Recognition of the Minority Leader

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Now, all of a sudden, he wants to legislate.

I think there is a serious question about the sincerity of the minority leader's request here. And, frankly, to his point, the U.S. Senate has now twice--and most recently this week, on Tuesday--Tuesday this week--voted on legislation that would do all the things that he says that he wants to do: Help people who are unemployed; we voted on a bill that had unemployment insurance for people who are unemployed. Help small businesses; we had a bipartisan agreement on the Paycheck Protection Program to provide assistance to small businesses, and that was blocked by the Democrats earlier this week. It had money in there, resources on a bipartisan, agreed-upon objective, and that is more money, more resources, for schools and universities to open safely-- $100 billion in there for schools to open safely. They blocked it. They objected.

It had money in there for farmers, something that is important to the Presiding Officer and to me as well. They blocked it.

It had money in there for the Postal Service, something that his side has been saying repeatedly we need to address. They blocked it. We had that vote this week.

We have taken up legislation exactly along the lines of what the Democratic leader is asking for, and they have consistently blocked it.

And then to say: Well, let's adjourn; we have had multiple votes on adjourning. This isn't serious, and he knows it. This is all about politics. This is a bogus issue to detract the Senate from the work at hand, which is to confirm a well-qualified judge to the Supreme Court, who had a ``well qualified'' recommendation from the American Bar Association, which the Democratic leader in the past has said is the gold standard--the gold standard when it comes to processing and considering judicial nominations. So let's see this for what it is, call it out for what it is.

And the bill he is calling up, by the way, from the House of Representatives, if you look at all the stuff it has in it--and this is the all-or-nothing approach that they are advocating right now--tax cuts for Manhattan millionaires? They are always complaining about tax cuts for the rich. This is tax cuts for millionaires in New York and California. Blue State bailouts for his State of New York. Think about that. Is that really what the American people think we ought to be voting on right now when they are unemployed, small businesses need help?

And that is the other thing. The bill he is calling up--trying to call up right now has no assistance in there for the PPP program, the very program that everybody around the country has said has provided enormous assistance to small businesses, kept them in business, and there are other businesses who need that help. He talked about wanting to help businesses that are going out of business. Well, that bill that he is trying to call up right now doesn't include assistance for small businesses.

So, anyway, this is clearly an attempt to detract the Senate from the work at hand, which is to consider a very well-qualified nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court--one of the Senate's most important constitutional duties and responsibilities, and we intend to stay focused on that.

And if the leader is genuinely interested, he could let us get on the bill that we tried to call up earlier this week that deals with all the coronavirus relief issues that he mentioned earlier, all of which are bipartisan issues--every single one of them on that list. But that isn't what this is about. This is about politics.

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, if I could just make one quick observation here, first off, the funding that was provided in the Republican bill wasn't inconsequential. It was $650 billion.

And to the Democratic leader's point about the people in this country want what is now a $2.4 trillion bill--boy, I can tell you, I haven't seen that anywhere, and maybe there is some polling out there that indicates that. But I think if you ask the question: Would you want to spend $2.4 trillion dollars if you knew you were borrowing it from your children and grandchildren, you might get a different answer.

And the truth of the matter is, we have gone $3.5 trillion--all borrowed money, all added to the debt--already to address coronavirus relief.

That being said, we did bring a bill up that was another $650 billion, and the Democrats blocked it. Why? Because it didn't spend enough, and they didn't think it spent enough on the things that they thought it ought to spend money on.

Well, if that is the debate, let's get on our bill. Let's start at the $650 billion base level, and they can offer amendments to increase funding.

By the way, we did have funding in there for testing and vaccines-- significant amounts of money negotiated by Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. But if that is what they want to do, then let's start there, and then they can have an opportunity to debate it and offer amendments, but they have blocked even getting on the bill--not the bill itself, even debating it.

So when he says: We want to have a debate, we could have had a debate. All they had to do was let us get on the bill, and then we could be offering up and debating and discussing these various amendments that they want to offer

But I would argue that all the things that our bill includes are things that are important to the American people. It was a targeted bill. It was a fiscally responsible bill. And, yes, it got 52 out of 53 Republicans to vote for it--not a single Democrat. Why? Because the Democrats have an all-or-nothing approach, and they want to hold this process hostage to get a leftwing agenda of items included in the legislation, many of which--many of which have no relationship whatsoever to the coronavirus.

So the leader's point--and, by the way, with respect to the judge, yes, Judge Barrett is, I think, everything that the American people want to see in a Supreme Court Justice. And for him to get up here and say that she doesn't have views that are supported by the American people, I don't understand exactly that argument because my understanding of what a judge is supposed to do is to take the facts of the case, apply the law, apply the Constitution in an impartial way, and apply those as written--not to try and get some perceived outcome or result or policy preference. That is not what judges do.

What you heard him say is exactly why we have a difference of opinion about the judiciary in this country because they view the judiciary as an auxiliary legislature where you go to get outcomes and results that you can't get through the two political branches of our Government.

Well, that is not what the judiciary is. The judiciary is supposed to be independent. It is supposed to be a fair arbiter--it calls balls and strikes and doesn't try and step on the scales or write the rules of the game. That is what a judge is supposed to be.

So they don't like this Justice or this judge, I should say-- hopefully, soon to be Justice--because they think she is going to rule a certain way on particular cases, and they have no idea about that.

I mean, think about it. The same argument has been made against Republican nominees to the Supreme Court, literally, for the last 30 or 40 years. Every single time a Republican President nominates an individual to the Supreme Court, the Democrats and the left get up and say: They are going to cut healthcare. They are going to destroy healthcare. They were saying that about Justices on the Supreme Court that vote with their wing more than anybody else. They said that about Chief Justice Roberts. He was going to kill healthcare. He was going to destroy healthcare for millions of Americans.

He cast the deciding vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare.

So they don't know what a judge is going to do. But I know what she is going to do because she has proven it as a judge on the appellate circuit, the Seventh Circuit, as an academic, in her writings, that she believes the role of a judge is to take the facts of a case, apply the law, apply the Constitution, as written, impartially, and to render a decision.

That, to me, is what I think every American believes we ought to have in a Supreme Court Justice. So, yes, this may be fair game for them to come down here and offer up all these motions that we are going to hear repetitively today, none of which has anything to do with the issues that they are going to say they want to talk about but everything to do with the fact that we are considering an incredibly well-qualified--not by my opinion but by everybody who has ever worked with her, including the dean of the Notre Dame Law School who hired her, the ABA--the American Bar Association--which passes judgment on all these nominees, her colleagues on the Seventh Circuit, staff, everybody this person has ever interacted with, stellar recommendations. This is an incredibly qualified individual and somebody, by the way, who I think can be relatable to the American people because she deals with the same issues that all Americans do, trying to raise seven kids. Imagine that.

Imagine trying to organize her schedule around seven kids, continue to be a professional, and do exceptional work.

She is highly qualified, a ``towering intellect,'' she has been described by her colleagues.

So that is what this is about. It is about trying to block a well- qualified Justice to the Supreme Court simply because they don't like the process. And I understand that, but this is a constitutional process. This is a vacancy.

The Constitution doesn't follow the political calendar when it comes to filling vacancies, and, as you heard Leader McConnell point out earlier today, precedent on this issue, on confirming a nominee by a President to a vacancy created in an election year, the precedent falls all one way, if you go back throughout history.

So just so people know, every time they get up and offer a unanimous consent request to call up a piece of legislation, it has nothing to do with the legislation, because they have already moved to adjourn multiple times this week, meaning they want to get out of town. They don't want anything to do with this Supreme Court. So they are going to get up and say Republicans are blocking this or that. As I pointed out, the first one that was offered was a bill to deal with the coronavirus and provide relief to people across this country, which, by the way, we just voted on 2 days ago--3 days ago here in the U.S. Senate. They blocked even getting on the bill--not considering the substance of it, which, by the way, as I said, includes a lot of bipartisan objectives and priorities; they blocked even considering.

So that is what this is about, and I expect that is what we are going to hear today, tomorrow, and the next day, but it is not going to deter us from the important work we have at hand.

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