[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3085]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FILLING THE SUPREME COURT VACANCY

  Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise today to speak about something 
that guides the work of each and every one of us--the U.S. 
Constitution. Each and every one of us has taken an oath of office to 
support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We all 
solemnly swear that we will bear true faith and allegiance to the 
Constitution and that we will faithfully discharge the duties of our 
office. Have some of the Senate Republicans forgotten this?
  Last week a colleague was asked in a radio interview on a Wisconsin 
radio station if Republicans would be more likely to advance a Supreme 
Court nomination had a Republican been elected President in 2012. He 
said: ``Generally, and this is the way it works out politically, if 
you're replacing--if a conservative president's replacing a 
conservative justice, there's a little more accommodation to it.'' Do 
Senate Republicans really believe that they need a Republican President 
simply to do their jobs?
  I would like to remind my colleagues that President Obama was elected 
to a 4-year term in 2012 with over 65 million votes. The American 
people decided who our President is, and according to the Constitution, 
the term the President earned has more than 300 days remaining. The 
voices of those 65 million Americans need to be heard and respected 
despite how much some people want to silence them, disrespect them, and 
ignore them.
  On Supreme Court vacancies, the Constitution is also clear. Under 
article II of the Constitution, the President shall appoint judges to 
the Supreme Court and the Senate's role is to provide advice and 
consent. It is the constitutional duty of the President to select a 
Supreme Court nominee, and the Senate has the responsibility to give 
that nominee fair consideration with a timely hearing and a timely 
vote.
  It is deeply troubling to me and the people for whom I work in 
Wisconsin that the Republican majority would choose not to fulfill 
their constitutional duty. Before the President has even made a 
nomination to fill the current vacancy, a number of Senators have 
announced that they will not perform their constitutional duty. This 
not only runs contrary to the process that the Framers envisioned in 
article II, but it runs counter to our Nation's history.
  Now, some of my colleagues have claimed that the Senate history 
supports their historic obstruction. This is simply false. In fact, six 
Justices have been confirmed in Presidential election years since 1900, 
including Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Republican appointee 
Anthony Kennedy, who was confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate 
during President Ronald Reagan's last year in office.
  Recently, one of my colleagues on the other side suggested that the 
nomination and confirmation process for a Supreme Court Justice--
perhaps just this impending Supreme Court nomination--would be nothing 
more than playing pinata. I would like to point out that when playing 
pinata, children are typically blindfolded, spun around in circles, and 
then they take a whack at the pinata with either a bat or stick. It is 
as if my Republican colleagues have become dizzied by what they are 
hearing around them--perhaps Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric.
  Do they see a Supreme Court nominee as nothing more than something to 
whack over and over, like a pinata? The violence of the metaphor is 
problematic. Have they lost faith and allegiance in their 
constitutional duties?
  Today, the American people deserve a full and functioning Supreme 
Court, not an empty seat on the highest Court in the land. The American 
people cannot afford partisan obstruction that threatens the integrity 
of our democracy and the functioning of our constitutional government.
  In my home State of Wisconsin, people get it. A recent poll there 
done by Marquette University showed a majority of the people believe 
that the Senate should hold hearings and a vote on a nominee this year. 
A majority of Wisconsinites also said they believe that leaving this 
seat on our highest Court vacant for more than a year will hurt the 
U.S. Supreme Court's ability to do its job. They are right, and their 
message to Washington and the Republican majority is simple: Do your 
job so the Supreme Court can do its job on behalf of all of the 
American people. The American people deserve better than a long-term 
vacancy that could jeopardize the administration of justice across our 
whole country.
  So I call on my colleagues to join together on behalf of the American 
people to fulfill our constitutional obligation of restoring the U.S. 
Supreme Court to its full strength.
  In the spirit of cooperation, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I call 
on Senate Republicans to end their partisan obstruction and do their 
jobs.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.

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