[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4213-4214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       NOMINATION OF NEIL GORSUCH

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, next week the Senate Judiciary Committee 
will begin its hearing on President Trump's nominee to the Supreme 
Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch. As I have said before, we in the Senate have 
a special responsibility to judge whether this nominee, Judge Gorsuch, 
will tip the scales on the Court in favor of Big Business and powerful 
special interests over average Americans. The Court has steadily been 
moving in that direction under Justice Roberts.
  My colleague Sheldon Whitehouse and the ranking member of the 
Judiciary Committee, Senator Feinstein, have documented in 5-to-4 cases 
that the Court, over the last decade, has almost always tilted in favor 
of the powerful and against those who are average Americans. In fact, 
the Court under Justice Roberts has been judged the most pro-corporate 
Court since World War II. So this country can ill afford another 
Justice who will side with the powerful.
  Judge Gorsuch may act like a studied, neutral judge, but his record 
suggests he actually has a rightwing, pro-corporate, special interest 
agenda. In today's New York Times, this morning we learned that Judge 
Gorsuch's career has been nurtured by a far-right billionaire and 
corporate titan, Philip Anschutz, who has gone out of his way to fund 
hard-right judicial causes, including the Federalist Society and the 
Heritage Foundation. President Trump outsourced his choice of a Supreme 
Court nominee to these organizations, and they recommended Judge 
Gorsuch.
  Neil Gorsuch represented Mr. Anschutz's firm as a young lawyer. He 
has earned his favor and patronage ever since. It was Anschutz's top 
lawyer, someone who represented Anschutz here on the Hill, who lobbied 
for Gorsuch to get the spot on the Federal appeals court. Judge Gorsuch 
has been partners in an LLC with two of Anschutz's top advisers, 
building a vacation home together. Of course, there is no problem with 
that. Anyone can be partners. But it goes to show the longstanding 
intertwined ties between one of the leading advocates for a hard-right 
pro-corporate agenda, Mr. Anschutz, and Judge Gorsuch. The long history 
of ties between Judge Gorsuch and Mr. Anschutz suggests a judge whose 
fundamental economic and judicial philosophy is favorable to the 
wealthy and the powerful and the far right.
  Judge Gorsuch may sometimes express sympathy for the less powerful 
verbally, but when it comes time to rule, when the chips are down, he 
has far too often sided with the powerful few over everyday Americans 
trying get a fair shake. He has repeatedly sided with insurance 
companies that want to deny disability benefits to employees. In 
employment discrimination

[[Page 4214]]

cases, Bloomberg found he sided with employers 66 percent of the time. 
In one of the few cases where he sided with an employee, it was a 
Republican woman who alleged she was fired for being a conservative.
  On money in politics, the scourge, the poison of our political 
system--undisclosed dark money--Judge Gorsuch seems to be in the same 
company as Justices Thomas and Scalia, willing to restrict the most 
commonsense contribution limits.
  Judge Gorsuch's record demonstrates he prefers CEOs over citizens, 
executives over employees, corporations over consumers.
  Later this morning, I will be meeting with people who have personally 
experienced the real-life implications of Judge Gorsuch's decisions: 
Alphonso Maddin from Michigan, a truckdriver who was fired because he 
left his vehicle when freezing; Patricia Caplinger from Missouri, who 
sued Medtronic after being injured by a medical device implanted in a 
non-FDA-approved manner; David Hwang and Katherine Hwang, whose late 
mother, Proffer Grace Hwang, sued Kansas State University after being 
fired following a 6-month leave for cancer and requesting to work at 
home because of a flu epidemic. Their stories illuminate the real-world 
effects of a judge who sides with Anschutz-like interests over everyday 
Americans like Mr. Maddin, Ms. Caplinger, and the Hwang family.
  My colleague, my friend, the Republican leader, said there is no 
principled reason to be opposed to Judge Gorsuch. Yes, if your 
principles say the law should be used time and time again to support 
powerful corporate interests over average Americans, maybe there is no 
principled objection. But for most Americans, the overwhelming majority 
of whom want the Court to bring justice to the people who have less 
power--and the Court is their last resort--there are plenty of 
principled reasons to vote against Judge Gorsuch.
  Because of starkly unequal concentrations of wealth and ever-
increasing corporate power, aided and abetted by decisions like 
Citizens United, because they have skewed the playing field even more 
decisively to special interests and away from the individual citizen, 
we need a nominee who would reverse that trend, not exacerbate it.
  Donald Trump campaigned on helping average people. His nominee sides 
with corporate interests against average people like Mr. Maddin, Ms. 
Caplinger, and the Hwang family over and over again. From all 
indications, Judge Gorsuch is not the kind of nominee who has sympathy 
and helps average Americans when it comes to judging and the law.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________