America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the opening on the Supreme Court. Today I am going to focus my remarks on how important filling the current vacancy on the Supreme Court is for our system of governance.

When our Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, they envisioned a system of governance upheld by three branches of government. The Federalist Papers outline this balance of power in detail. In Federalist Paper No. 51, James Madison spoke about the importance of checks and balances among three branches of government. As Madison stated: ``It is . . . evident that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others.'' I don't think we always refer to ourselves as members of a department, but what he meant by this is that there are three departments in our government--the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. In Federalist Papers 78 and 80, Alexander Hamilton wrote about the important role of the Federal judiciary in particular. The writings of the Founders make clear that our democracy only works when all three branches are functioning.

In recent years, gridlock has hobbled the ability of the legislative branch to function. Although we have made some progress in starting to turn that around with the passage of the recent Transportation bill, the Education bill, and the budget, we also have had some very difficult times--fiscal cliff, the government shutdown. We cannot take that dysfunction to the third--as was called by James Madison-- department of government, which is the judiciary. We cannot have a Supreme Court that doesn't function, which is exactly what is happening as some continue to obstruct the process, when all we want is a hearing.

We have already witnessed the Court split evenly without a ninth Justice to break the tie this year. These types of decisions can prevent the Court from responding to pressing issues in a timely fashion. In some decisions where there has been a 4-to-4 split, the result is effectively the same as if the Supreme Court never heard the case to begin with.

What if there was an emergency case like we had with Bush v. Gore? Again, do we want a 4-to-4 split in a case like that? Justice Kagan has said the current Justices on the Court are doing everything they can to avoid a 4-to-4 split, but that is not how it should work. Often these types of decisions provide less guidance to States, offering them less legal certainty.

Last week I held a meeting of the Steering and Outreach Committee, where I heard firsthand about what a serious issue this is for State and local governments. You have patchwork decisions across the country with perhaps 2 years that will go by before you have a High Court of the land that can decide which case and which decision rules when there is a split in the circuit. You can't continue to have a split on the Court.

As the former chief prosecutor from Minnesota's largest county, I know from my own experience how important it is to have an ultimate arbiter to settle the law of the land. Cases challenging critical laws are now before the Supreme Court. We want those laws to rise or fall because the Supreme Court has decided the issue--not because of a 4-to- 4 split, not because they were unable to do their job.

More split decisions are not the only risks we are facing. The current vacancy on the Supreme Court also has implications for the number of cases the Court is able to take in the first place.

In March of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari-- that means they took the case--in eight cases. This year, it only did so for two cases. The current situation is compromising the integrity of our judiciary. If we allow the Supreme Court to become a casualty of the polarization in our politics, if we let politics impede the Court from having another Justice and from doing its job, people will lose confidence in the Court.

That is what sets our country apart. When you talk to companies across the world that want to invest in different countries, they look at the fact that we have a functioning judiciary.

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