[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 176 (Tuesday, October 31, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6899-S6901]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



               Recognizing the National Cancer Institute

  Mr. President, I come to the floor today to recognize a remarkable 
group of physicians, people to whom I and many others owe a profound 
debt. I refer to the team that has led my treatment at the National 
Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.
  Every year, cancer claims the lives of hundreds of thousands of 
Americans and millions of others across the globe. It is a relentless 
and complex disease. It comes in many forms that demand varied and 
specialized treatments.
  There are many centers of excellence in the struggle against cancer, 
but NCI plays a special role. The physicians assembled there are 
recruited from the most outstanding medical institutions of the world 
to lead the fight. Yes, NCI conducts its own research and treatment 
programs, and I am among its many patients, but more importantly, it 
oversees and funds our national effort against cancer, awarding grants 
and supporting a nationwide network of 69 NCI-designated cancer 
centers. NCI's role in the development of anti-cancer drugs has been 
especially noteworthy: Roughly two-thirds of cancer medications 
approved by the FDA have emerged from NCI-sponsored trials.
  Despite the special tenacity of this disease, we have made enormous 
strides. To the lives of cancer patients, NCI has added decades where 
once there were only years and years where once there were only months. 
They are closing in on the enemy, in all its forms, giving hope to 
millions of families and offering a real prospect of

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someday comprehensively eliminating this dreaded illness.
  NCI is a large and expert team of scientists, doctors, nurses, 
technicians, and administrators, and all of them deserve our thanks. I 
would like to single out for special mention a few who have won my 
particular gratitude and that of my family, but NCI has requested that 
I not do so. Instead, I will say this: All too often in American 
culture, we associate heroism with physical manifestations of courage--
the toughness of the athlete, the daring of the soldier or sailor. My 
friends, we would do well to remind ourselves of and to teach our 
children the more patient forms of bravery exemplified by our doctors 
and nurses and research scientists who wage the war against cancer day 
after day, year after year. Through their tireless effort, the 
physicians and researchers of NCI remind us of the heroes of the 
medical art, showing it to be, as Samuel Johnson called it, ``the 
greatest benefit to mankind.'' It has certainly been a great benefit to 
me, and I am deeply, deeply grateful.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on the 
nomination of Notre Dame Law Professor Amy Barrett to serve on the 
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She is an eminently qualified and 
exceptionally bright nominee who has received praise and support across 
the legal profession. She clerked for Judge Silberman on the DC Circuit 
Court of Appeals and for Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. She has 
experience in private practice and many years as a law professor 
teaching classes on constitutional Law, Federal courts, statutory 
interpretation, among others. She was appointed by Chief Justice John 
Roberts to sit on the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Appellate 
Procedure, where she served for 6 years.
  Her nomination has also received wide support. For example, in a 
letter to the Judiciary Committee, a bipartisan group of law professors 
encouraged the committee to confirm her nomination, saying that 
Professor Barrett ``enjoys wide respect for her careful work, fair-
minded disposition, and personal integrity.'' Her colleagues at Notre 
Dame described her ``as a model of the fair, impartial, and sympathetic 
judge.''
  Despite this, all the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee 
voted against her nomination in committee, and I suspect most of the 
minority will vote against her confirmation later today. This, of 
course, is a shame, and it does not speak well of our institution, the 
U.S. Senate, and I would like to explain why.
  When the Judiciary Committee voted on Professor Barrett's nomination, 
I listened to the reasons my colleagues gave for voting against her. 
Some said that she didn't have enough experience to be a circuit court 
judge. Well, the American Bar Association rated Professor Barrett as 
``well qualified.''
  The Democrats have said that the ABA's ratings are very important to 
them when considering a nominee, once even calling it the ``gold 
standard.'' Their votes certainly don't reflect that. I suspect the 
ratings don't actually matter to them since they have voted against 
most of the ``well qualified'' nominees this Congress. The minority has 
even requested that I not hold hearings on nominees when the committee 
hasn't received the ABA ratings for that nominee, as if the ABA--an 
outside group--can and should dictate the committee's schedule. But 
even when we have ``well qualified'' or ``qualified'' ratings from the 
ABA, the minority still votes against these nominees, so the actual 
significance of the rating to the minority doesn't make a lot of sense.
  Furthermore, lack of appellate experience hasn't mattered before. 
When President Clinton nominated Justice Kagan to the DC Circuit Court 
of Appeals, she had no appellate experience. But I remember my friend 
from Vermont saying that the Senate should vote on her nomination 
because she was an ``outstanding woman.'' Her lack of appellate 
experience didn't appear to be of concern to my friends in the minority 
at the time of Kagan's nomination coming before the committee, so I 
don't understand why the standard is different now.
  Another reason some of my colleagues gave when voting against her is 
that they say she will disregard judicial precedent. Of course, if that 
is true, that would be a very serious consideration, but looking at all 
of Professor Barrett's writings and listening to the testimony she 
gave, not once did she say that circuit or district court judges could 
disregard precedent. In fact, during her hearing, she told the 
committee that she understood ``circuit judges to be absolutely bound 
by the precedent of the Supreme Court'' and that ``circuit courts are 
bound to follow the precedent of their own circuit.'' That doesn't 
sound like a nominee who will not respect precedent. In fact, she 
understands exactly the role of precedent and the limitations and 
restrictions placed on lower court judges.
  Another Senator argued that she has written provocative things like 
``A judge will often entertain an ideological bias that makes him lean 
one way or the other. In fact, we might safely say that every judge has 
such an inclination.'' I am not sure why this statement is provocative. 
I think everyone here knows that every person has their own biases and 
policy preferences, whether or not they are a judge. In writing this, 
Professor Barrett shows the awareness to recognize that every person 
comes to their job with personal biasses and views. This is especially 
important for judges to recognize about themselves. In fact, she is so 
self-aware that this is a potential problem for judges that she cowrote 
an article arguing that if a judge cannot set aside a personal 
preference in a particular matter before that judge, she shouldn't hear 
the case in the first place.
  These comments come from an article about potential issues Catholic 
judges may face that Professor Barrett wrote in law school. The article 
was about Catholic judges but could have been written about the biasses 
of judges of any religion or of no religion at all. My friends in the 
minority have looked at a few of her comments from this article and 
seem to have concluded that she will base her judicial decisions off of 
what her religion teaches.
  During her hearing, one Senator even implied that Professor Barrett 
could not separate her religion from her judicial decision making, but 
Professor Barrett had said and argued quite the opposite and had done 
it several times. She believes that it is highly inappropriate for a 
judge to use his own religious beliefs in legal reasoning. In fact, she 
concludes the very article the Democrats are concerned with this way: 
``Judges cannot--nor should they try to--align our legal system with 
the church's moral teachings whenever the two diverge.''
  I think opposition to her nomination ultimately comes down to the 
fact that her personal views about abortion do not line up with the 
minority's views about abortion. I knew the minority would ask her 
about her views on abortion, so during her nomination hearing, I took 
advantage of being the first to ask her if she would allow her 
religious views to dictate her legal decisions. She said that she would 
not. I also asked her if she would follow Supreme Court precedent 
involving abortion, and she simply and succinctly answered: 
``Absolutely, I would.''
  At her hearing, the statement was made--now, can you believe this?--
``You are controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as 
women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our 
reproductive systems.''
  This statement alone is stunning to me for two reasons--first, that a 
nominee is controversial because she might share the views of over half 
the country, which is that abortion is wrong; second, that this 
statement amounts to a religious test. In response, Professor Barrett 
said over and over that she has no power to overrule Roe or any other 
abortion-related Supreme Court case nor does she have interest in 
challenging that specific precedent.
  A further statement was made:

       [R]eligion . . . has its own dogma. The law is totally 
     different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read 
     your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma 
     lives loudly within you, and that's of concern when you come 
     to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for 
     years in this country.

  So the Democrats are saying that women who have personal beliefs that 
are consistent with their religions are not eligible to be Federal 
judges even

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when they have assured the committee, as she did over and over again, 
that they strongly believe in following binding Supreme Court 
precedent. If that is the case--if the minority is enforcing a 
religious litmus test on our nominees--this is an unfortunate day for 
the Senate and for the country.
  Others have spoken on the issue of a religious test, but I will 
remind my colleagues that the Constitution specifically provides that 
``no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any 
office under the United States.'' It is one of the most important 
founding principles. I do not think an evaluation of how religious a 
person is or how religious she might not be should ever be a part of 
that evaluation.
  We have received many letters on this topic, including one from 
Princeton University's president, who is a former law clerk to Justice 
Stevens and happens to be a constitutional scholar. He writes that the 
questions the Democrats posed to Professor Barrett about her faith were 
``not consistent with the principle set forth in the Constitution's `no 
religious test' clause'' and that the views expressed in her law review 
article on Catholic judges are ``fully consistent with a judge's 
obligation to uphold the law and the Constitution.''
  Finally, this morning, my friend from Illinois justified the 
Democrats' questions to Professor Barrett in committee by noting that I 
also asked questions in the committee about her article, but there is a 
difference in simply asking a nominee if her religious views will 
influence her judicial decision making and trying to ascertain just how 
religious a nominee is by asking, ``Do you consider yourself an 
orthodox Catholic?'' or by saying, ``The dogma lives within you.''
  My questions gave Professor Barrett a chance to explain her law 
review article, which was an article I knew the Democrats would 
question her over. The other side's questions and comments went to 
figure out just how strongly she would hold to her faith, which was the 
inappropriate line of questioning.
  I will make one more related comment. I mentioned this in the 
Judiciary Committee, but I think that it bears repeating on the floor 
because the issue will continue to come up.
  Professor Barrett and a few other nominees have a relationship with 
or ties to the Alliance Defending Freedom group, which, as several 
Senators have recently pointed out, has been labeled as a hate group by 
the Southern Poverty Law Center. When the nominees have been asked 
about this, they have pointed out that the Southern Poverty Law 
Center's designation is, in itself, highly controversial. I would say 
that it is completely unfounded. The ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom, 
is an advocacy organization that litigates religious liberty cases. It 
has won six cases in front of the Supreme Court in the past 6 years, 
including cases that are related to free speech and children's 
playgrounds. They are not outside the mainstream.
  Any difference in viewpoint that folks may have with them boils down 
to, simply, policy differences, but dissent and a difference of opinion 
do not equal hate, and it is wrong to compare an organization like the 
ADF to that of the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party and, by extension, 
imply that the nominees before us sympathize with such actual hate 
groups.
  Finally, I would note that the Southern Poverty Law Center designates 
the American College of Pediatricians and the Jewish Defense League as 
hate groups. So some of the Southern Poverty Law Center's designations 
appear to be discriminatory in and of themselves.
  Professor Barrett is a very accomplished, impressive nominee, and we 
know that her personal story is compelling. She has seven children, 
several who were adopted from Haiti and one who has special needs. She 
is an accomplished attorney and a well-respected law professor. I will 
be strongly supporting her nomination today, and I urge every one of my 
colleagues to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I wish to explain my vote today in 
opposition to the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to serve as a U.S. 
Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit. In Professor Barrett's hearing 
before the Judiciary Committee, I focused my questions on Professor 
Barrett's views and previous writings on the circumstances under which 
judges must adhere to precedent and on the doctrine of originalism. It 
was on the basis of her responses to those questions that I have 
concluded that I am unable to support her nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.