[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 165 (Wednesday, September 23, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S5796]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, on another matter, I have already 
talked a lot about history this week, but before we shift focus to 
President Trump's nominee, we need to review Senate history one more 
time.
  As we await the hurricane of misrepresentations and bad-faith attacks 
that seem almost guaranteed to pour out, we need to understand, in very 
clear terms, why our colleague from New York is a uniquely non-credible 
messenger when it comes to the Senate's role in judicial confirmations.
  It was Senate Democrats who began our modern challenges with their 
treatment of Robert Bork in 1987, but the acrimony really got going in 
the early 2000s when a group of Senate Democrats took the almost-never-
used tactic of filibustering nominations and turned it into a constant 
routine for the first time ever.
  So who was the main driving force behind these tactics? Let's consult 
some New York newspapers from the year 2003:

       Schumer decided [to] put ideology on the front burner in 
     the confirmation process. . . . ``I am the leader (of the 
     filibuster movement), and you know, I'm proud of it,'' said 
     the senator from Brooklyn.
       Mr. Schumer urged Democratic colleagues . . . to use a 
     tactic that some were initially reluctant to pursue, and that 
     has since roiled the Senate.

  Throughout President Bush 43's two terms, our colleague built an 
entire personal brand out of filibustering judicial nominees. Talented, 
hard-working people's careers were destroyed, like the brilliant lawyer 
Miguel Estrada, a close friend of now-Justice Elena Kagan, who says he 
is ``extraordinary'' and ``thoughtful'' and would have made ``an 
excellent addition to any Federal court.'' People like that, literally, 
were destroyed by Democratic tactics.
  This version of the now-Democratic leader said filibustering judges 
was an essential part--an essential part--of the Senate. He said that 
if Republicans ever used the nuclear option to ``change the rules in 
midstream'' because ``they can't get their way on every judge . . . 
it'll be a doomsday for democracy.''
  But of course, in the very next Presidential administration, the 
Democratic leader leapt at the chance to press that doomsday button 
himself. Democrats could not abide by President Obama's being 
constrained by the same rules they had imposed on President Bush. They 
had no patience to taste their own medicine. So the Democratic leader 
suddenly decided that ``the old rules need to be modified.'' He voted 
to use the nuclear option to lower the bar.
  So there actually has been one consistent principle all this time. 
For the Democratic leader, two things qualify as a crisis when it comes 
to the courts. The sky is falling when a Democratic President does not 
get to confirm every last judge he or she wants, and the sky is falling 
when a Republican President gets to confirm any judge.
  Six months ago, our colleague walked across the street to the Supreme 
Court steps, stood in front of a crowd, and yelled:

       I want to tell you, Gorsuch! I want to tell you, Kavanaugh! 
     . . . You will pay the price! You won't know what hit you if 
     you go forward with these awful decisions!

  That is the Democratic leader in front of the Supreme Court of the 
United States.
  Just last night he said this:

       I tell the American people, everything you need and want, 
     just about everything, will be taken away inexorably, month 
     after month, year after year, decision by decision, by this 
     new court.

  That is the argument. That is, apparently, the argument. ``Everything 
you need and want will be taken away.'' Is this a discussion among 
Senators or an overdramatic line from a bad movie?
  The American people do not need any more revisionist history 
lectures, any more threats, or any more performance outrage from the 
side that launched this unfortunate fight and escalated it time after 
time after time.
  There is one right path before us. It does right by the judiciary, 
the Senate, the yet-unnamed nominee, and the American people. It is a 
fair hearing, a fair process, and a fair vote. That is what the 
American people ensured in 2018 after the Democratic leader explicitly 
asked for a referendum on this approach to the judiciary. He got that 
referendum in 2018. The people decided. They shrunk his minority even 
further.
  Americans took care to ensure Senate Democrats could not stand in the 
way of a fair process. So that is exactly what the Senate will provide.

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