[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 184 (Sunday, October 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6467-S6468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

  Mr. President, tomorrow the Senate will confirm Judge Amy Coney 
Barrett to the Supreme Court, filling the seat vacated by the late 
Justice Ginsburg with a very worthy successor.
  When President Trump nominated Judge Barrett last month, some 
Americans questioned whether the Senate should confirm any nominee to 
the Supreme Court. But today, just weeks later, a clear majority of 
Americans support confirmation, including a majority of Independents.
  What happened? It is very simple. Americans met Judge Barrett; they 
loved what they saw; and they decided she is the right woman for this 
job.
  Consider her achievements. She graduated No. 1 in her class from 
Notre Dame Law School, where she also edited the law review and later 
clerked for two giants of our judiciary--Judge Silberman of the DC 
Circuit Court of Appeals and the late, great Justice Scalia.
  Years later, Judge Barrett returned to her alma mater as a professor, 
where she won the esteem of her students and colleagues as a gifted 
teacher and an ``absolutely brilliant legal scholar,'' to quote the 
dean of Notre Dame Law.
  Then, in 2017, the Senate confirmed Professor Barrett to be Judge 
Barrett on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In the 3 years since 
then, she has established herself as one of America's finest judges--
unwaveringly committed to the rule of law and equality before the law.
  A Scalia protege, beloved professor, respected jurist--those titles 
alone warrant Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to the Supreme Court, 
but they are not her only achievements or even the most important ones.
  In addition to those things, she has a big and beautiful family, with 
a devoted husband and seven kids, including two adopted from Haiti. 
They are a family knitted together by love and faith.
  Any parent knows how difficult it must be for Judge Barrett to juggle 
the demands of her work with her duties as a parent and a wife. But 
like millions of working moms, she manages to do both with incredible 
skill, grace, and poise.
  I suspect I must confess that if Judge Barrett had been nominated by 
a President without an ``R'' behind his name, the media would laud her 
as a pioneer, an inspiration to young women all across the country. 
Today's newspapers would contain front page stories of gushing 
profiles, studded with words like ``iconic'' and ``pathbreaking.'' The 
media would practically carry her from the Judiciary Committee to this 
floor so we could vote to confirm her, and then they would carry her 
across the street to her Supreme Court chambers.
  But, curiously, I have noticed that is not what the media is doing--
not in the least. Instead, the liberal media has published lurid 
insinuations and exposes about everything from Judge Barrett's 
character to her Christian faith and even her adopted children. It is 
the Brett Kavanaugh playbook all over again.
  But, thankfully, the American people see through it, just as they did 
the last time. For the most part, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee 
avoided these kinds of low, personal attacks. Perhaps they have seen 
the polling so they know they are playing a very weak hand.
  Instead, they focused on the supposed threat that Judge Barrett will 
overturn ObamaCare and take away your healthcare. In fact, they focused 
on ObamaCare so much during Judge Barrett's confirmation hearing, when 
I turned on the TV, I thought I had I tuned in to the Health Committee, 
not the Judiciary Committee.
  But Democrats' attacks on this policy fall just as flat as the 
media's shameful stories on Judge Barrett's character for the simple 
reason that Judge Barrett, as a judge, does not make policy. She is not 
a Senator. She is not standing for elective office. I suspect she 
wouldn't want to.
  Her role as a judge is to interpret and apply the law fairly and 
faithfully, without regard to her own beliefs and convictions.
  Now, that may be a novel concept for our Democratic friends who view 
the judiciary as simply another means to advance their leftwing agenda, 
irrespective of the law and facts, but it is central to Judge Barrett's 
record on the court of appeals and her judicial philosophy. Her 
opinions bear that out, and she has applied the law consistently 
without fear or favor on the Federal Bench, and, I suspect, reached a 
few outcomes on a personal level that she would have preferred not to, 
which was always Justice Scalia's gold standard for an impartial and 
fair judge.
  That leaves the Democrats with one final argument--nothing more than 
a process argument.
  They say that the Republicans are moving too quickly; that we are 
somehow ramming Judge Barrett through the Senate, possibly, to prevent 
an adequate examination of her record. But, of course, this argument 
fails too. It fails badly.
  Judge Barrett's nomination has proceeded at a pace in line with other 
recent nominations.
  Exactly 30 days ago she was nominated, and tomorrow she will be 
confirmed. That is 11 more days than the Senate deliberated on the 
nomination of Justice John Paul Stevens, who was confirmed after just 
19 days. It is only 12 fewer days than the Senate deliberated on the 
nomination of Justice Ginsburg herself. And I would note that we went 
through this with Judge Barrett barely 3 years ago. It had been 5 years 
for then-Judge Stevens. It had been 13 years for then-Judge Ginsburg.
  There is not a lot of material for this Senate to have reviewed; less 
than 3 years of activities by Judge Barrett, fewer than 100 opinions--
even a Senator can probably get through those in a couple days.
  Yet the Democrats have repeatedly asked for delay after delay, though 
they haven't identified any area in which they lacked adequate time to 
review her nomination. They haven't identified any bit of information 
that they don't already have. In fact, some of my Democratic colleagues 
announced their opposition to her nomination--or any nominee, for that 
matter--before she was even announced as the nominee.
  So what do they want more time for, exactly, except to stall?
  Indeed, far from being rushed, Judge Barrett's nomination doesn't 
come close to setting the record for speed. That distinction belongs to 
Justice James Byrnes, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1941 by 
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and confirmed later that day. I 
guess we could have taken a page from the Democrats' playbook by 
confirming Judge Barrett last month on the day she was nominated, but 
instead we took the same careful, consistent, deliberative approach 
that we took with Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch--no shortcuts, 
no corners cut, no steps skipped.
  So, finally, here we are on the cusp of Judge Barrett's confirmation. 
As a result, the Democrats are threatening to pack the Court, but they 
were already threatening to pack the Court.
  The Democrats are threatening, should we confirm Judge Barrett to the 
Supreme Court, to riot in the streets. Democrats have been rioting in 
the streets for months. But as the sun sets tomorrow, the Senate will 
gather, and all of that bluster will once again prove ineffective 
because Judge Barrett has earned the trust and confidence of the 
American people and the U.S. Senate. For that reason, Judge Barrett 
will be confirmed tomorrow night.

  I congratulate Judge Barrett on this high honor, and I thank her 
family--her beloved husband Jesse and her seven beautiful children--for 
sharing her with America. For those seven kids especially: I know that 
she will always be mom to you, but I trust you won't object if we know 
her as Justice.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page S6468]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Scott of Florida). Without objection, it 
is so ordered.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, we are in session here on a Sunday in 
Washington for a rare Sunday session in the U.S. Senate so that we can 
confirm a terrific woman to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court.
  There is an open seat right now that needs to be filled, and Judge 
Barrett, who is currently a judge on the circuit court, one level below 
the Supreme Court, has really impressed me and the American people with 
her performance.
  I had a chance to meet with her this past week, and I was already 
impressed but even more so, having had a chance to spend some time with 
her. I had been impressed with her performance at the hearing because I 
thought she showed great patience and calm in the face of some really 
tough questions. To me, that is judicial temperament, and I think that 
will serve her well in her new role as Justice of the Supreme Court.
  I have also been impressed with her qualifications. I don't think 
anybody can say she is not highly qualified. In fact, the American Bar 
Association, which does not always look favorably at Republican 
appointees, was, in her last confirmation, convinced that she was 
highly qualified, and again, in this one, they gave her their highest 
qualification. That is impressive.
  As has been talked about on the floor tonight, she actually has been 
through this process before--and pretty recently. I think less than 3 
years ago she was confirmed by this same body, and it was a bipartisan 
vote, and it was an opportunity for people to get to know her. So this 
is not as though we have brought somebody forward who isn't already 
known, who isn't already deemed to be very well qualified. In fact, I 
don't know anybody in this Chamber who doesn't think that she is well 
qualified and that she has done a good job as a judge and a lawyer.
  She graduated first in her class at Notre Dame Law School, and then 
she went back there and taught. She won the Teacher of the Year Award 
three times when she was at Notre Dame, and, most importantly to me, 
she is just widely respected by her colleagues. These are professors. 
She is also widely respected by her former students. These professors 
and students, by the way, are representing the entire political 
spectrum from very liberal to very conservative. All of them say the 
same thing about her, which is that she is a legal scholar, that she is 
highly qualified, and that she is a good person.
  In our meeting I got to see some of that. I saw in our meeting that 
she is a great listener. People talk about active listening. She was 
really interested in what the topics were and had very thoughtful 
responses.
  She is also a legal scholar who understands very clearly what the 
role of the Supreme Court should be in our separation of branches in 
our governmental system here. I think that is really important. As I 
said to her in our meeting, I hope she will be an ambassador, and I 
think she will. In fact, I think she will be an extremely effective 
ambassador--as the youngest member of the Supreme Court and also as a 
former teacher--with regard to young people, to help them understand 
what it means to have a judicial branch and how it is different from 
the legislative branch or the executive branch for that matter. Judges 
are not supposed to be legislators. That is not what they are hired to 
do. Yet in some cases we have gotten the sense that judges ought to be 
deciding issues that are reserved for those who are elected by the 
people; that is, the legislators.
  Judges have an important role, and that is to look at the laws and to 
look at the Constitution and to determine whether something is 
consistent with those. That is what she will do, and I think she will 
do it very fairly, with compassion and with a great understanding of 
the legal issues and precedent.
  She explained before the committee that she was respectful of 
precedent. She also told me that in our meeting. I think she has the 
proper understanding of the role of the Court and her role as a 
Justice.
  I am looking for the opportunity to finally vote. I guess we will do 
that tomorrow night, sometime in the evening, and I hope it will be a 
strong vote. I hope it can be even a bipartisan vote, as it was last 
time she was confirmed by this same body