Water Resources Development Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from Delaware for joining me yesterday on the steps of the Supreme Court. We had law clerks who had served Judge Garland over the years who spoke in glowing terms about the man's ability to serve. In fact, I have not heard any detractors or critics who have come forward to suggest that the President's nominee is not a serious candidate for this job and one who would fill it with great competence.

Here is the reality of what we face. This is the Executive Calendar, which is passed out every single day in the Senate. You will see it on the desks of many of my colleagues. In this publication are nominations pending before the Senate. There are 27 Federal judicial nominees whose nominations are pending before the Senate.

One nomination that might be of interest to those who are following this debate is a nomination that goes back to October of 2015 of Edward L. Stanton III, of Tennessee. Now, we know the way the process works is that Mr. Stanton's name would not be on the calendar to be considered by the Senate were it not for the support of both Senators from Tennessee--in this case, both Republican Senators of Tennessee. So we have a nomination to fill a vacancy on a Federal district court of Tennessee that has been approved by both Republican Senators and reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in October of last year--almost 1 year ago.

Obviously, a question must be raised. What is wrong with Mr. Stanton? What did he do? How did he get approved by both Senators and out of committee only to be sitting on the calendar for a year? What he did was he ran into a concerted, deliberate plan by Senate Republicans to stop filling judicial vacancies under President Barack Obama. There are 26 like him who have been reported from the committee and sent to the calendar.

Listen, here is the interesting part. Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called a special meeting of the committee today to take place right after the first vote, right off the floor here. To do what? To add five more names to the calendar--five more nominees to the calendar. Why? Is there going to be one magic day when all 32 are going to fly out of the Senate by a handful of votes?

Well, nobody said that is going to happen. Unfortunately, it means that for each of these nominees--starting with Mr. Stanton, 1 year ago--their lives are going to be on hold. They made a good-faith effort to step forward to serve the United States of America in the Federal judiciary. They submitted themselves to elaborate background checks by the FBI and other agencies, and then, when reported by the White House, they went through further background checks by the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Each of these individuals went through a hearing where, under oath, they were asked questions. Each of them, in many instances, was asked to present additional support materials for their nomination. They did it all. They did everything that was asked of them, and they sit on the calendar. What is this all about?

Well, I would say Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans are not very veiled in concealing their strategy. They don't want a Democratic President to fill a vacancy on the Federal bench, despite the fact that the people of the United States chose President Barack Obama by an overwhelming margin, despite the fact that he continues to have the powers of office. They want to thwart and stop that authority of the President to fill Federal judicial vacancies. Their hope is that their favorite candidate, their beloved nominee Donald Trump, will pick the next set of Federal judges. Can you imagine?

What really is behind this is not just to give Mr. Trump his moment to pick the nominees and make nominations to pick the future members of the judiciary but really to serve a specific political agenda. The Senate Republicans are afraid of what would happen to a Federal court system if independent jurists served. They want their friends instead. They want those who will lean in their direction when it comes to the important issues of corporate interests, Wall Street banks, and the Koch brothers. The courts mean an awful lot to companies and wealthy people, and they want to make sure the right people are sitting there making decisions when it comes to the future.

So 27 nominees sit on the Senate calendar, and the Senate Republicans refuse to call them for a vote. Senator Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to add five more to the list today. Why? Why are we doing this to these poor people, putting them through this charade of nomination when there is no intention to fill the vacancy? Incidentally, among the vacancies currently pending on the Federal judiciary--we are now up to 90 vacancies across the United States--a third of them are in emergency situations, which means that the courts cannot properly function because of the vacancies on the Federal bench. Despite this, the Senate Republicans refuse, being in control of the Senate, to call these names for consideration. They know they will pass. They are not controversial. They went through the committee, and they languish on the calendar because of this political decision.

I wish that were the worst example, but it is not. The worst example relates to the 176 days pending since the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He has had his name before the Senate in nomination and has not been called for a hearing or a vote.

Each of us, when we become a Senator, walks down this aisle and over to the side where the Vice President of the United States administers an oath of office. We don't take oaths lightly. For most of us, there are only a handful of moments in our lifetime where we raise our hand and swear that we are going to do certain things. In this case, we stand there in the well of the Senate and swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. You might think it is a formal declaration--and it is--but it is also a meaningful declaration. This country was riven and also destroyed because of a dispute over our Constitution which led to a civil war. So we make certain, if you walk down this aisle and put up your hand over there, one hand on the Bible, one hand reaching to the heavens, taking an oath to uphold the Constitution, we are serious about it.

Yet, when it comes to filling this Supreme Court vacancy, the Constitution is explicit about our responsibility in the Senate. Article II, section 2, speaks to the President's constitutional responsibility--responsibility--to fill vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. Why did the Founding Fathers make it a responsibility and a mandate? Because they knew what would happen if vacancies on the Court could be used for political purposes, if leaving slots vacant on the Court advantaged one political party or the other.

So they came forward and said: It is all about a full set of Justices and the President's responsibility to nominate those who would fill the vacancies. The death of Antonin Scalia created a vacancy. The Court across the street now has eight Justices. They have already been hamstrung by the fact that one Justice is missing and they were unable to reach a decision in critical cases.

So the President met his responsibility 176 days ago and sent the nomination of Merrick Garland to be considered by the Senate. I don't use this term loosely. I have looked it up. I have researched it. I want to say explicitly, the Senate of the United States of America has never, never in its history since the Judiciary Committee has been in business, never once refused a Presidential nominee a hearing. It has never happened.

Oh, I know, some of my critics on the other side will say: Well, if the shoe were on the other foot, if it were a Democratic Congress and a Republican lameduck President, you would do the same. Wrong. In recent memory, in recent history, when President Ronald Reagan was in the last year of his term and there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court, he sent the nomination of Anthony Kennedy to a Democratic-controlled Senate, and instead of refusing to do our job, the Democratic Senate approved Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Reagan nominee, in the last year of the Reagan Presidency.

But Senator Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans have said no. No, we are just not going to do it. We don't care if the Constitution requires it. We don't care if we have taken an oath to live up to the Constitution. We don't care if it has never been done before in the history of the Senate. We are going to stop this President from filling this Supreme Court vacancy because our friends, our special interest groups, corporate interests, Wall Street banks, and the Koch brothers, don't want to see an Obama nominee filling this vacancy.

It is a shame. Merrick Garland is an extraordinarily gifted jurist. He is a son of Illinois--maybe I come to it with some prejudice--born in Chicago, raised in Lincolnwood, valedictorian of his high school, Niles West. He recently gave a graduation speech to that school.

His father ran a small business. His mother worked as the director of volunteer services at Chicago's Council for Jewish Elderly. Judge Merrick Garland is an intelligent man. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard, clerked for distinguished jurists Henry Friendly and William Brennan. He spent years in public service as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice. He led the investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He served as a judge on the DC Circuit since 1997. Incidentally, he was confirmed by the Senate with a broad bipartisan vote for that position.

Throughout his career, he has won praise from across the political spectrum for his fairness, his brilliance, his work ethic, and his judgment. The American Bar Association took a look at this nominee and said: He is unanimously ``well qualified'' to serve on the Supreme Court--unanimously. This is a man who has given decades of his life to public service, and the Senate Republicans will not even give him a hearing. They will not give him a moment under oath to answer questions.

The way the Senate Republican majority has handled this Supreme Court vacancy is shameful. Since Justice Antonin Scalia's untimely passing last February, the Supreme Court has had to operate with eight Justices. As President Ronald Reagan said back in 1987, ``Every day that passes with the Supreme Court below full strength impairs the people's business in that crucially important body.''

During the last Supreme Court term, the Court was unable to reach a final decision on the merits seven times because the Justices were deadlocked 4 to 4. Major legal questions have been left unresolved. On September 26, the Court will hold its first conference of its new term, still with only eight Justices, though the Senate has had plenty of time to fill a vacancy, but the Senate Republicans have refused to do their job.

Unlike any other Senate in the history of the United States, in the history of this country, the Senate Republicans have refused a Presidential nominee to the Supreme Court a fair hearing--any hearing-- and a vote. It is shameful. The Senate is now failing under the Constitution to do its job. The Senate Republicans, by design, are responsible.

Judge Garland, the Supreme Court, and the American people deserve better. The Senate should give Merrick Garland a hearing and a vote. Zika Virus Funding

Mr. President, when they write the history of this Republican- controlled Senate, they will surely note that we are a little over 2 weeks away from a deadline, when we were supposed to have a budget and appropriations bills, and we don't have them.

That has happened before. It is not the first time in recent memory. We have been tied up in knots before, but that is a reality. Despite promises to the contrary, we have not passed an appropriations bill. I might say in fairness, in defense, of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Republican chairman, Thad Cochran, as well as the ranking Democrat, Barbara Mikulski, we did our job.

We held hearings on the important bills. They are ready for consideration on the floor. What has stopped their consideration is the Republican House of Representatives and Senator McConnell. The Republicans in the House just cannot reach an agreement. That is why John Boehner left. That is why Paul Ryan's hair is turning gray, trying to deal with a handful of tea party Republicans who would rather see the whole Congress grind to a halt and the government shut down.

So when it comes to passing appropriations and spending bills, there is not much to brag about on the Republican side of the aisle. When it comes to the Zika virus in February, President Obama said: Be careful. We have a public health crisis looming. This mosquito we have discovered can cause extraordinary damage to pregnant women and to the babies they carry.

So he asked us, in February of this year, 7 months ago, he asked us for $1.8 billion so they could stop the spread of this mosquito virus and start the research for a vaccine to protect everyone. He said it was an emergency. Obviously, the Senate Republicans did not care. In May, we finally reached an agreement to a reduced amount, $1.1 billion, passed it out of the Senate. I believe the vote was 89 to 8, a strong bipartisan rollcall.

Many of us breathed a sigh of relief. It was before the mosquito season really got in full force in most of the country. It looked like we were going to respond to the President's call for emergency funding. Then what happened? It went over to the House of Representatives, and instead of taking the clean, bipartisan bill that passed the Senate, no, they decided they would embellish it with political poison pill riders. Listen to one of them. They said women who were concerned about family planning and their pregnancies because of this issue could not seek family counseling and women's health care at Planned Parenthood clinics. Two million American women used those clinics last year. The Republicans are now saying: Sorry. As important and popular as they may be, we are going to prohibit any money being spent for women to turn to these clinics for family planning advice because of the Zika virus.

They went further. They took $500 million out of the Veterans' Administration that was going to be used to process claims to get rid of the backlog. No, they will take $500 million away from that and put it into the Zika virus. Then, to add insult to injury, the Republicans in the House insisted on a provision that would allow them to display the Confederate flag at U.S. military cemeteries.

What we had was a simple, straightforward, clean bill to deal with the public health crisis turned into a political grab bag. They sent it over here knowing it would fall and it did, repeatedly.

Now the question is, whether Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans will follow the lead of House Republican Members who are telling them: Enough. Members from Florida--Congressman Yoho, for example--a Republican Member says: Let's clean up this bill and do something about Zika. Why is he saying that? Because the Centers for Disease Control has done something extraordinary, something I don't think has ever been done before. They have warned Americans not to travel to parts of the United States, certain sections of Florida, where the Zika mosquito is showing up.

Congressmen from Florida, including Republicans, have said: Enough of the political games. Pass the clean bill funding Zika. Senate Republicans refuse. They will not move forward on it. We are stuck, stuck with the situation that we can cure and should cure on a bipartisan basis.

My colleagues from Louisiana come to tell us about the terrible devastation that has taken place in their State because of the flooding, national disaster, loss of life, damage to property. It is not the first time we have had a situation this serious--Katrina and others come to mind--but it is a reminder, when it comes to natural disasters or public health disasters, for goodness' sake, isn't that where politics should end and people should, on a bipartisan basis, set out to solve a problem instead of create a problem?

So now it is up to Speaker Ryan and it is up to Senator McConnell to show real leadership in the Senate. I know they are not going to back off on these judges. They have dug in real hard on those, but I would hope, when it comes to passing spending bills in a sensible fashion and funding our efforts to stop the spread of this Zika virus, that we will do something meaningful.

They estimate, by the end of this year, one out of four people in Puerto Rico will have been infected by this virus. By the end of next year, it will be closer to 90 percent. It is a serious public health crisis. It is one we need to do something about. Ultimately, we need a vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control announced this week that they brought to a halt their efforts. They have run out of money. Now it is up to Congress. It is up to the Senate. It is up to the Republican leadership.

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