[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4883-S4884]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. President, President Trump's nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the 
Supreme Court will bring up many issues. The next Justice on the 
Supreme Court will have an ability to impact labor rights, women's 
reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, civil rights, 
environmental rights, and so much more for generations to come. We need 
to know how Judge Kavanaugh views those issues.
  On the issue of a woman's freedom to make her own health decisions, 
for example, yesterday, while shepherding Judge Kavanaugh around the 
Capitol, Vice President Pence said that he wanted to see Roe v. Wade 
overturned. This isn't some ancient belief that the country has pushed 
aside. There are people in high parts of the government--the Vice 
President yesterday, the President constantly, and some others--who 
want to repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow. Americans should not be 
complacent. The vast majority of Americans wants to see Roe in place, 
but there is an active movement here now, personified by Judge 
Kavanaugh's potential elevation to the Bench--I hope it doesn't 
happen--and we have to be vigilant.
  Vice President Pence's remarks that he wants Roe overturned was a 
prescient reminder that both the President and Vice President have 
explicitly promised to appoint ``strict constitutionalists to the 
Supreme Court'' who would ``consign Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of 
history.'' Those are the Vice President's words.
  Judge Kavanaugh has also written some troubling things about 
environmental protections, consumer protections, commonsense gun safety 
laws, all of which should be carefully examined by this Senate and by 
the American people before we have any hearings. His history as a 
Republican partisan lawyer during the Clinton and Bush eras--documents, 
emails, writings--needs to be thoroughly examined, particularly his 
more recent writings about executive authority.
  Judge Kavanaugh argued that a President should not be subject to an 
investigation while he is in office, that a President should be above 
criminal and civil indictments, even going so far as to say that a 
President need not enforce a law that the President deems 
unconstitutional.
  Those are serious and dangerous beliefs. They are particularly 
dangerous--maybe even more dangerous now--because we have a President 
who clearly wishes to aggregate all power to himself regardless of the 
separation of powers, regardless of the norms this country has had for 
centuries, regardless of the rule of law. Senators from

[[Page S4884]]

both parties need to scrutinize what Judge Kavanaugh has said because, 
if he is the swing vote on any kind of rational check on this 
President, I worry. We should all worry.
  Conservatism has always believed in small aggregations of power so 
that the individual would have more freedom. That is the core of 
conservatism. Yet, when conservatives embrace Donald Trump, who wishes 
to aggregate power and roll over any checks to his power and now 
chooses to get behind Judge Kavanaugh, who seems to have an almost 
monarchical view of Presidential power, we have trouble. We had better 
be awfully careful here in this country. The Senate is going to have to 
look at each and every one of these issues in due time.
  Today, however, I want to focus on the issue that might have the most 
profound consequences for the average American most immediately--
healthcare and the protections for Americans who have preexisting 
conditions. In a few minutes, I will be joined by some of my colleagues 
over in the Mansfield Room to discuss this issue at length. Right now, 
though, here is what I would like to say.
  Prior to Judge Kavanaugh's selection, President Trump promised to 
nominate a judge who ``would do the right thing, unlike Judge Roberts 
on health care.'' Those are Trump's words.
  He commissioned a list of judges from the Heritage Foundation--a far-
right special interest group that is dedicated to dismantling 
government, including and especially the healthcare law. It is the 
place where the government spends a lot of money. These rich people who 
are behind the Heritage Foundation--the Kochs and others--don't want to 
pay any taxes. Those poor folks. They are struggling. Where do more 
taxes go than any other place? They go to healthcare. Why? Because that 
is what the American people want. Who wouldn't give everything they 
have if their spouse, their children, their relatives were sick and 
needed a lot of money to be cured?
  That is why we have insurance, and that is why we have the government 
involved with things like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, 
but the Heritage Foundation--a handful of rich people who fund them and 
the so many Republicans who dance to their tune--don't want that. They 
hide it from the American people because the American people don't 
agree with it, but they don't want it. They have pushed forward Judge 
Kavanaugh to be the torchbearer on the Court for their mission.
  The list of 25 that President Trump selected from was vetted and 
approved by this very Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation 
would not give its stamp of approval to anyone who would maintain or 
grow our healthcare law, particularly protections for Americans with 
preexisting conditions.
  The American people deserve to know where Judge Kavanaugh stands. 
This is a serious issue. This is not something we can allow a nominee 
to hide behind and say: I will follow existing law. We need to know 
their view of the government's ability to be involved in people's 
healthcare; to help it be funded when the average person can't afford 
it, given how high the costs are.
  Right now, several cases that challenge the structure and 
constitutionality of the law are wending through our courts. If one or 
many reach the Supreme Court, I will say to my fellow Americans, your 
right to be protected if, God forbid, someone in your family is sick is 
at risk. Your right to have an insurance company not cut you off if, 
God forbid, someone in your family is sick is at risk if Judge 
Kavanaugh ascends to the Bench. That is probably the No. 1 reason he is 
opposed by so many of us on this side of the aisle.
  Can you imagine a Supreme Court thrusting us back to a time when you 
could be denied health insurance precisely because you needed it so 
desperately, to a time when a mother with a child who has cancer is 
made to watch her daughter suffer in agony because they can't get 
affordable healthcare because no insurer will insure someone who has a 
child with cancer in their family? Do we want to go back to that? Come 
on. This is not Democrat or Republican; this is what America believes 
in. The hard right, through subterfuge and, to their credit, long-term 
diligence, is getting these people on the Court. They could never pass 
such a law in the Congress, the elected body of the people, even with 
the Republican majorities, but the Court, the unelected branch, is 
where they are headed, and that is why we have to be so vigilant.
  Up to 130 million nonelderly Americans have a preexisting condition--
more than one-third of Americans. For insurance companies, it used to 
be the case that a condition as commonplace as asthma was justification 
for jacking up rates to unaffordable levels. The law we wrote to 
prevent those despicable abuses by insurance companies is potentially 
on the chopping block, in my view, and likely to go if Judge Kavanaugh 
becomes Justice Kavanaugh. How can we afford that?
  The American people should have their eyes wide open to the stakes. 
The Supreme Court may very well hear a challenge to the legal 
protections for people with preexisting conditions, and President 
Trump's own Justice Department is currently arguing in court that those 
protections are unconstitutional. I would like President Trump, at one 
of his rallies, to tell the people at the rally he is for taking away 
their protections when they have someone with a preexisting condition 
in their family. He wouldn't dare, but that is what his legal 
departments in HHS and Justice are doing.
  The President doesn't tell people what he is doing. He brings these 
hard-right people in and says: I am with you. He whispers: I am with 
you. He doesn't dare tell the American people.
  That is why it is our job in the minority, since the Republican side, 
by and large, has shown so little spine on this issue--it is our job to 
let the American people know the peril they are in, that their 
healthcare is in.
  If anyone doesn't believe that President Trump is still intent on 
tearing down our healthcare system, just look at what the 
administration did yesterday. The President decimated funding that 
helps people sign up for health insurance, cutting it to one-sixth of 
what it was 2 years ago. This funding is used to help people navigate 
the complex landscape of health insurance and select the plan or 
program that is right for their family. Even worse, of the little 
funding that remains, Trump mandated that it be used to direct people 
into his junk insurance plans that don't cover basic essential 
healthcare. Yesterday's news should remind us that President Trump 
remains ruthlessly committed to tearing down our healthcare system. He 
will not admit it at his rallies. He does not dare talk about it, but 
that probably is the most important thing he is doing in terms of 
effect on the American people, and we are not going to let him hide it. 
Anyone who thinks President Trump did not make this Supreme Court 
nomination without an end goal of furthering healthcare sabotage is 
kidding themselves.
  So while there are many rights and freedoms at stake on the Supreme 
Court, the right of all Americans to be able to afford healthcare is at 
the very top of the list. The selection process for Judge Kavanaugh and 
President Trump's own words should motivate Americans from all corners 
of the country to contact their Senators and urge them to oppose this 
nominee.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.