[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 181 (Thursday, October 22, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6385-S6386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I get into the substance of my 
remarks, I will briefly redress the Republican leader.
  He came on the floor and, with his typical vitriol, made all kinds of 
accusations. The bottom line is McConnell is angry. Why? Because we 
Democrats have exposed that he has defiled the Senate as an institution 
more than any person in this generation and many generations, because 
we Democrats have exposed the hypocrisy of holding up Merrick Garland 
because it was 8 months before an election and rushing through Amy 
Coney Barrett because it is ``something we can do.''
  The bottom line is Leader McConnell, of course, doesn't like hearing 
these things, but they are the truth, and they will live on in history. 
The man who defiled the Senate, the man who created one of the greatest 
hypocritical acts in the history of the Senate, sits in that chair.
  Now, the Republican majority is steering the Senate toward one of the 
lowest moments in its long history, and the damage it does to this 
Chamber may very well be irrevocable.
  After thwarting the constitutional prerogative of a duly elected 
Democratic President to appoint a Supreme Court Justice because it was 
an election year, the Republican majority is rushing to confirm a 
Justice for a Republican President 1 week--1 week--before election day.
  Four short years ago, all of our Republican friends argued that it 
was principle--that is the world they used, ``principle''--to let the 
American people have a voice in the selection of a Supreme Court 
Justice because an election was 8 months away.
  Those same Republicans are preparing to confirm a Justice with an 
election that is 8 days away. What a stench of hypocrisy.
  In the process, the majority has trampled over every norm, rule, or 
standard that could possibly stand in its way. It ignored health 
guidelines to conduct in-person hearings in the middle of a pandemic 
after Republicans Members of the committee themselves had contracted 
COVID.
  It has broken longstanding Senate precedent. Never in the history of 
the Senate has a Supreme Court nominee--a lifetime appointment--been 
considered so close to an election. The Presiding Officer of the Senate 
confirmed this yesterday in response to this Senator's inquiry. Never 
in the history of the Senate has a Supreme Court nominee been confirmed 
after July of an election year.
  Before even we arrived at this sordid chapter, the Republican 
majority broke the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the 
Senate, lowering the number of votes required for a Supreme Court 
nomination so that Republicans could confirm whomever they wanted.
  They changed the rules of the Senate again to limit the amount of 
time the Senate spends considering judicial nominations so they could 
pack the courts with their rightwing appointees even faster.
  It is a hallmark of democracy that might does not make right, but the 
Republicans are blatantly ignoring this principle. Here, in Leader 
McConnell's Senate, the majority lives by the rule of ``because we 
can.'' They completely ignore the question of whether they should. 
Morality, principles, value, consistency are all out the window.
  Here, now, we have the culmination of this Republican majority's 
systemic erosion of rules and norms in pursuit of raw political power: 
a Supreme Court nominee who will be confirmed on a party-line vote 
after the rules were changed to allow it, in complete contradiction to 
the supposed principle

[[Page S6386]]

that the same party so vehemently argued only 4 years ago, 8 days 
before an election in which the American people will choose exactly 
whom they want to pick Supreme Court Justices for them.
  This idea that because now the Presidency and the Senate are in one 
party, the rule doesn't apply--they never said that when they blocked 
Merrick Garland. It is fakery. It is, again, part of the house of lies 
that is being built by the majority to rush a Supreme Court Justice 
like this.
  It is absurd. It is outrageous. It is a stain on this body and an 
indelible mark on this Senate majority that will live in history. The 
Senate Republican majority is conducting the most rushed, most 
partisan, and least legitimate process in the long history of Supreme 
Court nominations, and Democrats will not lend an ounce of legitimacy 
to that process.
  Today the members of the minority on the Judiciary Committee have 
boycotted the markup of Amy Coney Barrett. The rules of the Judiciary 
Committee require that two members of the minority be present in order 
to conduct a markup.
  True to form, Chairman Graham decided to break the rules to move 
forward with a vote on Judge Barrett anyway--steamrolling over the 
rules of the Judiciary Committee, just like Republicans have 
steamrolled over principle, honesty, fairness, consistency, and decency 
in their mad rush to confirm a Justice before the election. To 
steamroll over rules--that is the mark of an autocratic society, not 
the mark of a democracy, and the Republican majority is going along 
with that kind of autocracy, the same kind exhibited by President 
Trump. It is a shame that the principles of the Republican Party are 
out the window.
  Today, the Democratic seats on the dais in that committee room 
remained empty. In their place were reminders of what is ultimately at 
stake in this nomination--the fundamental rights of the American 
people. In their place were photographs of Americans whose lives would 
be devastated if Judge Barrett delivers the decisive vote to strike 
down the Affordable Care Act, ripping away healthcare from tens of 
millions of Americans and eliminating protections for 130 million 
Americans with preexisting conditions.
  You could imagine, alongside their faces, the faces of women who 
cherish the right to make their own private medical decisions; the 
faces of LGBTQ Americans who want to marry whom they love and not be 
fired for who they are; the faces of American workers who are breaking 
their backs to make ends meet, who need their union to help them get a 
better wage; the faces of young people who know the planet is in peril 
in their lifetimes.
  I hope that when Republican members of the committee took their seats 
this morning, they looked at those faces. They ought to think about 
what this nomination means for them. I hope they actually took one 
moment to think about what it says about their sham of a process that 
Democrats were forced to take the extraordinary step of refusing to 
participate.
  While they may realize it or not--or they may not even care--the 
Republican majority's monomaniacal drive to confirm this Justice in the 
most hypocritical of circumstances will forever defile the Senate and 
curtail the fundamental rights of American people for generations to 
come.
  To every one of my colleagues: History will remember what you have 
done. Democrats will play no part in it.