Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, yesterday, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, creating a vacancy on the Supreme Court. After Kennedy's departure, the Supreme Court will be evenly divided between Justices appointed by Republican Presidents and Justices appointed by Democratic Presidents. Whoever fills Justice Kennedy's seat on the Court will have an opportunity to impact the laws of the United States and the rights of its citizens for a generation.

Because Justice Kennedy was frequently independently minded and was a deciding vote on important issues like marriage equality and a woman's right to choose, a more ideological successor could upend decades of precedent and drag America backward to a time before Americans with preexisting conditions could affordably access healthcare, to a time before women could not be prosecuted as criminals for exercising their reproductive rights, to a time before gay and lesbian Americans could marry whom they love. An ideological Justice more extreme in his views than Kennedy could eviscerate the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively for a fair wage and stretch the bounds of Executive power for a President who has demonstrated little respect for them.

Of course, if Republicans were consistent, they would wait to consider Justice Kennedy's successor until after the midterm elections. Time and again, Leader McConnell justified his unjustifiable blockade of Merrick Garland by claiming the American people should have a voice in deciding the next Supreme Court Justice. That was in February of an election year. It is now almost July.

If the Senate's constitutional duty to advise and consent is just as important as the President's right to nominate, which the Constitution says it is, why should a midterm election be any less important than a Presidential election? Leader McConnell is simply engaging in hypocrisy.

Whomever the President picks, it is all too likely they are going to overturn healthcare protections and Roe v. Wade. We don't need to guess. President Trump has said time and again he would appoint judges who would do those two things--overturn Roe v. Wade and overturn healthcare protections. On November 11, 2016, then President-Elect Trump said: ``I am pro-life; the judges will be pro-life.'' In a debate against Secretary Clinton, then-Candidate Trump said: ``Because I am pro-life, and I will be appointing pro-life judges, I would think that that will go back to the individual states.'' It is impossible to conclude that President Trump will appoint a Justice whom we can have faith will leave Roe v. Wade as settled law. President Trump said, in his own words, that he wants to appoint a Justice to give the Court a majority that will overturn Roe v. Wade, so count on it.

President Trump will, in all likelihood, nominate a Justice willing to send Roe ``back to the states''--again, those are President Trump's own words--where several are preparing, if not already prepared, to roll back a woman's right to choose. In fact, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there are at least 18 States where abortion would be wholly or partially illegal almost immediately. That is against what America wants. It is because the President and his hard-right ideological judicial acolytes are way far away from where the American people are and are trying to create a Court that will turn the clock backward in so many ways, with Roe at the top of the list.

We also know President Trump will likely nominate a Justice willing to reinterpret the Court's ruling that our current healthcare law is constitutional. Again, listen to President Trump's own words. On January 1, 2016, Candidate Trump said that ``Justice Roberts turned out to be an absolute disaster because he gave us ObamaCare.'' Later, he said: ``I don't think I'll have any catastrophic appointment like Justice Roberts.''

Even Justice Roberts was too far to the middle for the President on healthcare. President Trump made it crystal clear that he is going to nominate somebody hostile to the Court's ruling on healthcare. There is no other way to interpret President Trump's words, so count on it. He will appoint a nominee who will roll back healthcare protections for tens of millions of Americans. America doesn't want that, but, again, the hard-right acolytes whom President Trump listens to want to use the Court to roll back America's rights and privileges.

We can be sure the next nominee, of course, will obfuscate, deny, and hide behind the shop-worn judicial dodge: ``I will follow settled law.'' As we saw this week in the Janus decision, settled law is only settled until the Supreme Court Justices on the Court decide it isn't. Yesterday, they reversed 40 years of precedent in a ruling that stretched the meaning of the First Amendment to meet their ideological predispositions--their anti-union bias.

Already there is a case wending its way through the courts that questions the constitutionality of the healthcare law. By repealing the coverage requirement, Republicans have removed the foundation upon which the Chief Justice based his ruling to uphold the law. If the change in the law changes Justice Roberts' mind, which is very likely, and the new jurist is as biased against our healthcare system as President Trump said he or she will be, millions of Americans could see their preexisting condition protections wiped out.

I say to America, 80 percent to 90 percent of you believe we should have preexisting condition protections. The nominee of the President is likely to undo them and leave tens of millions of American families helpless. Stand up now, America, before this happens.

The Trump administration decided the Federal Government will not defend the law protecting preexisting conditions in the Court. The next Supreme Court Justice may indeed be faced with casting a deciding vote on the fate of our healthcare, and we already know, unfortunately, the kind of vote President Trump wants.

Now, my friend Leader McConnell warned the Senate to not get into personal attacks on the President's nominee. Of course, he doesn't seem to mind the President who makes personal attacks his daily MO, but be that as it may, I can assure my friend the Republican leader that there is no desire and no need to get into personal attacks.

There are so many weighty issues hanging over the vacant seat: a woman's right to choose, the fate of our healthcare law, the right of workers to organize, the pernicious influence of dark money in politics, the right of Americans to marry whom they love, the right to vote. We will discuss these issues on the merits and consider a nominee in light of these issues, but discussing a preordained list of candidates who meet the hard right's ideological litmus tests? That is certainly legitimate, and we are going to continue to bring that up. We will evaluate the President's nominees on the issues, but every American should have his or her eyes wide open to the fact that President Trump is not picking the best legal mind. He has sworn to nominate a Justice culled from a preordained list, vetted by the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society--organizations whose mission has been to repeal Roe v. Wade and strike at the heart of our healthcare law. Does anyone believe a nominee on that prevetted list doesn't want to challenge Roe? How do you think they got to be on that list, with the Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo, whose goal is to repeal Roe v. Wade, putting it together, and Trump rubberstamping it? Given what the President has said, it is virtually certain that members of the list of 25 would vote to overturn Roe.

So let this be a call to action for Americans from all corners of the country to rise up and speak out. Don't let this new Court--this new nominee, whomever he or she may be--turn back the clock on issue after issue because President Trump has embraced a hard-right group who has a veto power over nominees. Don't let us turn back the clock, America. Stand up. Speak out. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives-- all should want a much fairer process.

America, tell your Senators that if you do not want a Supreme Court Justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade, those Senators should not vote for a candidate from the list. Immigration

Mr. President, a word on immigration. Yesterday, the House Republican majority tried and failed to pass two distinct immigration proposals. They cannot find agreement, even within their own caucus, on how to handle the situation at the border or broader reforms to our immigration system. It is as clear an indication to date that President Trump must fix this situation on his own. He has the power to immediately and administratively reverse his family separation policy at the border, which remains intact. He has the power to appoint a family reunification czar, to marshal and organize the various Federal agencies in charge of reunifying families. President Trump should exercise that power to start cleaning up the mess he made with his slapdash family separation policy. Russia

Mr. President, this morning, the President tweeted that ``Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with meddling in our election'' before trying to turn the focus back on the FBI. Why does President Trump take the word of bullies like Mr. Putin at face value, while constantly questioning the credibility of our own intelligence agencies? It's outrageous. We don't ask the bank robber if they robbed a bank.

Seventeen intelligence agencies have concluded, definitively, that Russia has meddled in our election. There is no reason to question their findings. The President just continues to deliberately spread falsehoods for the sake of his personal political interests.
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