[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 195 (Tuesday, November 17, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7025-S7026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the United States surpassed 11 million 
COVID-19 cases this past week. This comes just 6 days after our Nation 
recorded 10 million cases--1 million added to the 10 million in 6 
days--making it the fastest transmission of 1 million new cases since 
the pandemic began. Nearly a quarter of a million Americans have died. 
This runaway crisis is alarming, it is deadly, and it demands action.
  The city of Chicago began a stay-at-home advisory to help encourage 
people to contain the virus in our communities. Across Illinois, more 
than 5,000 patients have been hospitalized with COVID-19 each night for 
the past week. We have shattered new infection records nearly every day 
this month. Illinois has now experienced more than 597,000 cases, and 
we have sadly lost 10,875. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost a 
loved one.
  In addition to trying to keep ourselves and our loved ones healthy 
and safe from the virus, Americans have also been struggling to deal 
with economic uncertainty, job loss, food insecurity, childcare--the 
list goes on and on and on. Here we are just days before Thanksgiving, 
and many of our neighbors are trying to pick the right day to go to the 
food bank so they can feed their families on this day of thanks.
  Where is the sense of urgency on Capitol Hill when it comes to 
providing another round of economic impact payments, enhanced 
unemployment benefits, funding for the food stamps--the SNAP program? 
Our country is in desperate need of help, and they are counting on us.
  You would think a crisis of this scale would be the first order of 
business for the Republican-controlled Senate this week. Yet, while 
this pandemic continues to rage, too many Republicans in Congress 
refuse to even come to the table to negotiate a comprehensive, 
bipartisan relief bill. There are those who will, and I commend them. 
It takes real courage. Instead, their leader, Senator McConnell, has 
scheduled votes this week on six barely qualified judicial nominees. 
The average age of this week's judicial nominees is 38.
  You see, these are lifetime appointments. If you get somebody with 
the right answers to their political questions, then they will give you 
20, 30, or more years while you have control of that court, and control 
of the court is more important, obviously, than coronavirus.
  The youngest one of these nominees is Kathryn Mizelle. She is 33 
years old. The American Bar Association took a look at her record and 
judged her ``not qualified.'' This is the 10th Trump nominee for a 
lifetime appointment to the Federal court who has been judged ``not 
qualified'' by the American Bar Association. You might say: I am sure 
that happens. Well, it didn't happen at all in the 8 years of the Obama 
Presidency. Not a single nominee who was judged ``unqualified'' was 
sent to Congress.
  Another nominee, Stephen Vaden, who has been nominated for a lifetime 
position at the Court of International Trade, has never appeared before 
the Court of International Trade. He has never tried a case in any 
court. He will be a great judge once he figures it out.
  We voted on Dr. Judy Shelton's nomination to the Federal Reserve 
Board. She is uniquely unqualified. Her economic views are almost 
humorous, they are so out of touch with reality. We are experiencing 
the worst recession in 75 years, and Dr. Shelton, by her stated views, 
is unprepared to contribute to dealing with this economic crisis.
  It is the story of the 116th Congress. The Republican-controlled 
Senate spends month after month after month ignoring a raging pandemic 
and refusing to even consider the House-passed relief legislation.
  Here is a good question for Members of the Senate: How many 
amendments has the Senate voted on this calendar year of 2020? Not 
counting impeachment--set that aside. But how many amendments to 
legislation have we considered in this calendar year? The answer is 
27--27 amendments in this calendar year. That is an improvement, 
incidentally. In 2019, we considered exactly 22 amendments. Six of them 
were forced on us by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who basically said: 
I won't let you go home until you vote on this amendment. And, as 
Senator Paul has

[[Page S7026]]

said, of course he lost every one of those amendments.
  Twenty-seven amendments in 1 year; 22 the previous year. Do you know 
why? We don't legislate. We don't debate. We don't offer amendments. We 
don't pass bills. We come here with a new set of nominations every week 
from the Republican majority. We don't have any legislation on the 
pandemic. We have no legislation on economic recovery. We just have to 
get these lifetime appointees, some who have been found categorically 
unqualified. That is what this Senate is all about.
  In this last week before the Thanksgiving recess, is this really all 
we are going to do? How about the 28 rural hospitals in Kentucky that 
are facing the risk of closure? How about the $1.3 billion of 
uncompensated losses for these hospitals across Kentucky? The 
Republican proposal a few weeks ago didn't provide any economic relief 
for hospitals, clinics, or healthcare providers like those.
  Americans need leadership. They need for the Senate to step up and 
say: For goodness' sake, whatever the political agenda is here, how can 
it be more important than this pandemic?
  Isn't there enough talent or will on the floor of the Senate--on the 
Republican side and on the Democratic side--to find a way to help 
Americans who are struggling, to provide unemployment assistance, to 
provide help to small businesses, these restaurants and small 
businesses that are facing closure, to give some money to local units 
of government that through no fault of their own lost revenue to this 
COVID-19 crisis? These are not wild ideas; these address the very 
basics that face families, businesses, and governments across this 
country. For some reason, that particular issue can't make the agenda.