[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 113 (Monday, July 11, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3188-S3189]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           U.S. Supreme Court

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, it is little wonder that the Senator 
from Kentucky is praising the Supreme Court. More than any other Member 
of the U.S. Senate, he has been instrumental in choosing the members of 
this Court and has gone to lengths unseen in the history of the U.S. 
Senate to reach that goal.
  Remember Merrick Garland, the nominee of President Barack Obama, whom 
this Senate leader, the Senator from Kentucky, refused to meet with or 
even consider for his nomination for almost a year? That is right--he 
kept a vacancy on the Supreme Court for more than 8 months so that he 
could perhaps see his prayers answered and a Republican President be 
elected.
  Well, it happened. Donald Trump won. Merrick Garland had no chance to 
even be considered. Barack Obama was denied the authority given to him 
as President during his last year of his term, and the Senator from 
Kentucky waited patiently until he could bring to the Court Justice 
Gorsuch, a conservative to his liking.
  That wasn't the end of his effort to make the Supreme Court what he 
wanted it to be. At the end of the Trump term, there was another 
vacancy on the Court with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and at that 
point, the Senator from Kentucky decided to break the rules in the 
opposite direction. It wasn't a slowdown this time in filling the 
vacancy; it was an acceleration, a speedup. In that instance, they 
broke most of the precedents in the Senate in terms of considering 
Supreme Court nominees for Amy Coney Barrett. So President Trump was 
able, thanks to the complicity of the Senator from Kentucky, to appoint 
three members of the Supreme Court.
  The rulings in the last several weeks are just what the Senator from 
Kentucky and others have prayed for: a reversal of the rights of 
American families across the board. Basically, the right to access to 
reproductive freedom for women in this country was attacked in a way 
that few thought would ever happen, and now we are living with the 
consequences.
  The Senator from Kentucky just said Democrats are trying to change 
the subject. I am not changing the subject. There will be a hearing 
before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow on this decision by the 
Supreme Court on overturning Roe v. Wade.
  I want to say it is interesting that when the Senator from Kentucky 
is

[[Page S3189]]

looking for moral and academic support, he turns to an unheard-of 
professor from Yale to quote. He uses that professor as a source to 
say: Don't worry. Just because we took away the freedom of women when 
it comes to their reproductive health, we are not going to go so far as 
to address any decisions on contraception, family planning, and the 
like.
  Well, I might recommend to the Senator from Kentucky that he read the 
decision in Dobbs overturning Roe v. Wade and the concurring opinion 
from Justice Clarence Thomas, which said specifically that very thing. 
Now, he said, that we have done Roe v. Wade, it is time to look at 
cases that address the issue of privacy, the issue of same-sex 
marriage, and the issues of contraception, explicitly using those 
words.
  So to suggest that some Yale professor should be trusted more than 
this Justice on the Court who has given us fair warning is hard to 
understand.