[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5726-5727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FILLING THE SUPREME COURT VACANCY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, last week, the senior Senator from Iowa 
confirmed what Democrats have said all along: Senate Republicans want 
Donald Trump to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.
  I am sorry to direct my attention to the Presiding Officer, but I 
can't imagine how the Presiding Officer must feel with Donald Trump 
being the leader of the Republican Party. I can't imagine. I can't 
imagine what your good father thinks of Donald Trump leading the 
Republican Party, but I can imagine, and I have a number of times.
  In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Iowa's largest 
newspaper, Senator Grassley said of Trump: ``Based upon the type of 
people [Donald Trump would] be looking for, I think I would expect the 
right type of people to be nominated by him to the Supreme Court.''
  That is fairly shocking, coming from a Senator who should know 
better. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee trusts Donald 
Trump to pick ``the right type of people'' for the Supreme Court. I 
can't think of a worse idea than placing the power to pick the next 
Supreme Court Justice in the hands of an unhinged individual who 
derides women, who calls them dogs and pigs. Look at the front page of 
the New York Times, at how he and Howard Stern decided how they were 
going to treat women. Read it. It is demeaning to my wife, my daughter, 
and my 9 or 10 granddaughters. I have them mixed up. There are 19. It 
is an uneven number, but they are close. I can't think of a worse idea 
than placing the power to pick the next Supreme Court Justice in the 
hands of this unhinged individual. He calls Latinos rapists and 
murderers.
  This is the Supreme Court of the United States we are talking about--
the Court that decided Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board of 
Education, the anniversary of which is coming up next Tuesday. This is 
not Donald Trump's reality show. This is the real world. This is no 
game. This is not a choice about whether Meatloaf or Gary Busey made a 
better art project; it is a choice about the future of America. The 
balance of the Supreme Court has real-life consequences for all of us.
  Rational people don't want Donald Trump filling a Supreme Court 
vacancy. Iowans don't. The American people don't. But Senate 
Republicans obviously do, and Senator Grassley does--or I should say he 
does now. Two weeks ago, before Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican 
nomination

[[Page 5727]]

to my dismay, the senior Senator from Iowa sang a much different tune. 
Back then--all of 13 days ago--before Donald Trump was his standard 
bearer, Senator Grassley said it would be a risk to let Trump pick a 
Supreme Court nominee. That was less than 2 weeks ago. This is what he 
said: ``If Trump's elected president, it probably is a little more 
unknown. . . . I would have to admit it's a gamble.'' It is a gamble, 
and it is not at a Las Vegas crap table or a slot machine. That it is a 
gamble is an understatement.
  Trump picking a Supreme Court nominee is a guaranteed recipe for 
disaster. But now that Trump is the nominee, Republicans are marching 
in lockstep with him on the Supreme Court vacancy. Republicans want to 
put the Supreme Court in the hands of an unbalanced egomaniac.
  Senator Grassley and his colleagues say they want the future of the 
highest Court to be determined by an anti-woman, anti-Latino, and anti-
middle-class billionaire who demeans women every day. Yesterday 
Grassley told a reporter that ``there's no problem with Trump 
appointing people to the Supreme Court.'' But what had he said 2 weeks 
earlier? That it is a gamble.
  Donald Trump wants to ban all Muslims from even coming into our 
country. That is whom Republicans want picking the Justices to do the 
work of our judiciary system, deciding questions about civil 
liberties--somebody who says Muslims shouldn't even come to this 
country. Trump encouraged supporters to physically assault protesters. 
Here is what he said: ``Knock the crap out of them.'' That is whom the 
Republicans want to select Justices to interpret the law. It is insane 
that my Republican colleagues are willing to entrust such an important 
responsibility to this egomaniac.
  Instead of relying on the whims of an unscrupulous real estate 
tycoon--who inherited his money, by the way--Senate Republicans should 
trust in the Senate's time-honored process of considering Supreme Court 
nominees. Republicans can start by reviewing Judge Garland's nominee 
questionnaire, which the Senate got yesterday. After that, the Senate 
Judiciary Committee and Chairman Grassley should do their job and hold 
a hearing. Then the Republican leader should bring Merrick Garland's 
nomination to the floor for a vote. A hearing and a vote--that is what 
we need to have, and that is how we will get, in Senator Grassley's 
words, the right type of people on the Supreme Court. Meet with the 
man, hold hearings, and vote.
  This year the Republican Senate is on pace to work fewer days than 
any Senate in the past six decades--60-plus years. So in that we are 
not doing much anyway, couldn't we just work in a little time to have a 
Supreme Court nominee?
  Senator Grassley was right the first time. Letting Donald Trump pick 
a Supreme Court Justice is indeed a gamble. It is a risk the American 
people can't afford and shouldn't afford. Instead of waiting for Donald 
Trump, Republicans should just do their job and at least allow the 
Court to have a full complement of nine Justices.
  Mr. President, I see no one here on the floor, so I ask the Chair to 
announce the business of the day.

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