[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 124 (Tuesday, July 30, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5571-S5572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           U.S. Supreme Court

  Mr. President, on another matter, I want to speak briefly about 
President Biden's proposal to, essentially, unconstitutionally 
transform the Supreme Court into another political branch of 
government.
  Every student of government, every high school civics class, teaches 
that ours is a government of three coequal branches: the two political 
branches being the Senate and the House, the legislative branch, and 
then the executive branch. The reason they are political is because 
they are accountable to the public through regular elections.
  Conversely, the Judiciary is unique in that it is unaccountable to 
the voters. Judges are nominated by the President and then confirmed by 
the Senate. But as long as they are conducting themselves 
appropriately, they can serve as long as they live--literally, have 
life tenure. Rarely--very rarely--there is remedy of impeachment for 
extraordinary cases. But, as I said, that happens almost not at all.
  But in recent years, our Democratic colleagues have floated a litany 
of institutional changes to try to tilt the balance of power in the 
Judiciary in their favor. They are not content to allow the Courts to 
do their job, which is to call balls and strikes. Again, judges are 
supposed to interpret the law and the facts and apply that to a given 
case and not decide ahead of time who should win and who should lose.
  Judges don't take public opinion polls and decide what is popular, 
because they take the same oath we do to uphold the Constitution and 
laws of the United States. But they do so in a framework of judicial 
independence.
  Former Justice Scalia used to say that the independent judiciary is 
the gold standard, is the secret sauce for the United States form of 
government, because there has to be some neutral arbiter to basically 
decide contested cases, and that is our independent judiciary.
  But our Democratic colleagues, since they have been upset about some 
of the decisions of the Court, have gone so far as to suggest that the 
Court be restructured. This was tried back in the administration of 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the famous court packing cases. He wanted 
to add additional Justices to the Supreme Court because he thought that 
would change the receptivity of the case to causes that he supported.
  But we have also seen changes advocated here in this Senate, 
institutional changes by our Democratic colleagues who were unhappy 
with the fact that they don't win 100 percent of the vote. They have 
advocated eliminating the filibuster to clear the path for radical and 
unpopular policy ideas. They have attempted to federalize or 
nationalize our voting laws and take over America's elections as 
opposed to having those decided at the State level. They pushed for 
statehood for the District of Columbia as well as Puerto Rico. And, 
presumably, each of those would get two United States Senators and a 
Member of Congress and thus tilt the balance of power here in the 
Senate.
  But when it comes to the Supreme Court, it is clear that the left is 
outraged over some of the Court's recent decisions. As a matter of 
fact, not that long ago, the majority leader stood on the front steps 
of the Supreme Court and called out two sitting Justices by name and, 
essentially, threatened them if they decided these cases in a way that 
he disagreed with.
  That was an extraordinary act of bad judgment by the majority leader. 
He actually went so far as to say: Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, 
you won't know what hit you.
  Again, it was shocking to, I think, most of us who regard the Court 
as an independent and separate branch of government immune from 
politics.
  But, of course, many Democrats are upset that the Court's decision in 
Roe v. Wade has now returned the issue of abortion to the States, where 
on a State-by-State basis, legislators and voters will decide what the 
appropriate limits are on abortion, which divides much of our country.
  They are upset with the decision on Presidential immunity. They want 
the President to be subject to ordinary litigation on a regular basis, 
using what has now come to be known as lawfare to achieve political 
objectives.
  And they are concerned that the Court has done away with something as 
arcane and relatively poorly understood as Chevron deference, basically 
saying if an Agency decides something, there is not much that the 
courts or that Congress can do about it.
  Our colleagues don't want to keep losing cases in the courtroom. So 
they have adopted a new strategy: If you can't win the game, change the 
rules. And their playbook has gone something like this: No. 1, 
villainize the Supreme Court. I mentioned the comments of the majority 
leader, which are not unique. The strategy is to make the Justices seem 
evil or biased out of touch when they rule against progressive causes 
in the courtroom.
  The second step in the playbook is to offer a solution--or a proposed 
solution--to address the problem that Democrats have manufactured. That 
involves an act which itself is unconstitutional and irresponsible, 
which is the overhaul of the Court-packing I mentioned a moment ago.
  And, No. 3: It is to go on the attack and stay on the attack and 
vilify anyone who dares oppose these changes as somehow corrupt and 
anti-Democrat.
  From packing the Court with liberal Justices to dictating recusal 
requirements for the Justices to holding security funding hostage if 
the Supreme Court doesn't do what our Democratic colleagues want them 
to do, our colleagues have offered many plans to fully assert control 
over this independent branch of government--the Judiciary.
  For a long time, these proposals were only supported by a fringe of 
the Democratic Party. But now, they have become more commonplace and 
infiltrated the Oval Office itself.
  President Joe Biden used the pages of the Washington Post to advocate 
for exactly the sorts of dramatic and unconstitutional changes that I 
just mentioned. He wants to somehow establish term limits for Justices. 
He wants to craft a schedule for new appointments, force a code of 
ethics on the Justices written by Congress, and destroy the 
longstanding precedent of Presidential immunity.
  These proposals are not to enhance the fairness of the Court or 
promote equality or justice or any other good government objective; 
they are about power, about control. They would turn our most 
independent branch of government into a partisan branch to ensure that 
our Democratic colleagues are the ones who ultimately wield the power.

  It is bad enough that President Biden has promoted these radical 
changes, but even more concerning is that his

[[Page S5572]]

protegee, Vice President Harris, has fully embraced them. She made it 
clear that if she is elected in November, the assault on the 
independent judiciary--the Supreme Court--will not go away; it will 
accelerate. A potential Harris administration would stage a full-blown 
coup to overtake the Supreme Court and eviscerate judicial 
independence. She basically would disregard the Constitution itself and 
attempt to turn the Court into an institution that serves at the 
pleasure of a political party--hers.
  We need to call it what it is. The Biden-Harris proposal is not about 
protecting democracy or ensuring accountability; it is about 
consolidating power and undermining institutions that stand in the way 
of their agenda.
  If these radical ideas were to become a reality, they would 
dangerously shift the balance of power and erode the independence of 
the Supreme Court--again, the crown jewels of our form of government. 
They would ultimately politicize the one branch of government that was 
designed to be insulated from partisanship.
  Our Founders deliberately designed a Federal Government with three 
distinct but equal branches. They established a set of checks and 
balances to prevent any one branch from forcing another to bend to its 
will, but unfortunately, that is exactly what President Biden and his 
party are trying to do today--to blur the lines between the executive, 
legislative, and judicial branches to secure partisan political wins 
and accrue more power.
  But here in the U.S. Senate--an institution created for this 
purpose--cooler heads must prevail. We cannot stoop to the level of the 
mob. We have to stand up for an independent judiciary and the Supreme 
Court as an essential institution in our form of government regardless 
of how we feel about the decisions.
  Many decisions by the Supreme Court I have disagreed with in the 
past, and I am sure I will in the future, but as one Justice said, 
``The Supreme Court is not final because it is right; it is right 
because it is final.''
  That is the only way to preserve the integrity of the judiciary and 
our invaluable checks and balances, is with an independent judiciary--
one that isn't politicized and doesn't bend to the will of a political 
party.
  Republicans will continue to fight to protect the integrity of 
America's judicial system, and we will not allow this President or any 
President or any political party to hijack the Federal judiciary for 
their own partisan benefit.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall 
vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.