor in the 
Department of Justice, where he played a leading role in the 
investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers and the 
investigation and prosecution of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
  He has had nearly 20 years of judicial experience on the D.C. Circuit 
Court of Appeals. The Senate originally confirmed him in an 
overwhelming 76-23 vote, where he not only swept the Democratic Caucus 
in the Senate, but won the majority of Republicans when he first went 
on the court.
  His nomination to the Supreme Court fell victim to the GOP Senate 
leadership's rule-or-ruin mentality that is ravaging the most basic 
norms of American political democracy in this century. If Garland could 
not be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, then no moderate liberal 
judge can be.
  Some people have suggested that Gorsuch should be filibustered for 
exactly 9 months, which is the length of time that the GOP used to run 
out the clock on the Merrick Garland nomination. In other words, he was 
blockaded for 9 months. Therefore, blockade Gorsuch for 9 months, then 
have a vote on him.
  This apparently symmetrical answer would certainly make President 
Trump's nominee twist in the wind and suffer the way that President 
Obama's nominee twisted in the wind and suffered, but that is not the 
point. It is not to inflict pain on the nominee. The real problem is 
not 9 months of legislative obstructionism, much less retribution for 
what was inflicted on one judge.
  The real question is: Who gets to have the seat on the Supreme Court?
  It is about the next 25 years of Supreme Court decisionmaking. That 
seat, by all rights, belongs not to Judge Gorsuch, but, rather, to 
Judge Merrick Garland.
  Judge Gorsuch, however qualified he might be in terms of his own 
career, would present a jurisprudence dramatically to the right of the 
jurisprudence that would clearly be advanced by the addition of Judge 
Garland to the court. That is what we are going to talk about tonight.
  I am going to begin by turning it over to a great champion of 
justice, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights for all the people, 
my distinguished colleague and the vice chair of the Progressive 
Caucus.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. 
Jayapal).
  Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from Maryland 
(Mr.

[[Page H2742]]

Raskin). It has been such a pleasure since coming to Congress--and it 
seems difficult to believe that it has been almost 3 months--but it has 
been such a pleasure to co-lead this Special Order hour with the 
gentleman and to really bring to the public all of the issues that we 
feel are so important in the Progressive Caucus, issues that have 
ranged from the issue we are talking about now with the Supreme Court 
nomination, to issues around health care, immigration, the Muslim ban, 
and many others.
  I think that the vision that we are trying to make sure people 
understand for the Progressive Caucus and certainly for Democrats is a 
vision of inclusion, a vision that respects the rights of everybody, 
regardless of what gender you are, regardless of what race or religion 
you might be.
  This moment is, in fact, very important. Tomorrow, Senate Republicans 
will attempt to push through President Trump's Supreme Court nominee 
Neil Gorsuch. I stand with my colleague, Mr. Raskin, and with our other 
Democratic colleagues in the Senate who are opposing this nomination 
because I truly believe that confirming Neil Gorsuch to this position 
would be a devastating backslide for numerous communities.
  I want to go through some of the communities that would be affected 
and how. Women, people of color, people living with disabilities and 
members of the LGBTQ community will have to wonder if the conservative 
majority on the Supreme Court is going to systematically remove their 
protections and strip them of their rights.
  Unfortunately, Neil Gorsuch, though an accomplished justice in his 
own right, does have a track record of doing that throughout his 
judicial career. So this isn't as simple as saying: Well, you blocked 
our nominee; therefore, we are going to block your nominee.
  No. This is about the issues and the refusal he has had to answer 
some of the questions before the committee.
  I did want to reflect briefly on the fact that yesterday was Equal 
Pay Day. Ninety-four days into the year, Equal Pay Day symbolizes the 
amount of extra time that it takes for a woman to earn the same amount 
as a man. We have got to work--I see the heads nodding up there in the 
Chamber--extra hard for an additional 3 months and some days in order 
to earn the same wages as a man.
  When you break it down by race, the gap widens even further. Black 
women working full time year round only earn 63 cents to the dollar. 
For them, Equal Pay Day comes on July 31. Latina women earn a mere 54 
cents, which means that their Equal Pay Day--get this--is November 2.
  Over a lifetime, the financial losses that women face due to this gap 
are immense. On average, a 20-year-old woman will lose $418,000 over 
the course of her 40-year career. For Black women, they will lose 
$840,000. Latinas will lose more than $1 million.
  Now, why do I bring this up in the context of Judge Gorsuch?
  Because I believe that as we mark Equal Pay Day, we need to know that 
we will have a Supreme Court Justice who will, in fact, crack down on 
the gender pay gap and enforce the law.

  Unfortunately, Judge Gorsuch has a history of prioritizing big 
business over people. In fact, he has ruled in favor of employers in 
two-thirds of the employment and labor disputes that have been brought 
before him on the basis of discrimination. Let's be clear: Equal Pay 
Day and the situation that women face is about discrimination.
  Gorsuch ruled against an African-American man who claimed that he was 
fired because of racial discrimination in Johnson v. Oklahoma 
Department of Transportation.
  In Poindexter v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of 
Sequoyah, he ruled against a man who argued that he was demoted because 
of his political views.
  His opinion in Strickland v. UPS was particularly troubling. The 
court ruled in favor of a female employee who had been discriminated 
against based on sex. Judge Gorsuch, though, wrote a dissenting 
opinion, despite the fact that the woman's male colleagues testified 
that she was required to attend counseling sessions while they were 
not, even though she was out performing them.
  The court ruled in her favor, but, again, Judge Gorsuch, President 
Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, 
went out of his way to undermine her.
  Perhaps the clearest example of Gorsuch's affinity for big business 
was his ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which many people across the 
country may know about. He ruled that private corporations should enjoy 
the same constitutional protections as people.
  Not only are people being told that the money of corporations 
represents protected speech, but women across this country are being 
told that those corporations can make decisions about women's health 
care and their rights to make decisions about their own body. This case 
sent a clear signal that Judge Gorsuch is no friend of women's 
reproductive rights.
  It isn't a surprise, frankly, that this President chose him, because 
he does fit right into this administration's all-out assault that we 
have seen since the beginning of this Congress on women's rights to 
make decisions about their bodies and their health care.
  Judge Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion arguing that the Affordable 
Care Act forced employers to violate their religious beliefs by 
providing birth control. It is our right to choose whether and when we 
want to have families. But rather than coming to the conclusion that 
corporations should be required to allow women to make their own 
healthcare decisions, Judge Gorsuch made it very clear that he stands 
with big business and against women's rights.
  His appointment is a deep threat to something that I have appreciated 
my whole life and that women before me have fought for so hard. His 
appointment is a threat to Roe v. Wade, which has protected women's 
rights to abortion access.
  Trump has said many times that he intended to appoint a Justice who 
would overturn Roe v. Wade. While being questioned in his confirmation 
hearing, Judge Gorsuch sidestepped all of the questions on this issue, 
but his views are obvious. He has questioned and argued against the 
legal foundation of a woman's right to choose, and he has been critical 
of the decisions of Roe v. Wade's and its reliance on the right to 
privacy and the substantive due process rationale.
  That is unacceptable. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and it has 
helped save the lives of millions of women across our country. We need 
to make sure that we protect that right to choose and continue to allow 
abortion access in this country.
  Judge Gorsuch has also taken actions that signal his support for the 
defunding of Planned Parenthood. Of course, we remember the doctored 
videos that came out to destroy Planned Parenthood's image. Utah 
Governor Gary Herbert attempted to defund the organization, but the 
tenth circuit issued an injunction. Gorsuch stood with the Governor. He 
even went so far as to push for a rehearing by the full court, without 
being asked by the Governor. The court refused. Gorsuch issued then a 
dissenting opinion that relied on the very fallacies that the Governor 
was pushing.
  We cannot afford to have this critical vote on the Supreme Court go 
to someone who so clearly intends to undermine women's fundamental and 
constitutional rights.
  Judge Gorsuch has also shown that he presents a threat to the LGBT 
community. In 2005, he wrote that people should rely on the ballot box 
to achieve marriage equality.
  During his confirmation hearing, he was asked about cases that 
involve LGBT people as a class. This qualification is important because 
it adds heightened scrutiny. Apparently, Gorsuch was not comfortable 
with this, because he dodged the question. That is alarming. Our LGBT 
community does face discrimination at extremely high rates. This is not 
a speculation; it is fact.

  Gorsuch could not even give a straight answer when Senator Dianne 
Feinstein asked if he agreed with Justice Scalia that there is ``no 
protection for women or gays or lesbians under the equal protection 
law.''
  With States around the country attempting to pass discriminatory 
bills, it is crucial that we have a Supreme Court Justice who will 
apply that heightened scrutiny.
  Finally, people living with disabilities are also fearful of this 
appointment and the possibility that Judge

[[Page H2743]]

Gorsuch might be our next Supreme Court Justice.
  In Luke P., a case involving a severely autistic student, Judge 
Gorsuch ruled that a State can provide an education offering minimal 
educational progress to students with disabilities.
  Rather than requiring States to fulfill their responsibilities under 
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Judge Gorsuch was 
satisfied with putting a student's learning potential at severe risk. 
In the middle of his confirmation hearing, the current Supreme Court 
unanimously overruled his decision.
  What does that say about his judgment? Do we want a Supreme Court who 
gets it wrong on so many issues?
  Judge Gorsuch should not be appointed to the Supreme Court. The fact 
that Senate Republicans are threatening the nuclear option if Democrats 
filibuster his appointment is just terrifying. It would have long-
lasting consequences, and it is inappropriate to select a man for this 
key position to the United States Supreme Court who makes decisions 
about so many issues that affect all Americans across our country.
  It is not right that they would make that on a purely partisan 
ideological basis. There should be a 60-vote threshold. We should make 
sure that they understand that, if they do this and they go to the 
nuclear option, it will have long-lasting consequences for them in 
their districts, in their offices, and also for the entire country.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Jayapal for that 
excellent discussion of the pro-choice question and other 
jurisprudence.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois 
(Ms. Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I am really grateful to the gentleman 
for yielding but also for organizing this Special Order on something 
that really is special: Who is going to sit on the Supreme Court, and 
how do we deal with Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination? Of course, we in 
the House don't have a vote, but we certainly do have the privilege to 
be able to weigh in on something as important as this in this manner. 
So I do appreciate the opportunity.
  Judge Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court is the latest battle 
in the Republicans' war on women and workers. I will find myself 
agreeing and probably repeating some of what Congresswoman Jayapal has 
said, but I think it bears repeating.
  First of all, let me say we should make no mistake: this is a stolen 
Supreme Court seat. Senate Republicans demonstrated unprecedented--
meaning never before in history--disrespect for the President of the 
United States, Barack Obama, and our Constitution by denying Judge 
Merrick Garland a vote or even a hearing when he was put into 
nomination by President Obama. That has never, ever happened before in 
our history.
  Last year, Republicans ignored their constitutional duty by denying 
Judge Garland a hearing. By the way, he had been approved by the 
Congress in the past for a seat on the district court, and he had 
praise on both sides of the aisle. So it wasn't a question of his being 
qualified or not. It was they did not want the ability of Barack Obama 
to even nominate someone and have him considered for the Supreme Court.
  So now they want to break the rules of the Senate to rush their own 
nominee through. This is a nomination to the United States Supreme 
Court, the highest body in the land, the highest Court in the land. The 
decisions the next Justice takes part in will affect Americans for 
decades, if not centuries, because it could set precedent. Given the 
importance of this position, Senators have the right to insist on a 60-
vote threshold for ending the debate on the nominee, and Senate 
Democrats should insist on 60 votes because Judge Gorsuch has 
demonstrated time and time again that he has put the interest of 
corporations above Americans--I will describe that later--whether it is 
worker safety or a woman's access even to contraception.
  I am going to talk for a minute about women. President Trump said he 
would nominate a judge to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that 
said, as a matter of privacy, that women could make their own decisions 
about terminating a pregnancy. Women take that threat very seriously. 
Judge Gorsuch talked about precedents he likes, like Brown v. Board of 
Education, integrating the schools. I agree with him on that. But 
tellingly, when he mentioned the precedents that he reveres, he 
certainly did not give Roe v. Wade the same status.
  Judge Gorsuch's judicial record should add to our concern. After the 
10th Circuit panel ruled against the State of Utah's attempt to defund 
Planned Parenthood following the release of deceptively edited videos, 
Judge Gorsuch called for the full court to hear the case, presumably to 
overturn the decision. Judge Gorsuch was in the minority in this 
instance, and his request was dismissed.
  In the Hobby Lobby case, Judge Gorsuch sided against women, allowing 
bosses to deny their women employees contraception as part of health 
coverage.
  Now I want to talk a little bit about workers. In many other cases, 
Judge Gorsuch has prioritized the interest of employers over the rights 
of workers. He blocked a woman in Colorado from going to trial on 
sexual harassment claims because she didn't report the harassment 
quickly enough.
  Judge Gorsuch denied a professor with leukemia at Kansas State 
University protection under the Rehabilitation Act. He sided with a 
mining company after a worker was electrocuted due to inadequate safety 
training. He sided with a trucking company that fired a trucker driving 
through Illinois--that is my State--who decided to leave his broken 
trailer instead of freezing to death, literally. The truck was down, 
couldn't get started, and his choice was to sit there with the truck or 
to be able to go to safety in freezing temperatures.
  Fortunately for workers, Judge Gorsuch was in the minority in some of 
those cases, but we can't count on him being in the minority once he is 
on the Supreme Court. His dangerous antiwoman, antiworker views should 
not be elevated to our highest court.
  So I urge my Democratic colleagues in the Senate to stand strong 
against the Gorsuch nomination. And to Senate Republicans, it was 
disrespectful to the Constitution to block Judge Garland. I am not even 
saying necessarily that he would have been approved, but to not even 
offer him a hearing or a vote was disrespectful to our Constitution, 
and it is disrespectful to the traditions of the Senate to force Judge 
Gorsuch through now.
  We don't want to break the rules to get one nominee through, 
especially not a nominee who puts critical protections for Americans at 
risk. Women are watching. Workers are watching. And on Friday, all 
Americans will know whose side the Senate is on and whose side the 
Senate Republicans are on. Everyone is paying attention.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for 
those excellent comments. As we have been discussing this evening, 
there is an egregious process problem with the nomination of Judge 
Gorsuch, and there is an egregious substantive problem with it.
  The process problem, of course, is that the seat properly belongs to 
Judge Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of 
Appeals, who was denied, extraordinarily, even a hearing for a 9-month 
period. The justification for that offered by Senator McConnell was 
that he felt that the people should speak in the 2016 election. Of 
course, President Obama was President. The Senate was the Senate. The 
people had spoken in the 2012 and 2014 elections. But they said they 
wanted the people to speak.

  Well, the interesting thing, of course, is that the people spoke, and 
2.9 million more people voted for the candidate who said she would 
appoint someone to the Court who was pro-choice, pro-Bill of Rights, 
pro-civil liberties, and not the Justice promised by Donald Trump, 
someone who would reverse Roe v. Wade and stand by Citizens United and 
the corporatization of the Supreme Court. So the people spoke.
  The other problem, the substantive problem, is that Judge Gorsuch 
adds to what has come to be called the corporate majority on the 
corporate Court. Corporations win; workers lose.

[[Page H2744]]

Corporations win; investors lose. Corporations win; consumers lose. 
Repeatedly. Time after time in the Roberts Court, the jurisprudence of 
the Court is defined by the identity of the parties, which is 
completely antithetical to our whole concept of rule of law and 
constitutional justice.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the very thoughtful gentlewoman from Texas 
(Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman 
from the great State of Maryland, a well respected theorist and 
professor who has been such an addition to the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Let me say something not out of arrogance or even difficult pride 
because pride goes before the fall, but I do believe the Committee on 
the Judiciary in this Congress--both the House and the Senate--has, at 
this moment, the highest responsibility for truth. I don't think there 
should be one moment of partisanship in our committee. Certainly I am 
delighted to be here with you and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, 
but we both serve on the Committee on the Judiciary, and our ranking 
member, Mr. Conyers, is a member of the Congressional Progressive 
Caucus. I believe that we are here, as was the Congressional Black 
Caucus just a few days ago, because it really behooves us to be able to 
speak to an important point that I think that I would like to make, a 
brief point.
  First, I would like to indicate that none of this reflects on Mr. 
Gorsuch's personality, character, or standing as a member of the 
judiciary who has served in the 10th Circuit for any number of years or 
the many accolades that he received from colleagues, but it does go to 
the question of the temperament and the ability to withstand the easy 
way of making decisions where you feel most comfortable. That is not 
the Supreme Court.
  The Supreme Court is to be able to look at the proceedings of the 
lower courts, but also the facts, and make decisions regardless of 
where you stand politically in your former life or where you feel 
comfortable in your philosophy. And so my concern, and the reason why I 
think there is courageous actions by my colleagues in the other body as 
they proceed to filibuster--and filibuster sounds like an ugly word. It 
sounds like here they go again, what obstructionists. But let me be 
very clear. I have had the privilege to either read about great 
jurists, or I have either lived through that period of time, and they 
were not all appointed by Democrats. I am certainly a great admirer of 
Chief Justice Warren, who led the Court for a number of years, a 
Republican, and certainly I have watched Justice Kennedy for a period 
of time and many others. But listen to the Leadership Conference on 
Civil Rights; I want to take their words: ``Judge Gorsuch's decade-long 
record on the Federal bench, as well as his writings, speeches, and 
activities throughout his career, demonstrate he is a judge with an 
agenda. His frequent dissents and concurrences show he is out of the 
mainstream of legal thought . . .''
  Now when we say mainstream, we are not suggesting that we dictate 
what he wants to do, but the mainstream is where the American people 
are. They are on Main Street, no matter who they are.
  ``. . . the mainstream of legal thought and unwilling to accept the 
constructs of binding precedent and stare decisis''--that is a key 
element, not willing to accept what has been accepted by so many--
``when they dictate results he disfavors. If confirmed to the Supreme 
Court, which is closely divided on many critical issues, Judge Gorsuch 
would tip the balance in a direction that would undermine many of our 
core rights and legal protections.''
  So let me make these two points in joining my colleague. The most 
indicting decision where Judge Gorsuch was in the dissent--let me see 
if the American people can understand this decision where, in fact, if 
I am correct, the gentleman prevailed in the lower court, I believe, 
and this is the truck driver, the freezing truck driver who was 
freezing one night when the cargo part of his big, huge 18-wheeler was 
attached to a bad working--I am trying to be a trucker here now--cab 
that he sits in. The brakes didn't work.

                              {time}  1745

  I know a lot of truckers, and that is absolutely zero. You just don't 
drive--icy roads, freezing. He tried to wait on the repair guys. They 
did not come. He knew that if he had attached the large part of the 18-
wheeler that it would be dangerous, and he might lose his life. He 
drove the cab off and he was fired. His legs had been freezing. He had 
been there for a long period of time.
  Judge Gorsuch wound up being the dissenter on a decision that favored 
not somebody's personality or ``I am a union member judge.'' No. It was 
about the fact that he said employers could just fire you for whatever 
reason whatsoever.
  The plaintiff has not been able to work for 7 years. It has impacted 
his whole life. But the other members of the court thought that he had 
a legitimate reason and did everything that he could. That is Main 
Street.
  My final point is that we are in a very unique and challenging time. 
There are investigations going on regarding this administration, and we 
really don't know where the truth will wind up.
  There are suggestions by committees--not this Member or not the 
distinguished Congressman that is on the floor here with me--that 
crimes have been perpetrated, criminal acts, someone may go to jail. I 
believe Judge Gorsuch should not be confirmed until we determine the 
conclusion of the investigations against the Trump administration. This 
is not biased. This is not about picking one side versus another.
  I just want to remind my colleagues: Would it happen if it were 
President Obama? Would it happen if it were President George W. Bush? 
Would it happen if it were President Clinton? These are the Presidents 
I have had the privilege of serving with. No, it would not.
  You cannot be the person who selects the person to a lifelong 
position on the Supreme Court and your whole administration, the 
context of the White House, is totally under investigation, including 
your former national security adviser for lying to the Vice President 
of the United States of America, your allegations that your former 
President wiretapped you, which has been disapproved by the FBI 
Director. I don't think so, and I don't think we can go forward.
  So I would say that the nomination of Judge Gorsuch should be 
filibustered as it is. I am saddened by the fact that it has to be 
filibustered. I would hope that Mr. McConnell could pull it down, that 
the President would understand that the whole nomination process was 
compromised. There was no consultation with the Democrats, as all 
Presidents have done. And, frankly, we call it: We are not ready; we 
are not prepared; we are unready, if you will, to go forward with a 
nomination by this President who is under complete investigation by the 
FBI and various intelligence agencies in the United States.
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for those 
extraordinary comments. Congresswoman Lee makes me think about the 
partisan identification of Supreme Court nominees because it is a 
relatively recent phenomena that we identify them as Democrats or 
Republicans.
  Many of my favorite Supreme Court Justices were appointed to the 
Supreme Court by Republican Presidents. Justice Suitor, of course, was 
appointed by the first President Bush. He was an exceptional Justice, 
who earned the ire, unfortunately, of the Republicans because he voted 
with the majority in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, affirming a woman's 
right to choose an abortion in consultation with her physician and her 
family and because he voted in Lee v. Weisman to prevent religious 
prayers from taking place at public school graduation ceremonies.
  The rhetoric then in the Republican Party was, ``No more Suitors,'' 
despite the fact that he had been nominated by a Republican President. 
``No more Suitors'' is what they said.
  Or Justice Kennedy, who has been an exceptional Justice when it comes 
to vindicating the constitutional rights and equality of the LGBT 
Americans. He was the one who authored the decision in Lawrence v. 
Texas, overruling Bowers v. Hardwick, saying that the State of Texas 
and other States could not arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate gay 
people simply for their relationships. He wrote that.

[[Page H2745]]

  He also was the author of the Supreme Court's magnificent decision in 
the Obergefell case, determining that equal protection means that 
States cannot discriminate against gay and lesbian citizens in the 
institution of marriage--and there is no going back on that.
  But, of course, the rhetoric on the other side now, because it has 
got to be turned into a partisan football, is, ``No more Kennedys.'' 
``No more Kennedys.'' ``No more Suitors.'' Why? Because they did their 
jobs as Justices. ``We want people like Neil Gorsuch who are going to 
tow the line every step along the way.''
  Neil Gorsuch is someone that they are convinced will be part of both 
the attempt to dramatically reduce or abolish the privacy rights of the 
people, turn the clock back on the equal rights of the LGBT community 
but, also, more importantly, participate in what has been called the 
development of the corporate court Neil Gorsuch.
  Now, that is a long-running development. But the critical moment came 
in 2010 with the Citizens United decision. Understand, the traditional 
doctrine for two centuries was that a corporation is, in the words of 
Chief Justice John Marshall from the 1819 decision in the Dartmouth 
College v. Woodward case, he said, ``an artificial being, invisible, 
intangible, existing only in contemplation of law,'' not possessing the 
constitutional political rights of the people. But in Citizens United, 
a deeply divided 5-4 Supreme Court found for the first time in our 
history that for-profit business corporations enjoy the political free 
speech rights of the people.
  So what did that mean as a practical matter? Because, after all, 
before, the CEOs could spend whatever they wanted of their own money 
independently in a political campaign--see Buckley v. Valeo; the 
members of the board, the corporate executives, could spend whatever 
they wanted independently in a political campaign--see Buckley v. 
Valeo; they could contribute up to the limits--see Buckley v. Valeo; 
now they can contribute to every Member of Congress and every Member of 
Congress' opponent because of a recent decision handed down by the 
Supreme Court.

  But there is one thing they couldn't do: The CEOs could not take 
money directly out of the corporate treasury to spend in politics. But 
the Citizens United majority gave them that power.
  This breached an understanding that had been in place for centuries 
that the most conservative Justices on the Court adhered to. Chief 
Justice Rehnquist, a very conservative judge, said that corporations 
are magnificent vehicles for the accumulation and investment of wealth, 
and they have worked great for the economy, but they are very dangerous 
if you allow them to cross the line from economics to politics.
  Justice White, a very conservative Justice, appointed by a Democrat, 
President Kennedy, said that corporations are endowed with all kinds of 
special attributes, like perpetual life of the corporation, the limited 
liability of the shareholders, and all kinds of legal trappings and 
subsidies. He said: The corporation is the creature of the State, and 
the State need not permit its own creature to consume it, to devour it.
  So we had a doctrine, which is that corporations could be confined to 
the economic realm. They could not convert all of the wealth and power 
they accumulate in economics into political power. But that is what the 
Supreme Court did in Citizens United.
  But it didn't stop there. Because now the question became, as the 
Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals put it: If a corporation has political 
rights, if a for-profit business corporation has political rights, why 
doesn't a for-profit business corporation have the religious rights of 
the people? And that became the Hobby Lobby decision in 2014.
  Hobby Lobby was a for-profit business corporation, not a religious 
entity, not a church, not a mosque. It was a business corporation. And 
it was not organized for religious purposes. It was organized for 
profitmaking purposes. Yet the corporate leadership said: We don't want 
to participate in the provision of contraceptive care for our employees 
under the Affordable Care Act. We don't want to do that. We assert the 
religious rights of the corporation.
  Now, stop and think about that for a second. From the standpoint of 
most religions, it is pure blasphemy to say that a corporation should 
have religious rights. As James Madison put it back when he wrote his 
famous remonstrance against religious taxation: The religious rights of 
the people are sacred in our system because they are between the person 
and God, they are between the believer and God. The government doesn't 
get involved; corporations aren't involved; and all of these other 
artificial entities aren't involved. It is between the person and his 
or her religious faith or worship.
  But beyond the blasphemy of it, think about what this means. What it 
means is that a business corporation can say that it does not want to 
participate in the provision of contraceptives to their employees, 
thereby violating the rights of their employees.
  If a corporation can exercise its newly found religious conscience to 
say that it doesn't want to provide contraceptives to employees, why 
can't the corporations say: Well, it also violates our rights to compel 
us to serve people on an interfaith or interracial basis; that offends 
our religious beliefs, too, as a corporation? Where does this doctrine 
end?
  Now, why do we raise this? Because Judge Gorsuch was part of the 
majority which determined that corporations have a religious 
conscience, have a religious soul. He has been part of the spiritual 
ennoblement of business corporations to the detriment of workers and 
consumers and other people who have to deal with this newfound 
corporate power.
  Judge Gorsuch seems like a good guy. He is right out of central 
casting, but he is being put on the Court to participate in the 
greatest concentration of corporate power, jurisprudence, and thinking 
on the Supreme Court in its entire history, with the possible exception 
of the Lochner period. Of course, in the Lochner period, in the early 
20th century, the Supreme Court began to slash away at child labor 
laws, at laws protecting the rights of people to belong to unions, at 
any kind of social regulation, saying that violated due process.
  Well, today, the First Amendment, where religious freedom played the 
same role that due process played during the Lochner period, they 
become a catchall rubric for the Court to strike down the laws of the 
people and to benefit big corporate power against the rights of actual 
human beings, like the people who lost their contraceptive care in the 
Hobby Lobby case because some of the corporate lawyers representing 
Hobby Lobby had the bright idea to assert that the corporation was 
protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And, of course, 
Judge Gorsuch went along for the ride, with all of the other corporate 
judges and the justices on the corporate court.
  Mr. Speaker, there is one category of judges in our Federal judiciary 
that merit the Appalachian Justice, who are called ``Justice.'' 
Everybody else is called ``Your Honor'' or ``Judge.'' But the people 
who go on the Supreme Court get to be called ``Justice.'' It means 
something.

                              {time}  1800

  There is a massive injustice taking place here because of the 
outrageous sandbagging, stonewalling, and obstruction of the D.C. 
Circuit Court Chief Judge Merrick Garland, who was denied even a 
hearing in the U.S. Senate. Now there is an attempt to tilt the Court 
for the next 15, 20, or 30 years with the appointment of Judge Gorsuch 
to the corporate bloc.
  So here in the House of Representatives, of course, we do not enjoy 
the power of advice and consent; but a number of us simply wanted to 
say this evening that we stand very strongly in solidarity with those 
Members of the Senate who are exercising their constitutional duties by 
trying to filibuster this nomination, which is conceived in a wrong, in 
an attempt to steal a Supreme Court seat and, if it were to be 
accomplished, would be destined simply to add to a rightwing pro-
corporate majority on the Roberts Court.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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