[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 163 (Monday, September 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5720-S5721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, President Trump's nominee for this 
vacancy will receive a vote on the floor of the Senate. Now, already, 
some of the same individuals who tried every conceivable dirty trick to 
obstruct Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh are lining up--lining 
up--to proclaim that the third time will be the charm.
  The American people are about to witness an astonishing parade of 
misrepresentations about the past, misstatements about the present, and 
more threats against our institutions from the same people who have 
already been saying for months--well before this--that they want to 
pack the Court.
  Two years ago, a radical movement tried to use unproven accusations 
to ruin a man's life because they could not win a vote fair and square. 
Now they appear to be readying an even more appalling sequel. This time 
the target will not just be the presumption of innocence for one 
American but our very governing institutions themselves.
  There will be times in the days ahead to discuss the naked threats 
that leading Democrats have long been directing at the U.S. Senate and 
the Supreme Court itself. These threats have grown louder, but they 
predate this vacancy by many months. There will be time to discuss why 
Senators who appear on the steps of the Supreme Court and personally 
threaten Associate Justices if they do not rule a certain way are ill-
equipped to give lectures on civics, but today let's dispense with a 
few of the factual misrepresentations right at the outset.
  We are already hearing incorrect claims that there is not sufficient 
time to examine and confirm a nominee. We can debunk this myth in about 
30 seconds. As of today, there are 43 days until November 3 and 104 
days until the end of this Congress.
  The late, iconic Justice John Paul Stevens was confirmed by the 
Senate 19 days after this body formally received his nomination--19 
days from start to finish. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, another iconic 
jurist, was confirmed 33 days after her nomination. For the late 
Justice Ginsburg herself, it was just 42 days.
  Justice Stevens' entire confirmation process could have been played 
out twice between now and November 3, with time to spare, and Justice 
Ginsburg herself could have been confirmed twice between now and the 
end of the year, with time to spare.
  The Senate has more than sufficient time to process a nomination. 
History and precedent make that perfectly clear.
  Others want to claim that this situation is exactly analogous to 
Justice Scalia's passing in 2016 and so we should not proceed until 
January. This is also completely false.
  Here is what I said on the Senate floor the very first session day 
after Justice Scalia passed: ``The Senate has not filled a vacancy 
arising in an election year when there was divided government since 
1888, almost 130 years ago.''
  Here is what I said the next day, when I spoke to the press for the 
first time on the subject: ``[You] have to go back to 1888, when Grover 
Cleveland was President, to find the last time a vacancy created in a 
Presidential election year was approved by a Senate of a different 
party.''
  As of then, only six prior times in American history had a Supreme 
Court vacancy arisen in a Presidential election year and the President 
sent a nomination that year to a Senate of the opposite party. The 
majority of those times, the outcome was exactly what happened in 
2016--no confirmation--the historically normal outcome when you have 
divided government.
  President Obama was asking Senate Republicans for an unusual favor 
that had last been granted nearly 130 years before then, but voters had 
explicitly elected our majority to check and balance the end of his 
Presidency. So we stuck with the basic norm.
  And, by the way, in so doing, our majority did precisely what 
Democrats have indicated they would do themselves. In 1992, Democrats 
controlled the Senate opposite President Bush 41. Then-Senator Joe 
Biden chaired the Judiciary Committee. Unprompted--unprompted--he 
publicly declared that his committee might refuse to cooperate if a 
vacancy arose and the Republican President tried to fill it.

  In 2007, Democrats controlled the Senate opposite President Bush 43, 
and with more than a year and a half left in President Bush 43's term, 
the current Democratic leader declared that ``except in extraordinary 
circumstances,'' the opposite-party Senate should boycott any further 
confirmations to the Supreme Court. That is the current Democratic 
leader a year and a half before the end of the Bush administration. So 
in 2016 Senate Republicans did not only maintain the historical norm. 
We also ran the Biden-Schumer playbook.
  When voters have not chosen divided government, when the American 
people have elected a Senate majority to work closely with the sitting 
President, the historical record is even more overwhelming in favor of 
confirmation. Eight such times in our Nation's history, new vacancies 
have arisen and Presidents have made nominations, all during the 
election year. Seven of the eight were confirmed, and the sole 
exception, Justice Abe Fortas, was a bizarre situation including 
obvious personal corruption that extended into financial dealings.
  Apart from that one strange exception, no Senate has failed to 
confirm a nominee in the circumstances that face us right now. Aside 
from that one strange exception, no Senate has failed to confirm a 
nominee in the circumstances that face us right now. The historical 
precedent is overwhelming, and it runs in one direction. If our 
Democratic colleagues want to claim they are outraged, they can only be 
outraged at the plain facts of American history. There was clear 
precedent behind the predictable outcome that came out of 2016, and 
there is even more overwhelming precedent behind the fact that this 
Senate will vote on this nomination this year.
  The American people reelected our majority in 2016. They strengthened 
it further in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump on 
the most critical issues facing our country. The Federal judiciary was 
right at the top of the list.
  Ironically, it was the Democratic leader who went out of his way to 
declare the midterm 2018 elections a referendum on the Senate's 
handling of the Supreme Court. My friend, the occupant of the Chair, 
was running that year. The Democratic leader went out of his way to 
declare the 2018 midterms a referendum on the Senate's handling of the 
Supreme Court.
  In his final speech before Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed, he 
yelled--literally, yelled--over and over at the American people to go 
vote. He told Americans to go elect Senators based on how they had 
approached their advice-and-consent duties over these weeks. 
Unfortunately for him, many Americans did just that. After watching the 
Democrats' tactics, voters grew our majority and retired four--four--of 
our former colleagues who had gone along with their party's behavior.
  We gained two seats. They lost four. That was the issue. Perhaps more 
than any other single issue, the American people strengthened this 
Senate majority to keep confirming this President's presumptive 
judicial nominees who respect our Constitution and understand the 
proper role of a judge.
  In 2014, the voters elected our majority because we pledged to check 
and balance a second-term, lame-duck President. Two years later, we 
kept our word.

[[Page S5721]]

  In 2018, the voters grew that majority on our pledge to continue 
working with President Trump, most especially on his outstanding 
judicial appointments. We are going to keep our word once again. We are 
going to vote on this nomination on this floor.

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