Trump's Lifelong Legacy: Stacking the Courts

Floor Speech

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his leadership on tonight's topic. I also associate myself with his comments, as well as the comments of Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Congresswoman Norton has been a steward on the issue of judicial appointments in the United States Congress for many decades, and it is an honor to follow her tonight in her leadership against the Trump administration's attempt to stack the courts with extreme rightwing political allies.

Just as President Trump has attacked our Nation's free press, just as he has attacked our intelligence agency, this President is now targeting our Nation's third branch of government, our treasured court system. We cannot let President Trump destroy yet another institution of American democracy.

The importance of a fair and nonpartisan court system cannot be overestimated. It is our Supreme Court, overall, that decided Brown v. Board of Education, the case that ended segregation in America's schools. It was our courts which struck down voter suppression laws, like poll taxes that freed and allowed lots and lots of African Americans in my home State of Alabama to vote. It was the Supreme Court that protected the work of the free press and our Nation's newspapers when President Nixon attempted to silence them. And it was our Supreme Court which struck down discriminatory State laws prohibiting interracial and gay marriage.

Those court decisions were the product of judges and justices in our judicial system, who put our Constitution and the law first, irrespective of the pressure they faced from politicians and from Presidents.

Mr. Speaker, the opposite can be true as well. When our courts are stacked with political allies, who put politics first and justice last, our Nation suffers. We need think of no other than the infamous Supreme Court decision which paved the way for Japanese American internment camps as an example. It is a reminder of all that can go wrong when our courts are stacked with political allies.

Today, our court system continues to decide questions that will have consequences for generations to come. When it comes to gerrymandering and discriminatory voter ID laws, our courts are still considering cases that will impact our right to vote.

As this administration continues its assault on our free press, we should have no doubt that the courts will be faced with First Amendment questions in the years to come.

That is why President Trump's attempt to stack the court is so concerning. Last year, this administration appointed nine appellate judges, more than any President since President Nixon during their first term in office. And where do those open appellate seats come from? These are judgeships which Republicans systematically held open during President Barack Obama's final 2 years. I can speak with authority on that fact because, in the State of Alabama, we had not one, not two, but three open Federal judgeships that were held open for 2-plus years, and one 11th Circuit appellate judgeship that was held open for 2 years.

Yes, the people of Alabama were not well served by the fact that my Republican colleagues withheld appointing any person to that, in hopes that they would win the Presidential election in 2016. Now it was a good bet for them, but it was a bad bet for the American people and for the people of Alabama. For you see, the judges that were sitting, took on an inordinate amount of caseload that was unacceptable.

I know that for one, in the Middle District of Alabama, there was a senior judge by the name of Myron Thompson, who had 120 percent caseload. Yes, that is right. As a senior judge, he not only had a caseload that surpassed his caseload when he was an active judge, but, as a senior judge, took on an extraordinary number of cases. Why? Because in the Middle District of Alabama, there was only one judge sitting, as well as one senior judge, Judge Thompson.

This is unacceptable. This is an unacceptable play towards politics that, in the end, disserved the people of Alabama and disserved the American public.

The same was true on the Supreme Court level. Yes, Judge Merrick Garland was supremely qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, and was President Obama's choice to sit on the Supreme Court. But a year prior to the 2016 election, the GOP decided that it was not the time for a judge to be appointed when a Federal election was going to take place within a year.

Now, one can say the same thing about the fact that we have a midterm election that is coming up in 2018. But, oh, no, we don't get the same courtesy. This is politics before people, it is unacceptable, and we should not take it sitting down. That is why I am very happy that the Congressional Black Caucus tonight, under the leadership of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, is talking about stacking of the Supreme Court and its importance to all Americans.

I can speak firsthand how important the court system was to the civil rights and voting rights movement of America. As a daughter of Selma, Alabama, and as the first Black congresswoman from the State of Alabama, I can tell you, unequivocally, that it was because of th protections of the equal protection amendment, it was because of the Constitution and those brave judges, judges like Frank Johnson of the Middle District of Alabama, who stood against pressure to do what was right for all Americans, interpreting the Constitution as it was meant to be: that all men and women are created equal, and that the equal protection of the law extends to all Americans, irrespective of race and gender.

So I think it is really important that we remember from whence we all come. This is a proud tradition that is important that we uphold.

What is even more concerning is the temperament displayed by the court picks under this administration and their lack of qualification for the job. Last year, President Trump nominated four judicial nominees who didn't pass the American Bar Association's standard for being rated qualified by the ABA. Now, that is a simple standard.

The ABA standard of requiring that one be qualified is simple: a nominee must show integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament. During his 8 years in office, President Obama never--I repeat--never selected a judicial nominee who received an unqualified rating from the ABA. Yet, this President nominated four unqualified judicial candidates in a single year, which is the worst record in American history.

One was to a Federal bench in Alabama. The nominee was Brett Talley, who withdrew his name in 2017 for his lack of judicial experience. He had never tried a case, and yet this person was nominated by this administration to a life appointment on the bench in the Middle District of Alabama. Unacceptable. Thank God, calmer and cooler heads prevailed and he withdrew his name. But the reality is, having unqualified candidates should not go under this administration. We should stand up and speak out against it.

That is why I am glad to join with my colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus as we talk about what is at stake. A heck of a lot is at stake. We have a lot to lose under this administration, and it starts with the Federal courts.

The reason President Trump has elected so many unqualified judges to fill our courts is that they are political allies of the extreme right. Every single one of President Trump's judicial nominees are allies of the rightwing, attacking women's rights, attacking human rights, attacking healthcare and workers' rights, and, of course, attacking voting rights.

President Trump's recent nominee of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is no different. A review of Judge Kavanaugh's record shows that he will drive the Supreme Court further to the right, threatening and further attacking healthcare, our right to vote, affirmative action, and all of the important progress that we have made as a Nation when it comes to civil rights and civil liberties.

It was Judge Kavanaugh who upheld a discriminatory voter ID law as a judge on the D.C. Court of Appeals. Faced with a South Carolina voter ID law, which the Obama administration reported would disenfranchise tens of thousands of minority voters, Judge Kavanaugh ruled that the measure was not discriminatory.

The Obama administration said this same voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a similar piece of legislation, and Judge Kavanaugh approved it. That is bad news for voting rights. And where I come from, representing Alabama's Seventh Congressional District, the voting rights, and the civil rights district of America, that is bad news for Americans. We should stand up for the equal rights of all Americans to vote. There should be no modern-day barriers to voting. And to have a Supreme Court nominee who has so blatantly gone against that is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, on voting rights and so many other issues, from healthcare to police brutality, the American people cannot trust Trump's judicial nominees to put the law before politics. We must call on the Senate to stop President Trump's attempt to stack the courts. Nothing less than the third branch of government, our democracy, is at stake.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for allowing me to speak on this issue, and I ask that all Americans oppose this nominee to the Supreme Court.

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania is exactly right. The swamp only needs to be cleaned up when the swamp doesn't agree with this President.

We have seen, in the nomination of Brett Talley to Alabama's Middle District, that he did not report that his wife worked for the White House counsel. Now, this, to me, is an important disclosure. You can't be more on the inside, in the swamp, drowning in the swamp, than to have a relationship like your wife working for the White House.

I think it is really hypocritical that this White House would talk about draining the swamp, and yet choose judicial nominees that are clearly in line with far rightwing views and are clearly a part of the problem, not a part of the solution.

I think that we, the American people, need to really speak out when it comes to the Supreme Court nominee, and, actually, all Federal judgeships.

I had the great honor of clerking for the first African American judge in the State of Alabama, Judge U.W. Clemon. It was a great honor of my life as a young lawyer to sit at his feet and to learn. And I have to tell you that it is disheartening to me to see people who are woefully unqualified getting the opportunity to be nominated to a Federal bench. These are life appointments, life appointments that allow people to sit in those seats for decades to come and, therefore, decide decisions decades to come.

I know that when you talk to our Senators, they will, if they are truthful, tell you that some of the most pressing legacy issues for them are the nominations to the Supreme Court and the nominations to the Federal court. Why? Because these nominations, life appointments, have lasting effects that yield way beyond the actual nomination itself.

It is unfortunate to me, because when we think about, of the three branches government that worked for the civil rights movement and worked for all those freedom fighters, it was the Federal court that, with its independence, was able to grant so many opportunities to those freedom riders.

I think about Frank Johnson, a young judge from Montgomery, Alabama, who grew up in rural Alabama and had the temerity, had the audacity, had the courage to do what was right in the face of mounting pressures that came from his White citizenry around him to do the right thing and to actually issue that injunction that allowed marchers, such as our colleague, John Lewis, to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which brought us the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Where is our courage today? I ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania. We have to stand up in the face of such overt partisanship and speak out against it.

The balance of the Court is so important. So much of the progress that we have seen as a Nation, we have always been one Supreme Court Justice away from a lot of that progress being eroded. It is with great sadness that I see Justice Kennedy leave, but it is with greater sadness that I see the nominee, Kavanaugh, coming before the Senate for confirmation as the next Federal Justice.

I do know that politics and elections have consequences, but when I think about the scale of progress and what affects that progress, nothing is more telling, nothing is more important, than the Supreme Court.

I hope that aggrieved persons, irrespective of their gender, irrespective of their race and who they love, that they can come before the Supreme Court and get a fair hearing.

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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Well, he has a very expansive record. He sat on the bench now for over a decade, so there is an expansive record there. I believe in looking at a person's record to be able to tell what they will do in the future.

His past has shown that he is squarely aligned with the Federalist Society, squarely aligned with the far right. It is because of his extreme views that he is now the nominee.

Now, I would love for him to prove me wrong, but one's history, one's past, is a judge of what one will do in the future. So my great fear is about issues such as the right of the executive branch to overreach. His decisions that relate to that, to me, are why I believe this President chose him, because there has been some overreaching going on in the executive branch, and this President feels that this judge will be more partial toward him.

Now, let's just be very clear. The judge should be about being partial toward the facts and toward the law, irrespective of who the petitioner is. I can tell you that often people say that justice is blind. But the reality is justice often is seen through the eyes of the experience of the judges. That is why it is important to have a bench that is diverse, a bench that has diversity of thought, diversity of philosophy and ideas, because, at the end of the day, we are not monolithic as a people. We all have different views, and we come to those perspectives based on our experiences.

Frankly, this particular judge, this particular nominee, Kavanaugh, does not show that diversity of experience. His views have been clearly aligned with the far right, and I believe that that is woefully out of character with the American public.

I believe that the American public is far more centrist than that and that the American public deserves better than that.

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