[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2838-S2839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NOMINATION OF WENDY VITTER

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, later this week, Wendy Vitter will 
receive a vote on her nomination to the U.S. District Court for the 
Eastern District of Louisiana. Once our votes are cast, she almost 
certainly will be confirmed by a slim margin on largely partisan lines, 
and she will join the Federal judiciary for a lifetime tenure. My hope 
is that my Republican colleagues will think again and that some of them 
will demonstrate some conscience and conviction based on principles 
that I think are more important than any single district court judge 
and indeed more important than any of us individually, because Ms. 
Vitter will never again face public accountability for her fitness, her 
moral character, and her fidelity to the bedrock norms of our time. She 
will be insulated from all political process.
  That is what we afford our judiciary. It is the right thing to do. 
They ought to be, in effect, guardians of the Constitution with 
lifetime appointments that protect them from political vindictiveness 
or revenge. But that independence must be earned. It is earned by 
vetting through a public confirmation process. The Founders placed that 
responsibility in this body with us, and for nearly a century, these 
confirmation hearings have helped the American public judge our would-
be judges and weed out our wildly radical or unfit nominees. The 
confirmation process is a vetting that includes a hearing and then a 
committee vote and then a vote here in the Senate.
  On the most basic principles of the confirmation process, Ms. Vitter 
fails to pass muster. She failed to produce more than 100 speeches, 
interviews, and press articles to the Senate Judiciary Committee for 
review. She defiantly declined to answer my question on one of the 
baseline notions of constitutional liberty--the correctness of the 
Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
  As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I ask these questions 
to every nominee when they appear because I believe it is 
unquestionably an important reason for considering whether to vote for 
these nominees--their beliefs as to whether Brown v. Board of Education 
and other well-established precedents are indeed correctly decided.
  This iconic ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court is special even among 
those well-established decisions. Anyone who fails to endorse such a 
sacrosanct decision is clearly out of the legal and societal mainstream 
and unworthy of confirmation.
  When I asked Ms. Vitter if she thought Brown v. Board was correctly 
decided, here is how she responded:

       I don't mean to be coy, but I think I can get into a 
     difficult, difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme 
     Court decisions which are correctly decided and which I may 
     disagree with. Again, my personal, political, or religious 
     views I would set aside. That is Supreme Court precedent.

  I was stunned by her answer. I am still stunned to read it back. I am 
tempted to read it again out of disbelief. Brown is woven into the 
fabric of our Nation. How could anyone suggest disagreeing with Brown, 
as she did, and then say: Well, even though I disagree with Brown v. 
Board of Education, I would follow it. That answer says something very 
profound about the person giving it.
  In 2019, the only reasonable answer to my question--``Do you think 
Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided?''--is a resounding 
yes. Brown is about more than just its historic ruling; a separate but 
equal school is inherently unequal and unconstitutional. A segregated 
school, even if it is called equal, is inherently unequal. That is 
Brown. It is about core values and principles deeply embedded in the 
constitutional consensus that binds and bonds our constitutional 
democracy. It is about more than just the words on paper; it is about 
our values and our principles, what holds us together as a nation.
  When nominees like Ms. Vitter refuse to say that a seminal case like 
Brown was correctly decided and instead merely says that it is 
precedent, that it is a binding decision, what they are asserting 
essentially is that a case that is decided is only a decision, that it 
is only good law until it is reversed.
  The reason for giving such an answer is that Ms. Vitter and the vast 
majority of President Trump's nominees do not really think that a lot 
of Supreme Court precedent is correct, and they would be perfectly 
happy for reversals.
  We know that the President has a litmus test for his judicial 
nominees. He has told us repeatedly that he will appoint judges who 
will overturn another landmark Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade.
  What is particularly striking and pernicious about Ms. Vitter's 
answer to my question on Brown is that her extreme views on Roe, 
abortion, and reproductive rights are already well known and 
authoritatively established.
  In May 2013, at an anti-choice protest outside the future site of a 
Planned Parenthood clinic, Ms. Vitter said:

       Planned Parenthood says they promote women's health. It is 
     the saddest of ironies that they kill over 150,000 females a 
     year. The first step in promoting women's health is to let 
     them live.

  This is a radical view. It is wrong on the facts. It makes no secret 
of what Ms. Vitter thinks about the precedent of Roe, and it is worth 
noting that Ms. Vitter initially didn't even disclose this speech to 
the Senate.
  In November of 2013, Ms. Vitter moderated a panel at the conference 
for Louisiana Right to Life titled ``Abortion Hurts Women's Health.'' 
Again, Ms. Vitter did not disclose this to the Senate. On the panel was 
a so-called ``expert'' who falsely claimed that contraception pills are 
linked to cancer, an absurd and very dangerous lie. Ms. Vitter 
advocated that viewers download this speaker's brochure and ask their 
doctors to display it saying: ``Each one of you can be a pro-life 
advocate.''
  At her confirmation hearing, a number of Senators asked Ms. Vitter 
whether she believed the claims made in the brochure. She refused to 
answer and insisted she had not studied the details of the brochure. 
How strange that she asked the audience of her panel discussion to have 
their doctors display it. At the same Louisiana Right to Life event, 
Ms. Vitter applauded Texas for the ``great strides in making it very 
difficult to get abortions in Texas.''
  Ms. Vitter was applauding a law that requires physicians who perform 
abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and it 
required abortion clinics in the State to have facilities comparable to 
an ambulatory surgical center. The Supreme Court struck down the law as 
unconstitutional because it would have closed most clinics in Texas and 
placed an undue burden on Texas women to access safe, legal abortion 
services.
  As a district court judge, Ms. Vitter undoubtedly would have upheld 
this unconstitutional restriction of a woman's right to choose. She 
celebrated a Louisiana law that forced women to look at an ultrasound 
before having an abortion. These kinds of requirements serve no medical 
purpose, which is why they have been struck down. They are only an 
obstruction to a woman's right over her own reproductive health, and 
they conflict with basic Supreme Court principles about the rights of 
privacy under the Constitution.
  Federal judges are entrusted with this kind of lifetime appointment 
because they will be neutral arbiters. They will give everyone a fair, 
impartial hearing and rule on the facts and the law. That is the 
theory. Ms. Vitter, despite her best efforts to hide her

[[Page S2839]]

record, despite her continuing suggestion about different views and her 
refusal to answer questions on bedrock principles, has showed what her 
true beliefs are in her writings, her statements, and her activities. 
We know about Wendy Vitter, for sure. She will not be an unbiased 
umpire. When it comes to abortion and reproductive rights, we know that 
she is too ideological to simply call balls and strikes. That is why 
she was nominated, and that is why she was chosen. She passed that 
litmus test imposed by this administration and this President. She is 
part of those efforts to remake the Federal judiciary in the image of 
the far-right, extremist fringe.
  I cannot support this nominee, and I urge my colleagues to oppose 
her. I will be voting against her on Thursday of this week when her 
confirmation vote is scheduled.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. McSally). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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