[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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