Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise today out of grave concern with the direction of the Senate as an institution and with the choices being made on behalf of the American people.

By almost every account, our economy remains severely wounded by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cases are still rising. In fact, a record was set just in the last couple of days. Small businesses are, unfortunately, closing at an accelerating rate. Foreclosures and evictions are on the rise. Jobless benefits for many have run out. And our State and local governments are running dangerously low on resources to assist teachers, first responders, firefighters, and so many others.

But rather than focusing on the immediate needs of the American people and acting to remove the uncertainty being felt by families across this country and in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Senate is preparing to pursue a partisan exercise to fundamentally alter the composition of our Supreme Court.

This comes as we are just a week away from November 3, when Americans will go to the polls to cast their ballots in a Presidential election. In my State, the Commonwealth of Virginia, literally almost 2 million Virginians have already voted.

President Trump and the majority leader are jamming through, at this moment, a divisive nominee to fill Justice Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court--Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

The Senate has never confirmed a Supreme Court nominee this close to election day. The election is in a week. Nearly 60 million people have already voted. And while they eviscerate Senate precedent and rush toward a Supreme Court nomination, they delay passing the kind of critical legislation in terms of additional COVID relief that would help millions of Americans make it through the economic crisis.

Think about that. Every day we wait to pass a comprehensive COVID stimulus bill, more people than necessary will get sick, some will die, businesses will be lost. Families will lose their homes, and millions of unemployed workers will continue to wonder how they are going to make ends meet.

So why has the President rushed Judge Barrett's nomination through the Senate? The President is jamming through this nomination because there is so much on the line with this Supreme Court vacancy.

On November 10, just 1 week after the election, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could invalidate the Affordable Care Act and rip healthcare coverage away from more than 20 million Americans--20 million Americans--in the middle of a pandemic.

The President and my Republican colleagues here in Congress have already tried--and tried again and tried again--and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act through Congress. Now they have turned to our Nation's Supreme Court in a purely political effort that could devastate our Nation's healthcare system.

They have offered no replacement plan that would adequately protect individuals with preexisting conditions, and millions of Americans will then be set to lose their healthcare coverage should the ACA be overturned.

I have come to this floor many times and acknowledged that the ACA is not perfect. There are places where it could be improved. But in the years since its passage, I have heard from countless Virginians who have benefited from the law--individuals who have gained access to healthcare coverage for the first time, cancer patients who can no longer be kicked off their plans and denied coverage, 8 million Americans who now have COVID and who now have a preexisting condition. I have talked to small business owners and entrepreneurs who are now able to get coverage on the individual exchange and consequently start that business that otherwise they couldn't take the risk of starting and so many of Virginia's seniors who have seen their drug costs go down thanks to important reforms in the ACA.

That, in and of itself, being considered by the Supreme Court a week after election, would be more than enough reason to wait and delay and let the American people first have their say. But that is not all that is at stake in future cases before the Supreme Court.

This Court--the Court that would disproportionately be moved out of the mainstream--will be looking at everything from reproductive rights to voting rights, to rights for LGBTQ people. All of these hang in the balance. Given those stakes, the American people have a right to have their voices heard before the confirmation of a new Justice.

In 2016, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set a standard when he refused to consider President Obama's Supreme Court nominee 10 months prior to the election. I strongly objected to the majority leader's actions in 2016, but he is the majority leader. He had the votes. And now that is the precedent by which we should govern this Supreme Court nomination, because the truth is, we can't have one set of rules for Democratic Presidents and a different set of rules for Republican Presidents.

Our system of checks and balances has held strong and lasting for more than 200 years, and it was simply not meant to bear the brunt of such cynicism and hypocrisy.

The Senate should get to the real needs of the American people--a deal that I know Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi are quite close to. Let's split the difference and get it done. We should not be considering a Supreme Court nomination before Inauguration Day. Yet the majority leader is continuing forward with votes on Judge Barrett's nomination.

Judge Barrett's record is clear, and so is my vote. I am voting no. There is too much at stake.

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