[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 112 (Wednesday, June 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3046-S3047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Justin Reed Walker

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, we are in the middle of a pandemic. The 
President of the United States doesn't act like it, but Americans are 
still dying by the hundreds--several hundred almost every day.
  We are in the middle of an economic crisis. Again, the President of 
the United States doesn't act like it. He crows about the unemployment 
numbers when they are the worst since World War II.
  And we are in the middle of a crisis of conscience. Millions of 
Americans have taken to the streets to protest the murders of Black and 
Brown Americans by the people supposed to protect them.
  With all of these challenges, the President of the United States is 
failing. The Senate should be stepping in right now to fill that 
leadership void, to get more help to families and to communities that 
are going bankrupt, to protect workers--to use every tool we have to 
force the administration to get some kind of test trace isolate regime 
in place to truly stop the spread of the coronavirus. We should be 
listening to the protestors demanding justice in communities all across 
the country, large and small.
  They remind us this pandemic isn't a separate issue from racial 
justice--it is all connected. It is not a coincidence that President 
Trump stopped even pretending to try to fight the coronavirus once he 
realized it was disproportionately Black and Brown Americans dying, not 
very often one of his rich friends.
  In the Senate, we have plans to get help and protections to workers; 
we have plans to fund a scale-up of testing that gets us closer to the 
level we need; we have plans to work to hold police accountable; we 
have begun to tackle the systemic racism in our justice system.
  Look at it this way: The last time I was on an airplane was in mid-
March. I live close enough--6-hour drive between Cleveland and 
Washington. In mid-March, there were about 90 coronavirus cases 
diagnosed in the United States--halfway around the world from where the 
Presiding Officer likes to emphasize it came from, Wuhan. About 900 
miles from Wuhan is the capital of South Korea--Seoul. In South Korea, 
around that same time, there were 90 cases. So South Korea had 90 
diagnosed cases; the United States had about 90 diagnosed cases.
  Since that date in March, fewer than 300 Koreans have died of the 
coronavirus; over 110,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus.

[[Page S3047]]

  In Korea, their unemployment rate now is under 4 percent; our 
unemployment rate is somewhere between three and four times that.
  That is clearly the incompetence--this is not a partisan statement. I 
have watched my Republican Governor of Ohio, who has done a good job, 
teamed up with Dr. Amy Acton, the health director, in combating this 
virus early, while the President of the United States was still blaming 
the virus on--saying it was a hoax or not real or whatever he said, and 
then his inept leadership didn't scale up testing, didn't have any 
national program to provide protective equipment to our people.
  So we have seen the bungled leadership out of the White House--
110,000 Americans passed away, an unemployment rate higher than at any 
time in my lifetime--but we are not doing anything about that here in 
this body. Why? Because Leader McConnell doesn't want to do anything 
about it, for whatever reason. Instead of rising to meet the crisis of 
the pandemic or unemployment or the protests on our streets, Senator 
McConnell wants to create a new crisis by confirming more extreme 
judges that are trying to take away America's healthcare.
  The challenges we are facing as a country are bad enough. Imagine if 
Leader McConnell and President Trump get their way--their handpicked 
judges throw tens of millions of Americans off of their health 
insurance in the middle of a pandemic. That sounds farfetched? Well, 
no, it isn't.

  In the middle of a pandemic, this President continues his lawsuit to 
try to overturn the Affordable Care Act, even though the voters have 
ratified it through a number of elections in 2012 and 2014 and 2016 and 
2018. It still stands, but the President of the United States is trying 
to take away people's healthcare. They are trying to sneak ACA repeal 
through the courts since they couldn't do it in Congress.
  While the rest of the country is distracted just trying to keep their 
families safe, judges are deciding the fate of America's health 
coverage right now.
  The nomination we are considering this week--right now on the floor--
of Judge Walker is part of that effort. Judge Walker has served in the 
Western District of Kentucky for just 6 months.
  What makes him qualified for the DC Circuit? It is not the 6 months 
he served in Kentucky. In fact, the bar association in Kentucky said he 
wasn't qualified for that job. He has only had it for 6 months. What 
makes him qualified?
  Just go down the hall. I am sure you could have seen many, many times 
Judge Walker when he was Law Clerk Walker or Young Man Walker or 
Grandson of Contributor Walker going in and out of Senator McConnell's 
office. He is a protege of McConnell's. He thinks the way McConnell 
thinks; he acts the way McConnell acts; and that is what it is all 
about.
  Before his nomination to the district court, Walker praised then-
Judge Kavanaugh for providing a roadmap the Supreme Court could use to 
strike down the ACA. So it isn't just that Judge Walker is a young, 
unqualified, extremist, far-right protege of the majority leader. It is 
not just that. I mean, talk about the swamp. That is what that is.
  What it is all about is putting another vote in a key place to 
overturn the Affordable Care Act. He is calling upholding the ACA 
indefensible and catastrophic.
  I don't know how, in the middle of a pandemic, you look at the 
American landscape, you see how many people have been sick--millions of 
Americans have been sick--110,000 Americans have died, hundreds more 
every day, and you think one of the most important things you can do is 
strip millions of Americans of their healthcare.
  He has continued his attacks on American healthcare protections since 
he joined the Federal bench. In March 2020, at his formal swearing-in 
ceremony as district judge, Judge Walker said the worst words he heard 
while clerking for Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court were the Chief 
Justice's rationale for upholding the ACA. The worst words he heard 
from the man for whom he was working were his words to uphold the ACA, 
the Affordable Care Act.
  Now, what I forgot to mention was that when Judge Walker said that at 
his swearing-in ceremony, there were a couple of important visitors 
there.
  Although the Senate should have been in session and finished our work 
on the first round of the coronavirus, Senator McConnell--his office is 
down the hall. As we know, Senator McConnell decided to adjourn the 
Senate and go back to Kentucky for this swearing-in. Judge Kavanaugh, 
another protege, if you will, of Senator McConnell's was there too.
  So don't forget, Senator McConnell is on the ballot this year. 
Senator McConnell faces an opponent who is running neck and neck with 
him. It is a very Republican State, but Senator McConnell is not a 
particularly well-liked figure in his State, as we have seen through 
many years.
  So Senator McConnell didn't do his job here. It is not just he didn't 
do his job. He stopped us from doing our jobs so he could fly back, be 
with Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, to remind the voters in Kentucky 
that he is the strong man who got Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court 
and then to celebrate the swearing-in of just another young judge to a 
Federal district court. That is where Senator McConnell's priorities 
are.
  We know Judge Walker is the latest in a long line of judges pushed by 
President Trump, rammed through by Leader McConnell, as his minions, 
shills, obedient junior Senators or sheep--you choose the noun for your 
colleagues--all vote yes so you could put another member on another 
Federal court who is trying to take away Americans' healthcare.
  Chad Readler, from my State, who is now serving on the Sixth Circuit, 
led the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the entire 
Affordable Care Act, and David Porter, who holds a Pennsylvania seat on 
the Third Circuit, wrote that the ACA ``violates the Framers' 
constitutional design.''
  What kind of law training do you have, and what kind of upbringing do 
you have--what kind of way do you think?--that you would think that 
providing healthcare to citizens is a violation of the Framers' 
constitutional design? Who thinks that way? On and on it goes.
  The American people want to keep their healthcare. They have made 
that clear. They especially want to keep that healthcare in the middle 
of, for gosh sakes, a pandemic. Leader McConnell needs to stop trying 
to take it away through the courts and start letting us actually get to 
work to make people healthier.
  Let's get to work to save lives from the coronavirus. Let's get to 
work to save lives from police violence. Let's get to work to save 
lives from all of the inequities in our healthcare system. Let's get to 
work to put money in people's pockets, help them pay the bills and stay 
in their homes, and help State and local governments from laying off 
thousands and thousands of workers.
  Leader McConnell, let us do our job, the job for which we were 
elected.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.