[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2093-2094]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FILLING THE SUPREME COURT VACANCY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday the senior Senator from Iowa, 
along with other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, 
announced that they won't be holding a hearing on President Obama's 
eventual nominee to the Supreme Court. They won't give the eventual 
nominee the common courtesy of even a meeting--no hearings, no 
meeting--and this was all done even before the President sent a name to 
us. This is historically unbelievable and historically unprecedented.
  Republicans don't know who the nominee will be, and they have already 
mentioned that. Already they have decided they won't even start the 
confirmation process. Why? Because the person was nominated by 
President Obama. Remember, the Republican leader said many years ago 
that the No. 1 goal he had was to make sure President Obama was not 
reelected. That failed miserably. The President

[[Page 2094]]

won by more than 5 million votes. Everything has been done by the 
Republicans in the Senate to embarrass, obstruct, filibuster--anything 
that could be done to focus attention on President Obama, none of which 
has helped the country.
  Senator Grassley has surrendered every pretense of independence and 
let the Republican leader annex the Judiciary Committee into a narrow, 
partisan mission of obstruction and gridlock--so partisan, in fact, 
that the senior Senator from Iowa won't respond to a personal 
invitation from the President inviting him to the White House to 
discuss the vacancy. Think about that. The President of the United 
States calls a very senior Senator, and he hasn't even responded to the 
President. This is a sad day for one of the proudest committees in the 
Senate. So I ask, is this the legacy he wants? Is this how he wants his 
committee work remembered--as a chairman who refused his duty and 
instead allowed the Republican leader to ride roughshod over the 
Judiciary Committee's storied history?
  The strength of committee chairmen in the U.S. Senate has been 
legendary. No majority leader or minority leader could tell a chair 
what to do with his committee. That was off bounds, but it doesn't 
appear so now.
  In abdicating this responsibility, which the Senate has always 
upheld--never in the history of the country has a Senate simply refused 
to do anything, even meet with the person who has been nominated. So 
Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent for future nominations, 
not only for the Supreme Court but for the Senate itself as an 
institution.
  Yesterday the Senate Historian's office reported that the denial of 
committee hearings for a Supreme Court nominee is unprecedented. If 
that is unprecedented, how about the fact that he won't even meet with 
the person who has been nominated? If that is unprecedented, how about 
the fact that a Member of the Senate won't even go to the White House 
to talk to the President about filling the Supreme Court seat?
  The senior Senator from Iowa will be the first Judiciary Committee 
chairman ever to refuse to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. 
That is quite an achievement, but not one of which he should be proud. 
That sort of wanton obstruction is not what the American people want. 
It is not what the people of Iowa want. Last week no fewer than six 
Iowa newspapers issued scathing editorials calling on Senator Grassley 
to change course and give the President's Supreme Court nominee the 
respect he or she deserves.
  For example, the Mason City Globe Gazette wrote:

       We were especially disappointed to see Iowa's own Chuck 
     Grassley join the partisan crowd calling for a delay. . . . 
     There is no constitutional or even historical precedent for 
     such flagrant, outrageous, shameful, bald-faced partisanship.

  The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, IA, wrote of Senator Grassley's actions:

       It's hard to conclude this is anything but political 
     maneuvering meant to meet partisan objectives at the expense 
     of the Supreme Court, our constitutional process and the 
     common good.

  The headline of the Des Moines Register editorial reads, ``Grassley's 
Supreme Court stance is all about politics.''
  Is that the legacy the chairman wants for Iowa and our Nation? I 
certainly hope not. Does he want to be remembered as the least 
productive Judiciary Committee chairman in history? At his current 
pace, he will be remembered as the most obstructive chairman in 
history.
  Instead of studying what the Vice President said a quarter of a 
century ago, perhaps Senator Grassley should take note of what Senator 
Biden did 25 years ago or generally as a member and chairman of that 
committee.
  In 1992, under Senator Biden's leadership, the Judiciary Committee 
confirmed 64 circuit and district court nominations. All of the 
judicial nominations were made by a President of the opposite party--
President George H.W. Bush. In 2015, Senator Grassley's first year as 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the Senate confirmed 11 judicial 
nominations. That was the fewest judicial nominations confirmed ever. 
We were a much smaller country, perhaps, so ``ever'' might be a little 
much, but certainly in the last 50 or 75 years. That is quite a 
comparison: Biden, 64; Grassley, 11.
  It gets even worse than that for my friend from Iowa. In the entire 
102nd Congress, when Joe Biden was chair, the Senate confirmed 120 
nominees--120 judicial nominations under Biden. Compare that to 16 
under Chairman Grassley. The difference is stunning.
  I would encourage my friend from Iowa to focus on Vice President 
Biden's actions and results, rather than cherry picking remarks of 25 
years ago. The Judiciary Committee of Joe Biden honored its 
constitutional obligations by considering and confirming--even visiting 
with nominees--in a timely fashion, even though they were a Republican 
President's nominees. I can't say the same for the committee today. No 
one can.
  As chairman, Joe Biden did his constitutional duty and processed four 
nominations from Republican Presidents to the Supreme Court, including 
Justice Kennedy--that vote occurred in the last year of President 
Reagan's Presidency--Souter and Thomas.
  Let us focus on Thomas just a little bit. Thomas got 52 votes. He 
squeaked through the Senate. Any one Senator could have forced a 
cloture vote. Any one Democrat could have done that. We didn't do that. 
It was never done until the Republicans showed up here in the last few 
years.
  Now, Bork was a very controversial person, but he received a long, 
long hearing before the committee and a long debate here in the Senate. 
He was voted down. That is how this place is supposed to work. Other 
nominees have been voted down. But we didn't say we are not going to 
hold a hearing on Bork. We didn't say we are not going to take the 
committee's actions and just leave it at that. Listen to this: Bork was 
turned down in the Judiciary Committee by an overwhelming margin. In 
spite of that, we brought it to the Senate floor and it was debated, 
and he won by two votes--no filibusters. He was defeated in the 
committee. We didn't look for an excuse. That is the way it used to be 
done.
  With the Republican leadership now they will not meet with the 
nominee, even though they do not know who it will be; they won't hold a 
hearing; and the chairman of the committee will not even go to the 
White House and visit with the President.
  As chairman, Senator Biden did his constitutional duty and processed 
nominations, even though they were Republican nominations. So we don't 
have to go back to 1988 or 1992 to prove the current Judiciary 
Committee chairman's ineptness. Look at the spike in judicial 
emergencies that have occurred on Chairman Grassley's watch just in the 
past year.
  What is an emergency? It means there are not enough judges--too many 
cases for a judge to do the work. A vacant judgeship is automatically 
declared an emergency, as it should be. When the Republicans assumed 
control of the Senate last year there were 12 emergencies nationwide. 
Today, a year later, that number has almost tripled to 31.
  By nearly every metric, the Judiciary Committee under Chairman 
Grassley is failing dramatically, setting all records of failure in 
this great body. The committee is failing the people of Iowa and the 
Nation.
  To the senior Senator from Iowa, I stress, I plead, don't continue 
down this path. Reject this record-setting obstruction and simply do 
your job as a powerful chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. President, I see no one on the floor. Will the Chair announce the 
business of the day.

                          ____________________