[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 164 (Tuesday, September 22, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5734-S5735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, tomorrow the recently departed Supreme 
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in repose at the Supreme 
Court, and on Friday Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in state here in the 
Capitol, the first time in our Nation's long history that a woman has 
ever received the honor.
  I can think of no more fitting tribute for a woman who made a life's 
work of going where women had never gone before. Even with the benefit 
of a few days, the loss of Justice Ginsburg is devastating. You need 
only walk by the Supreme Court today, where flowers, candles, chalk-
written notes, and spontaneous demonstrations have clogged the 
sidewalks for 4 days straight, to know her impact on this country.
  We will honor her this week, and, by all rights, we should honor her 
dying wish, imparted to her granddaughter, that she ``not be replaced 
until the next President is installed.'' All the words and encomia for 
Justice Ginsburg from the other side ring hollow if they will not honor 
her last dying wish.
  Yesterday, the Republican side--so often, President Trump--seemed to 
make it worse. President Trump mocked Justice Ginsburg's dying wish by 
insinuating that her granddaughter was a liar, once again confirming 
every terrible thing we know about our President.
  He said that Justice Ginsburg's statement was something that ``sounds 
like a Schumer deal or maybe Pelosi or shifty Schiff.'' That is the 
President of the United States baselessly suggesting that Democrats 
fabricated the dying wish of the late Justice Ginsburg. It was a 
coarse, shameful, lying insult to the late Justice Ginsburg and to her 
family.
  If the President had a shred of human decency--even a little--he 
would apologize, but we all know he will not. Everyone here in the 
Senate ought to be disgusted by the President's comments. How low can 
this President go? He knows no depth. You can never know that.
  You would think that, after the Republican majority led a historic 
blockade just 4 years ago to keep open a vacancy on the Supreme Court 
because it was an election year, they would have the honor and decency 
to apply their

[[Page S5735]]

own rule when the same scenario came around again. You would expect the 
Senate majority to follow their own rule. What is fair is fair.
  This is what Leader McConnell said in 2016:

       The American people should have a voice in the selection of 
     their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy 
     should not be filled until we have a new President.

  This is the McConnell rule--the McConnell rule. This is the principle 
that Leader McConnell and then-Chairman Grassley used to justify their 
refusal to even meet with President Obama's Supreme Court nominee.
  Here it is--the McConnell rule: When it is a Presidential season, you 
can't vote on a Supreme Court nominee because ``the American people 
should have a voice.'' Now, Leader McConnell repeated that refrain for 
almost a year and so did almost every other Republican in the Chamber:

       The American people shouldn't be denied a voice.
       Give the people a voice.
       The Senate should not confirm a new Supreme Court Justice 
     until we have a new President.
       I don't think we should be moving on a nominee in the last 
     year of a President's term. I would say that if it was a 
     Republican President.
       If an opening came in the last year of President Trump's 
     term and the primary process had started--

  The primary process had started--

     we'll wait to the next election.

  I don't even have to tell you who those quotes came from. It was 
nearly every single Republican in this Chamber. That is how they 
justified the unprecedented blockade of President Obama's Supreme Court 
nominee: no vote during a Presidential election year because we have to 
let the people decide.
  They promised to stay consistent if a Republican President won in 
November. It turns out, a Republican President did win that fall, and a 
Supreme Court vacancy did arise in the final year of his term, not just 
during the primary process but long after it was over, with little more 
than a month--a month--before the election.
  Now, whoops, didn't mean it. It is different now. We are supposed to 
believe this specious, flimsy, and dishonest argument that it is about 
the orientation of the Senate and the Presidency or how angry 
Republicans are at Democrats and all the big, scary things we might do 
in the future. Maybe that will justify it--anything not to admit the 
plain fact that they all made one argument for a year, an argument they 
insisted was a ``principle'' when it was good for them politically, and 
now they are doing the opposite thing.
  The McConnell rule: ``The American people should have a voice in the 
selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.'' It turns out, the 
McConnell rule was nothing more than a McConnell ruse.
  Leader McConnell, sadly, sadly, is headed down the path of breaking 
his word to the Senate and the American people. He has exposed once and 
for all that a supposed principle of giving the people a voice in 
selecting the next Justice was a farce. Sadly, again--sadly--Leader 
McConnell has defiled the Senate like no one in this generation, and 
Leader McConnell may very well destroy it.
  If Leader McConnell presses forward, the Republican majority will 
have stolen two Supreme Court seats, 4 years apart, using completely 
contradictory rationales. How can we expect to trust the other side 
again?
  For those of you on the other side who are still thinking about this 
and maybe some who might change their minds, just think of what this 
does to this body and people's word on one of our most solemn and 
sacred obligations: to choose a Supreme Court Justice fairly and 
honestly.
  It is obvious why the Republican leader, when he comes to the floor, 
sounds so angry and defensive in his remarks. I will note for the 
record that the Republican leader did not once mention his principle in 
2016--that the American people should have a voice in selecting the 
next Supreme Court Justice--in any of his speeches because he can't 
mention it.
  Just to give you a sense of how far down the rabbit hole my friend 
from Kentucky has gone, yesterday--listen to this--this is what he 
said. Leader McConnell said that President Obama asked the Senate ``for 
an unusual favor'' by fulfilling his constitutional duty to nominate a 
Supreme Court Justice with almost a year left in the term--``an unusual 
favor.''
  Only the Republican leader could look at our system of government so 
cynically. Apparently, the Senate's constitutional duty to advise and 
consent is an unusual favor when a Democratic President is in office 
but a categorical imperative when a Republican is in office.
  That is actually his argument. I listened to the Republican leader 
yesterday. I listened to him this morning. Gone are all the invocations 
of giving the American people a voice. It is nothing so supposedly 
high-minded this time. No, this time the Republican leader isn't even 
hiding that his decision is nothing--nothing--but raw, partisan 
politics.
  According to the Republican leader, when the President and the Senate 
majority are the same party, you can break all the rules to get your 
Justice. Change the rules of the Senate to pass Supreme Court Justices 
on a majority vote. Rush it through before an election. It doesn't 
matter if you said the exact opposite thing 4 years ago, 2 years ago, 
or even, for some Senators, a few months ago.
  This is how our vaunted traditions of bipartisanship and compromise--
on life support before--now end. This is how. By one side--in this case 
the Republican majority under Leader McConnell--deciding that the rules 
don't apply to them, even their own rules. That, when push comes to 
shove, it is brute political force, all the way down.
  If my friends on the Republican side want that kind of Senate, they 
can follow Leader McConnell down the very dangerous path he has laid 
down.

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