[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 171 (Thursday, October 1, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6009-S6011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NOMINATION OF AMY CONEY BARRETT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, at this time last week, the Nation 
did not know whom President Trump would be nominating to the Supreme 
Court, but, amazingly, we did know what kinds of false attacks the far 
left would deploy against whoever it was.
  Democrats and special interests have been telling the country for 45 
years--45 years--that every Supreme Court vacancy under a Republican 
President was going to bring about the apocalypse. John Paul Stevens, 
they said, was anti-woman. David Souter, they said, wanted to hurt 
vulnerable people. John Roberts was out to get health insurance.
  And wouldn't you know, the President had barely finished saying Judge 
Amy Coney Barrett's name before the same old attacks began rolling in. 
Our 77-year-old male former Vice President and our 69-year-old male 
Senate Democratic leader have tried to inform

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American women that this 48-year-old working mom wants to roll back her 
own rights as a woman--roll back her own rights as a woman.
  Democrats have tried to fearmonger around a 4-year-old academic paper 
that reinforced one unfair penalty in ObamaCare, which Congress, by the 
way, already eliminated 3 years ago.
  As an aside, if the American people are interested in which Senators 
are serious about protecting Americans with preexisting conditions, 
they can simply look up the vote Senators took last night--just last 
night. Every single Democrat voted against legislation from Senator 
Tillis that would have cemented protections for these vulnerable 
Americans.
  Democrats voted to block protections for preexisting conditions just 
like they voted to block hundreds of billions of dollars for 
coronavirus relief and just like they voted to block police reform--and 
a thousand other things they tell Americans they support but vote 
against to block bipartisan progress.
  So here is another one of the made-up attacks: Democrats are 
demanding that Judge Barrett commit in advance--in advance--to recuse 
herself from entire categories of cases for no reason. This is another 
totally invented standard. Nobody has ever suggested that Supreme Court 
Justices should categorically sit on the sidelines until the President 
who nominated them has left office. What an absurd suggestion.
  Justices Ginsburg and Breyer were confirmed during President 
Clinton's very first term. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan were confirmed 
during President Obama's first term. All four of these Justices went on 
to participate in election-related proceedings while the President who 
had nominated them was on the ballot.
  Justices Breyer and Ginsburg participated actively in Clinton v. 
Jones and other matters connected to President Clinton's eventual 
impeachment. In fact, they urged and attempted to get the Supreme Court 
even more involved.
  This is a sideshow--a sideshow. If Judge Barrett is confirmed, she 
will swear an oath. She will have a lifetime appointment. Nobody 
seriously is suggesting she lacks any bit of the integrity which 
everyone trusted Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, 
Justice Kagan, and countless others to exercise. In fact, her integrity 
and independence are precisely what Judge Barrett's peers across the 
political spectrum go out of their way to applaud.
  Judge Barrett has no obligation to make any of the bizarre--bizarre--
prejudgments that our Democratic colleagues are demanding. Like I said, 
much of the script has been entirely predictable.
  I will tell you one thing I did not predict. I honestly did not 
expect the Democratic leader to come to the Senate floor and say that 
concerns about anti-religious discrimination are ``manufactured 
hysterics.'' I didn't expect that.
  I do not expect we will hear the leader of the Democratic conference 
stand on the Senate floor and say that America's freedom of religion is 
``an imaginary issue.''
  The Democratic leader claimed indignantly that his fellow Democrats 
would never--never--make an issue out of a nominee's personal religious 
beliefs. He took great offense that such a thing would even be 
suggested.
  But the whole country knows that, 3 years ago, when the Judiciary 
Committee was considering this very nominee--this one--for her current 
position, Senate Democrats did precisely that, exactly that. The senior 
Senator from California literally implied in front of the entire 
country that Judge Barrett was too Catholic--too Catholic--to be a 
judge. Here was the quote: ``The dogma lives loudly within you,'' she 
said. ``And that's of concern.''

  The senior Senator from Illinois asked Judge Barrett in the official 
record--listen to this--``Do you consider yourself an `orthodox 
Catholic?' ''
  The junior Senator from Hawaii felt compelled to tell the nominee--
listen to this--``You would be a Catholic judge.'' ``You would be a 
Catholic judge.''
  No one imagined these exchanges, but they happened on video before 
the entire Nation. Multiple sitting Senators fretted in an open hearing 
that Judge Barrett's religious views created doubts about her fitness 
to serve.
  Outside the Senate, it was not imaginary when one faith group in 
which Judge Barrett and her family participate reportedly came under 
cyber attack a few days ago. Their membership directory was reportedly 
hacked, just as Judge Barrett emerged as a frontrunner.
  Nobody had to imagine the ominous articles from AP, Reuters, the 
Washington Post, and POLITICO, all implying there was something 
questionable--questionable--or problematic about Judge Barrett's faith 
practices.
  Nobody had to imagine POLITICO sending a contributing editor to snoop 
around the church buildings and report what a youth group had written 
on their whiteboard.
  So, no, Americans don't have to imagine this elite disdain. All they 
have to do is read it.
  It is not just this one nominee. Nobody imagined it when the junior 
Senator from Vermont accused a different nominee of hatred and 
Islamophobia because he had previously expressed a personal view that 
Christianity gets things right, which Islam gets wrong.
  It is not imaginary when the junior Senator from California cast 
aspersions on yet another nominee for--listen to this--belonging to the 
Knights of Columbus. And another Democrat implied he should quit this 
mainstream Catholic group if he wanted to hold public office. Quit the 
Knights of Columbus if you want to hold public office? In America?
  The Democratic leader says these are manufactured hysterics. He says 
people who call this out are hysterical. Frankly, it would be better 
for our country if that were true, but that is not the case.
  Just yesterday, 24 hours after the Democratic leader swore that 
Democrats would not make this an issue, the junior Senator from Hawaii 
tried to say Judge Barrett's faith is ``irrelevant'' but immediately 
proceeded to question ``whether her closely held views can be separated 
from her ability to make objective, fair decisions.'' No one--no one--
should be deceived by these thinly veiled euphemisms.
  This is the exact form that religious discrimination had taken in 
America for decades--for decades--especially when it comes to public 
service.
  We do not often hear people say they simply dislike a particular 
religion altogether. Thank goodness we are mostly past that kind of 
bigotry. No, going all the way back to Jack Kennedy, the more common 
accusation has been something a little more subtle--that people of deep 
faith or certain faiths are incapable of being fair or objective; that 
they are incapable of doing certain jobs well; that such Americans are 
torn between divided loyalties and not to be trusted.
  Here is what the left is trying to say: Oh, we have no problems--no 
problems--with Judge Barrett's faith in an abstract sense. We just 
think it disqualifies her from this promotion.
  Madam President, that is the definition of discrimination.
  About a century ago, openly anti-Catholic political cartoons pictured 
the Pope or the Catholic Church as an octopus wrapping its tentacles 
around the institutions of American Government. Thankfully those 
displays are long gone, but the core attitude clearly is not.
  Americans of faith are not imagining the increasingly hostile climate 
that the political left and the media have spent literally years 
sowing. And, no, there is no free pass, as some commentators have 
suggested, because many prominent liberal voices or prominent Democrats 
themselves identify as Catholic. You don't get a free pass just by 
calling yourself a Catholic.
  More than one-fifth of our country belongs to the same church as 
Judge Barrett--one-fifth of our country. Tens and tens of millions of 
Americans--all of them--like all Americans, must be free to live their 
faiths in diverse and different ways without being barred--without 
being barred--from public service. These kinds of aspersions do not 
become any more acceptable if the call is coming from inside the house.
  Sadly, none of these problems are imaginary. The American people's 
concerns are not manufactured.
  The Little Sisters of the Poor did not wake up thinking it would be 
good fun if the Obama-Biden administration tried to force them to 
violate their own

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consciences. These nuns did not manufacture their lengthy legal battle 
for the fun of it. It was the secularizing left that went on offense.
  Churches all across America did not go looking for one of this 
cycle's Democratic Presidential contenders to suggest places of 
workshop should lose their tax exempt status if they preach or practice 
traditional teaching. It was the secularizing left that went on 
offense.
  If parts of the elite American left have become this out of touch 
with mainstream religious beliefs held by millions and millions of 
their fellow citizens, it will take more than victim blaming to dig out 
of it. They could start this week. They could start today.
  They could commit to evaluating Judge Barrett on her credentials and 
her qualifications, and they could stop gawking at deeply religious 
Americans like they have encountered extraterrestrial life or bought a 
ticket for a safari

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