[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 122 (Thursday, July 2, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4169-S4170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ISSUES FACING AMERICA

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, before I discuss the legislation before 
the Senate, I need to spend a moment on something broader. Our country 
needs to confront the Democratic Party's willingness to threaten our 
governing institutions themselves.
  Earlier this year, as the Senate disposed of the least fair, least 
thorough, and most rushed impeachment in modern history, I offered a 
broader warning. I said: ``Leaders in the opposite party increasingly 
argue that if our institutions don't produce the outcomes they like, 
our institutions themselves must be broken.''
  No longer do disappointments for Democrats mean that Democrats need 
better arguments. Now disappointments for Democrats are claimed as 
proof--proof--that our country is fundamentally broken or that James 
Madison messed something up.
  So while we have far-left mobs attacking statues of our Founding 
Fathers from coast to coast, we have far-left politicians attacking the 
institutions those Founders left us.
  Now, step back and look at the landscape of fundamental changes that 
leading Democrats or their close allies are demanding: amending the 
First Amendment to restrict its protections, ending the electoral 
college, packing the Supreme Court with new Justices, packing the 
Senate with new States, and, to accomplish all this, destroying the 
Senate's distinguishing feature that makes radical change hard by 
design.
  We have an entire political movement that is telling us--literally 
out loud--that they have lost patience with playing by the rules and 
may well declare war on the rule book itself. A coalition of leftwing 
special interests are explicitly campaigning for ``51 for 51.'' They 
want Senators to vandalize the rules to pass legislation with a simple 
majority and then use that ill-gotten power to cement a presumed 
advantage by awarding the District of Columbia two Senate seats.
  They want to nuke the Senate to pack the Senate. This is naked 
politics. No neutral principle could explain why all these special 
interests prioritize this cause which most Americans oppose. No neutral 
principle explains why Democrats want the 20th most populous city to 
get two Senators all to itself when retrocession to Maryland would 
satisfy their own slogans more cleanly.
  No neutral principle explains why House Democrats wasted floor time 
on a potentially unconstitutional show vote.

[[Page S4170]]

  Just days after Democrats used the filibuster power to block Senator 
Scott's police reform bill, even colleagues who recently defended this 
important tradition have now bowed to the pressure to flirt with ending 
it.
  On a similar note, you may remember that a kind of naked intimidation 
without modern precedent in modern memory took place a few months ago. 
The Democratic leader stood by the steps of the Supreme Court and 
directly threatened Justices if they ruled the wrong way in the June 
Medical Services case.
  This display aligned with a whole new tradition of Senate Democrats 
threatening judges. A year ago, several wrote Justices saying the 
``Court is not well [and] perhaps the Court can heal itself before the 
public demands it be `restructured.' ''
  In other words, nice judicial independence you have got there. It 
would be a shame if something happened to it.
  Right on cue, a number of leftwing groups are agitating to revive the 
discredited notion of court-packing.
  Now, following the Democratic leader's display, the Court ruled the 
way he wanted on that very case. They handed it down on Monday of this 
week. Our colleague took to the floor cracking jokes, giddy--giddy--he 
had gotten his way, but just moments later the Democratic leader picked 
right up where he left off, impugning and pressuring one Justice whose 
vote he disliked
  So you see, the improper pressure and the accusations of illegitimacy 
will never end. No amount of rulings the Democrats like would be enough 
because the fundamental respect for an independent judiciary is simply 
not there.
  This is about outcomes, not institutions, and there is no limit to 
how far left the goalposts will move.
  Well, the subject is not going away, but for today I will leave it 
there. This weekend, July 4, Americans will celebrate our founding. We 
will celebrate the Framers and the traditions and the institutions that 
they left us.
  We cannot let radicals tear down their likenesses or their legacies. 
We must preserve the gifts and the institutions we celebrate so our 
grandchildren and their grandchildren can celebrate them as well.

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