Nomination of Mike Pompeo

Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, it is no secret that powerful interests are working to undermine our government. Giant companies and rightwing billionaires have been pouring unlimited sums of money into making sure our government works for those at the top and leaves everyone else behind, and a key part of their strategy is to capture our courts.

During the Obama administration, those powerful interests and their Republican allies in Congress executed an unprecedented campaign to stop fairminded, impartial nominees from filling judicial vacancies. Nominees weren't blocked because they were unqualified. They weren't blocked because they were inexperienced. They weren't blocked because they were out of the mainstream. They were blocked for one reason and one reason alone: because they didn't demonstrate a sufficient willingness to bend the law in favor of the rich and the powerful.

With Donald Trump as President, these same interests sense a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity to reshape our courts for years to come, and they are working to stack our courts with narrow-minded elitists and rightwing radicals. Stuart Kyle Duncan--President Trump's nominee to sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals--is one of those nominees.

Mr. Duncan has spent his career working to restrict--not to expand, but to restrict--civil rights in the United States. Over and over again, he has sought to tilt the scales of justice against women, against LGBTQ Americans, against people of color, and others. Mr. Duncan's record of supporting discrimination and injustice is quite lengthy, so I will focus on just a few of the most disturbing examples. Let's start with his record on women's rights.

Mr. Duncan has worked to make it harder for women to access contraceptive coverage and abortion services. He was the lead attorney for the arts and crafts company Hobby Lobby in the Supreme Court case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. In that case, he argued that business owners should be allowed to refuse to provide female employees access to contraceptive care based on those employers' religious views.

Mr. Duncan also filed briefs in many other Supreme Court cases, petitioning the Court to restrict women's access to birth control and abortion services, ignoring the fact that access to contraceptive care can help women lead better, healthier, or more financially secure lives. He is the man who is seeking a Federal judgeship.

Let's take a look at his record on LGBTQ rights. Mr. Duncan has complained about what he calls the ``general acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual practices'' in America, and he has worked very hard to convince courts to adopt his narrow-minded view of the world.

In the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, Mr. Duncan filed briefs, asking the Court to reach the opposite result. After the Supreme Court handed down those historic decisions, Mr. Duncan, who, today, expects to be confirmed as a Federal appellate judge, claimed that the decision would jeopardize civic peace and openly questioned the Supreme Court's legitimacy.

Mr. Duncan also represented the Gloucester County School Board in its effort to deny Gavin Grimm, who is a transgender high school boy, the ability to use the boys' bathroom. He represented North Carolina's General Assembly in a lawsuit that challenged the assembly's bathroom bill banning transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals from using restrooms that are consistent with their gender identities.

In his asking courts to allow government-sanctioned discrimination in these cases, Mr. Duncan has completely ignored scientific evidence and medical expertise. Instead, he has asserted that transgender individuals are mentally ill. In one case, he argued that there was no sound scientific evidence proving that individuals who identify as transgender are not delusional.

In case after case, Mr. Duncan has defended discrimination and injustice.

On voting rights, he defended North Carolina's discriminatory voter ID law that a Federal court concluded targeted African-American voters with almost ``surgical precision.''

On immigration, he filed briefs that opposed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, DACA Program, which allowed Dreamers to contribute to our schools, our communities, and our economy without their having the constant fear of deportation.

On criminal justice, he fought to block the retroactive application of the Supreme Court's decision that ruled it is unconstitutional to sentence kids to life without parole.

Time and again, Mr. Duncan has been on the wrong side of justice and has worked to undermine the civil rights of groups that have historically faced discrimination.

Federal judges have one job and one job only--to dispense equal justice under law. That means everyone--man or woman, gay or straight, Black or Brown or White--should have confidence that the judges we hand lifetime appointments to will put fairness and fidelity to the law over their personal feelings or political ideologies.

Stuart Kyle Duncan has made it perfectly clear that he cannot and will not meet that standard. That is why I will be voting to reject Mr. Duncan's nomination, and I urge every Senator who believes in the principle of equal justice under law to do the same.

Thank you.

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