[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11859-11860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   FILLING THE SUPREME COURT VACANCY

  Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, I rise tonight after having listened to 
several floor speeches today. I don't understand it. Here we are again 
with problems such as the debt, the Zika virus, funding our military, 
and yet we spent the majority of the day in this body talking about 
something I think we have already decided is not going to change this 
year, and that is the potential nomination to the vacancy on the 
Supreme Court.
  I just think I need to do this one more time. I have spoken before 
about my position, and I want to rise in support of Senator Grassley, 
the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I think it is important 
that I again discuss why I believe the Senate should not hold hearings 
or schedule a vote on any Supreme Court nominee until the American 
people have chosen whom they want to be their next President.
  I would first like to address this issue of the Senate's 
responsibility under the Constitution with respect to judicial matters 
and judicial nominees in particular. According to article II, section 
2, the President has the power to nominate Supreme Court Justices--
nothing new there. We in this body have the power to either consent or 
withhold our consent from this nominee.
  The minority leader himself said at that time when referring to the 
Senate's constitutional responsibility to confirm President George W. 
Bush's judicial nominee:

       Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty 
     to give presidential nominees a vote.

  He then went on to say:

       The Senate is not a rubber stamp for the executive branch.

  There is also no provision in the Constitution requiring the Senate 
Judiciary Committee to hold hearings for all judicial nominees. In 
fact, the Constitution and its provisions laying out the process for 
confirming judicial nominees were ratified 28 years before the Senate 
Judiciary Committee even came into existence. Therefore, it is clear to 
me that the Senate's action in withholding consent from this nominee is 
entirely consistent with our rights and responsibilities as a coequal 
branch of government under the Constitution.
  By choosing to withhold our consent in this case, we are doing our 
job, just as we have said all along and just as our jobs are laid out 
in the Constitution.
  I would also like to address the argument that the lack of hearings 
for a

[[Page 11860]]

Supreme Court nominee this year is somehow unprecedented. That is just 
nonsense. In modern times, the opposite is actually true. The last time 
a Supreme Court vacancy arose and a nominee was confirmed in a 
Presidential election year was actually in 1932. But the last time this 
situation occurred where we had a divided government and we had a 
Supreme Court Justice nominated and confirmed in that year was 1888. 
Mr. President, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and 
both sides have taken this position.
  Furthermore, my colleagues across the aisle have consistently argued 
over the years that the Senate should not act on a Supreme Court 
nomination during a Presidential election year. The hypocrisy of this 
situation is just amazing to me. As an outsider to this process, this 
is what drives my friends and people back home absolutely mad.
  It was then-Senator Biden--our current Vice President--who was 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, who said that 
President George H.W. Bush should avoid a Supreme Court nomination 
until after the 1992 Presidential election. Then-Senator Biden went 
further than what we are doing today: He then said the President 
shouldn't even nominate someone. He made the same point my colleagues 
and I are making today when he said:

       It is my view that if a Supreme Court justice resigns 
     tomorrow or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the 
     end of the year, President Bush should consider following the 
     practice of a majority of his predecessors and not--and not--
     name a nominee until after the November election is 
     completed.

  I don't know what else to say, Mr. President. Both sides have made 
this same argument we are making today in the past.
  Finally, I believe the decision to not hold hearings for a Supreme 
Court nominee this year is a wise course of action in the midst of a 
Presidential election. As I have said all along, this is not the time 
we want to interject into this political process the decision to make a 
lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court--a decision that may tip the 
balance of this particular Court.
  Then-Senator Biden also said, when discussing the potential of 
holding Supreme Court confirmation hearings against the backdrop of 
election-year politics:

       A process that is already in doubt in the minds of many 
     will become distrusted by all. Senate consideration of a 
     nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the 
     President, to the nominee, or to the Senate itself.

  I agree with then-Senator Biden that the confirmation of a lifetime 
appointee to our Nation's highest Court is far too important to become 
entangled in the partisan wrangling during a Presidential election 
year.
  As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I am, therefore, proud to 
stand with Chairman Grassley and my colleagues in the committee in 
saying no Supreme Court nominee should be considered by the Senate 
before the next President is sworn into office. I also believe that it 
shouldn't be taken up in a lameduck session. You can't have it both 
ways, Mr. President.

                          ____________________