Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
Floor Speech
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Mr. COONS. Madam President, I rise to follow the eloquent remarks of my colleague from the State of Virginia and to remark upon 62 years--62 years since Brown v. Board was handed down by our Supreme Court; 62 days since Judge Merrick Garland was nominated by our President to fill a vital vacancy on our Nation's highest Court. I wish to thank and commend my colleague, a very able attorney and someone who has argued cases passionately around a wide range of issues but none so much as civil rights.
As Senator Kaine rightly pointed out, the history of Brown v. Board is that a series of cases were brought together from across several States--including his State of Virginia and my State of Delaware-- gathered together and argued in front of the Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshall, then chief counsel of the NAACP, and ultimately decided in 1954. Initially, a divided Court was unable to render judgment because in the spring of 1953, Chief Justice Vinson had died, leaving the Court then in a similar situation as it is now--divided on a range of vital and important issues.
The good Senator from Virginia has reminded us that our failure to act now--our failure to do our job and to follow the dictates of our Constitution, the ``shall'' language in article II, section 2--the failure of this body to offer any hearing or vote on this very capable circuit court judge sends the wrong message, not just here within this country to our citizens but around the world.
The Senator from Virginia spent time--and it changed his life and his perspective--in Central America as a younger man in a country where judicial independence was a fiction on paper. I, too, spent time in the 1980s in a country in Southern Africa known as South Africa, where this same legal system that existed here under Jim Crow existed there under the name of apartheid. It is to that country I go in just 2 weeks, with Congressman John Lewis of Georgia and with the children of Robert Kennedy, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a speech given in Cape Town 50 years ago.
It is a striking moment for us to reflect on the importance and the power and the centrality of Brown v. Board in wiping away the dark stain of Plessy v. Ferguson, that obscene legal fiction rendered in 1896 that ``separate but equal'' allowed us to square the horrible distension of justice in our country of a separation between the races with the words in our Constitution, the words above the Presiding Officer, the words above the entrance to our Supreme Court, the words above the Presiding Officer's desk in our Chamber, ``E pluribus unum''--from many, one--more importantly, the words above the Supreme Court entrance, ``Equal Justice Under Law.''
We have these soaring words in our foundational documents and in our most important government buildings that suggest that we will ``dispense justice equally,'' that we will be gathered from many differences in backgrounds into one. Yet the reality in this country, for its initial decades, more than its initial century, was anything but.
It was 62 years ago today that the Supreme Court of these United States issued a unanimous decision wiping Plessy v. Ferguson away.
I rise briefly to comment that I grew up in a small town in Delaware known as Hockessin. It was a so-called ``Colored'' school in Hockessin that was the basis of one of these cases. There were actually two cases from Delaware: Belton v. Gebhart from Claymont, related to the Claymont High School, and Bulah v. Gebhart, relating to the Hockessin Elementary School. In both cases, a famous lawyer from Delaware named Louis Redding took their cases to the Delaware courts. A brave judge, Judge Collins Seitz, rendered a judgment that found the discriminatory practices in the State of Delaware illegal. It was that case that was affirmed--of the five gathered--in Brown v. Board.
Although Delaware has a very troubled and checkered racial history, these cases are ones of which I and my constituents can justifiably be proud. Moments when the courts of this country have stepped up and wiped the stain of racism and of legal segregation from our books are moments of which we can and should be proud.
As my colleague from Virginia pointedly reminded us, for 62 days the incredibly qualified and capable district court judge nominated by our current President has waited--waited for an answer from this body, waited for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, waited for a vote. In the century that there has been a Judiciary Committee of this body, every previous nominee who has not withdrawn has received a hearing, a vote, or both.
What are we so afraid of in allowing this talented judge to come forward, to lay his views and his credentials and his experience before this body or a committee of this body? What is the concern? My colleague from Virginia has asked and I ask, what is the animating concern that insists that for 62 or 63 or 64 or more days, Judge Garland must wait, throughout this entire year perhaps, into next year? How many cases will remain undecided by an equally divided Court due to our unwillingness or the unwillingness of many in this Chamber to do their job, to take up the challenge, to have a hearing, and to cast their vote?
With that, I simply want to say that it is to me of grave concern that we have not acted as a body, that we have not acted collectively to provide a path forward for this talented, capable judge. Many in this Chamber may find him not to be capable or qualified, but without a hearing, how would you know? He has submitted a full response--thousands of pages--to the questionnaire typically expected before the Judiciary Committee of any nominee. His record is before us--abundant, voluminous. He has more experience than any previous nominee as a Federal circuit court judge. What is the concern that would prevent us from moving forward?
On this 62nd anniversary of the most important decision, in my view, in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v.
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