EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, we are in the midst of a stealth campaign. Normally, we think about ``stealth'' as associated with bombers or submarines, weapons platforms designed to go, in effect, under the radar, to avoid detection, to escape public notice or the notice of our adversaries.

This stealth campaign is really hiding in plain sight. It is a campaign to remake our Federal judiciary in the image of the far-right extreme of the Republican Party, the far-right extreme ideologically and politically, a campaign, in effect, to outsource selections of judges to groups that reflect those extreme points of view--the Heritage Society and other such groups.

Shortly, we will consider the nomination of the latest individual nominated by the President, outsourced to those groups: Eric Miller, of Washington, to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The effort here is to drastically reshape our judiciary but, in the process, also dismantle the norms and practices critical to the health of our democracy. The judiciary is essential to the health of our democracy.

In the future, when we look back on this era--a dark and dangerous time for our democracy--the heroes will be our free press and our independent judiciary because they have been selected in the past by both Republican and Democratic Presidents based on qualities of integrity, intelligence, and independence.

That norm, common to both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past, has been broken by this one. One of the norms that has been broken in the U.S. Senate relates to the use of blue slips. Most of the public has no idea what blue slips are. They are the traditional mechanism used over decades to afford home State Senators the opportunity to express their approval or disapproval for fitness, a basic quality of a President's judicial nominee to a court that has jurisdiction over their State.

What is the reason? Well, Senators just happen to spend a lot of time talking with folks at home. We talk to farmers, businesspeople, lawyers. A lot of those lawyers know fellow lawyers. Of course, we receive the ABA qualified or unqualified ratings, but they are single words based on fact gathering that may or may not be as reliable as our colleagues--the lawyers who appear in front of judges, who go to court every day, who have settlement conferences, who rely on the word of their colleagues, which is either good or bad, who know their integrity and intelligence, who know whether they have the temperament to sit in judgment of cases that will have enduring and irreparable ramifications for the litigants who appear in front of them.

Respecting the blue-slip tradition ensures that when there is a Federal judicial vacancy--for Connecticut, for example--that the President nominate a qualified candidate from Connecticut with the advice and consent of Connecticut Senators. The same is true for the Presiding Officer's home State of Tennessee or any of the other States involved here. I am sure my colleagues from Texas or North Carolina or wherever would want a Democratic President to consult them when making appointments to the courts that have jurisdiction over the people, the litigants, the folks who have to go to court with their grievances in their States. Blue slips may be a courtesy, but they are important to the functioning of our society.

Until the Trump administration, only five judges had ever been confirmed with only one blue slip in the last 100 years. That means one Senator from that State objected. Only five went through with that one objection and with the other Senator saying OK.

To our knowledge, no judge has ever been confirmed without having both blue slips from their home State Senators. Eric Miller would be a first.

Sometimes it is good to be a first but not so here. We are witnessing another norm being shattered in realtime. We need to know from the majority: Is this the road we really want to go down in this Chamber?

I take my constitutional responsibilities very seriously, especially when it comes to the confirmation of judges, as someone who has spent most of my professional career in the courtroom, either as a lawyer in private practice or a U.S. attorney for Connecticut or as attorney general in my State for 20 years.

This issue is important because not only is it a matter of courtesy, but it is a matter of completeness.

This nomination is a stealth nomination in a very important sense, also, as far as the process for his confirmation is concerned. Only one Senator--one Senator--has actually asked him questions on the record in public. That is because his confirmation hearing was scheduled at a time when only one Member of the U.S. Senate was there to ask him questions.

It was held during a month-long recess in October. Only two members of the committee--Senators Hatch and Crapo--could attend the hearing. Only Senator Crapo questioned Mr. Miller for a 5-minute round of questions.

All 10 Democratic members of the Judiciary, including me, wrote to Senator Grassley to have the hearing rescheduled. We asked, and he refused. We wrote Senator Grassley again to have a second hearing so that the full committee could provide advice and consent after questioning Mr. Miller's nomination. We had no success.

If Mr. Miller is confirmed, he will have been questioned by that one Senator, Mr. Crapo--out of 100--for a grand total of 5 minutes. That is not the way this system should work.

I do take my constitutional responsibilities seriously. This process makes a sham of the obligations we all have a sworn duty to fulfill.

In conclusion, let me say that in November of 2018, the Ninth Circuit ruled against the President. He described that case as ``a disgrace.'' He painted the ruling of the Ninth Circuit as biased by describing one of the judges as an ``Obama judge.'' President Trump ultimately stated that the Ninth Circuit is ``not fair'' because every case the administration files in the Ninth Circuit results in a loss.

He has made no secret of his frustration about judges generally, whether they were chosen by Republican or Democratic Presidents in the past. He has made no secret of his contempt for judges who uphold the rule of law and, as Chief Justice Roberts said, ``do equal right to those appearing before them.''

Chief Justice Roberts also stated that an ``independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.''

The nomination of Eric Miller betrays that essential principle of the American judiciary. It diminishes and reduces the independence of our judiciary at a level that we can ill afford and at a time when independence is most important. I think this nomination is particularly objectionable in light of that lack of independence.

Mr. Miller's nomination is opposed by the National Congress of American Indians, the Native American Rights Fund, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, and NARAL Pro-Choice America because of positions he has taken. Those positions are also objectionable to me, but what is most important is his lack of independence, the lack of proper process in his confirmation, and his lack of qualifications for this job.

I hope my colleagues will join me in voting against him today.

Thank you.

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