Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, last Tuesday, in my home State of Wisconsin, in-person early voting started. Over the past week, people have showed up to vote in record numbers, as they have across our entire country, because they want to make sure their voices are heard. Why? Because they know how high the stakes are for them in this election, an election that will determine our next President and control of the U.S. Senate, an election that is just 1 week away.

My position on President Trump's Supreme Court nomination has been very clear since the tragic passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Voters across America should be allowed to cast their ballots first and have their votes counted before this Senate votes on a lifetime appointment to our Nation's highest Court. The people should be heard first, but it is clear that the majority leader and a majority of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no interest in listening to the people. That is why they are rushing and ramming President Trump's Supreme Court nomination forward just days before the election.

This rigged and illegitimate process is wrong, and it follows a pattern of the majority leader and Senate Republicans abusing their power to break their own standards on Supreme Court nominations.

Back in 2016, 8 months before the election, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court after the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Garland is a highly experienced and qualified judge, and I have no doubt that had he been given the opportunity, he would have earned more than 60 votes in the U.S. Senate. But he was never given that opportunity because the majority leader decided to deny Judge Garland a hearing and a vote in the Senate.

With the standards broken on the Garland nomination, the majority leader established a new one: no Supreme Court nominations by the Senate during an election year. Here we are in an election year. However, Majority Leader McConnell has broken his own rule and created yet another new one. Instead of applying the same standard that he imposed on President Obama with the Garland nomination in March of 2016, 8 months before an election, he created a new standard now for President Trump with his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett made 39 days before an election. The majority leader is rushing President Trump's nominee forward, with a Senate vote as people are voting, as we stand 1 week--1 week--before election day.

What is the rush? My home State is a national red zone for COVID-19. We are experiencing our worst outbreak of infections since the pandemic began, breaking records for new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Right now, people want action, support, and relief from Washington.

The House passed the Heroes Act over 5 months ago. Was there a rush for the Senate majority to take action to confront the public health and economic crisis that has only gotten worse since then? No, this legislation has been sitting on the majority leader's desk since May, while businesses have closed, millions have lost their jobs, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have died.

At the beginning of this month, the House, once again, passed an updated version of the Heroes Act to provide local communities and frontline healthcare workers with the support they need to stop the spread of this deadly virus. This legislation provides support to workers, families, schools, local governments, and small businesses.

Was there a rush from the Senate majority to take action? No, instead, the majority leader told the White House not to support this legislation because it would divide the other side of the aisle and they needed to focus on pushing this Supreme Court nomination forward before the election.

What is the hurry? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and take away people's healthcare since I came to the Senate back in 2013. I remember that vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act well. It was 2017, right here on the Senate floor. As President Trump and Senate Republicans sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Senator John McCain did something we are not seeing from the majority now with this illegitimate Supreme Court nomination process. Senator McCain stood by his principles and gave a thumbs-down to repealing our Nation's healthcare law.

President Trump's response has been to try to do what the American people will not let this Senate do. In 2015, President Trump made clear his intentions with Supreme Court nominations when he said: ``If I win the Presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right thing, unlike Bush's appointee John Roberts, on ObamaCare.''

In May of this year he said: ``We want to terminate healthcare under ObamaCare.''

The day after he announced his nomination of Judge Barrett, he tweeted that the Supreme Court invalidating the Affordable Care Act would be ``a big WIN for the USA!''

Just last week, he said he would like to ``terminate'' the Affordable Care Act and ``we have a very good chance of doing it.''

He is right, but that is the problem. President Trump, with his Department of Justice, has supported a Republican lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act completely. On November 10, 1 week after the election, the Trump-backed lawsuit will come before the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Barrett has a record of criticizing and opposing the previous Supreme Court decisions that have upheld the Affordable Care Act. It is clear as day that the majority leader and Senate Republicans are driving a vote on the President's Supreme Court nomination in order to do what Trump wants--overturn the Affordable Care Act completely, terminate people's healthcare, and take away protections for people with preexisting health conditions.

Here is what is at stake if Judge Barrett does what Trump and Senate Republicans have been trying to do for years. Over 186,000 Wisconsinites have been infected with COVID-19, which could now be considered a preexisting health condition. These people need the guaranteed protections that our Affordable Care Act provides, and they cannot afford to have the Supreme Court terminate their healthcare. If the Affordable Care Act is overturned, over 133 million Americans with preexisting health conditions could stand to lose their guaranteed protections or be charged more, including more than 2 million Wisconsinites who have preexisting health conditions.

This issue is personal to me, as it is for so many others. When I was 9 years old, I got sick--really sick. I was in the hospital for 3 months. I eventually recovered. But when it came to health insurance, it was like I had a scarlet letter. My grandparents, who had raised me, couldn't find a policy that would cover me, not from any insurer and not at any price, all because I was a child who had been labeled with those terrifying words--``preexisting health condition.''

This is also personal for Chelsey from Seymour, WI, whose daughter Zoe was born with a congenital heart defect. Right now, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Zoe is guaranteed access to coverage without being denied or charged more. Chelsey wrote to me: ``I'm pleading with you as a mother to fight for the kids in Wisconsin with pre-existing [health] conditions that are counting on you to protect that right.''

Her fight is my fight today. No parent or grandparent should have to lay awake at night wondering if the healthcare they have today for themselves and their children and grandchildren will be there tomorrow. The fact is, more children have become uninsured in every year of the Trump administration, and striking down the Affordable Care Act would be the final, devastating blow to children's healthcare.

If President Trump succeeds with his lawsuit and gets a ruling from the person he is putting on the Supreme Court, Judge Barrett, an estimated 800,000 children would lose healthcare insurance.

When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act over a decade ago, I led the effort in the House to include a provision that now allows young people to remain on their parents' health insurance until they turn 26. In Wisconsin, that means over 40,000 young adults in their twenties who have been infected with COVID-19. Many of these young people are likely already on their parents' health insurance plan or are receiving premium tax credits provided by the Affordable Care Act to lower costs and make healthcare more affordable.

Recently, I heard the story of Amy from Neenah, WI. Her daughter is a nursing student at Marquette University in Milwaukee. She is on her mother's insurance plan, and they are worried that if the Senate shoves this nomination forward and Judge Barrett does what President Trump says she will do, this young nursing student and future frontline healthcare worker will be kicked off her mother's insurance and lose access to her healthcare.

Kirsten from Green Bay, WI, told me her story of being diagnosed with a very serious heart defect when she was just 11 days old. By the time she was 13 years old, she had undergone 17 angioplasties. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, she struggled to keep insurance coverage, and she doesn't want to go back to the days when insurance companies wrote their own rules and could choose to deny people coverage, charge people more, or set annual or lifetime limits on people's healthcare.

Kirsten, who is now 24 years old, said:

Amy Coney Barrett has made it clear that she opposes the [Affordable Care Act]. With this nomination, the Republican Party is actively saying that our lives do not matter. If a decision is made on the Supreme Court nominee before the election, the American people are taken out of the selection.

The message I have heard from Wisconsin has been clear. People want to be able to vote before the Senate votes. People want their voices to be heard. People want their healthcare protected, and they certainly don't want it taken away by President Trump or his nominee to the Supreme Court during a deadly pandemic that has taken over 1,700 lives in my home State of Wisconsin and over 221,000 American lives.

I would remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that for the women I have spoken about today, as well as all American women, if the Affordable Care Act is terminated, insurance companies could once again charge women more than men, and insurance companies could stop covering basic services, like maternity care, cancer screenings, and contraception. The threat this nominee poses to women's health cannot be overstated.

The threat isn't limited to the Affordable Care Act; it extends beyond that. President Trump took office with a promise to nominate Justices and judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He has nominated Judge Barrett, and her judicial record reveals a firm disagreement with the Supreme Court's five decades of established constitutional protections for women's reproductive rights.

Let's all be honest with the American people. Since day one of this administration, a woman's constitutional right and freedom to make her own healthcare choices, including access to birth control, has been under assault. We know what Amy Coney Barrett's personal views are, and I know that some of you support her for them. But let's be clear. I don't oppose her because of her personal views. What I do oppose is the phony game that is being played where the people pushing this nomination forward pretend that this nominee is simply a blank slate and will consider nothing more than words on a page in her Court decisions concerning women's reproductive health.

Right now, in States across the country, Roe v. Wade is under attack, and millions of women are at risk of losing the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions without interference from politicians playing doctor. Dozens of abortion rights cases are headed toward the Supreme Court as we speak. The stakes could not be higher for women's health than they are right now with this nomination

We all know what Judge Barrett's judicial record is, and her public advocacy is clear. This is a nominee who has been fundamentally hostile towards reproductive health and rights. That is what is relevant here because our Supreme Court plays an essential role in protecting and upholding civil rights and civil liberties, including the constitutional right for all women to make their own personal healthcare decisions and to have access to safe and legal reproductive care.

The least this nominee's Senate supporters could do is be honest with the American people. We all know that, if given the opportunity, a Justice Barrett would overturn Roe v. Wade. Don't pretend you don't know how she will come down on this issue. You should at least have the courage of your convictions and say to the people who are voting right now in this election that you support Amy Coney Barrett's nomination because you support overturning Roe v. Wade, too, and you know she will help do it.

Just as I don't trust this nominee to protect people's healthcare or women's reproductive rights, I have no faith in Judge Barrett to respect the progress that the LGBTQ community has worked so hard to achieve.

Unlike President Trump's nominee, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a strong belief in equality for all, which was reflected in her life's work and in her judicial record on LGBTQ rights issues. In June, we again saw real progress in the Supreme Court with a landmark victory for justice and equality when the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that workplace discrimination against LGBTQ people is wrong and our Nation's civil rights laws forbid it.

But we have a lot more work to do. LGBTQ people in many States can still be evicted from their homes or denied services simply because of who they are or whom they love. The House passed the bipartisan Equality Act to end this kind of discrimination well over a year ago, but that, too, has been in the majority leader's legislative graveyard and has not even received a vote in the Senate because he is afraid it just might pass.

Here we are today moving forward on a Supreme Court nominee who I believe is a real threat to LGBTQ rights--again, not because of her personal preference to oppose marriage equality; rather, because she has openly and publicly defended the dissenters in the Supreme Court's landmark Obergefell case by questioning the Court's role in even deciding that case.

Earlier this month, two of the dissenters in that case whom Judge Barrett defended previously--Justices Thomas and Alito--came out and attacked the Court's 2015 decision, which declared that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry under the 14th Amendment guarantee to equal protection under the law.

We just celebrated the 5-year anniversary of marriage equality becoming the law of the land, and I have no faith in Judge Barrett to protect this constitutional right.

President Trump wants to overturn the Affordable Care Act completely and take away people's healthcare and protections for preexisting health conditions in the middle of a deadly pandemic. This President wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and have the government take away reproductive freedoms for women. He has done nothing to move equality and fairness forward for the LGBTQ community and has worked to turn back the clock on hard-won progress. Judge Barrett has been nominated and will likely be confirmed by this Senate to do what President Trump wants. This nominee's complete and total unwillingness to show any independence from the President makes that clear to me.

I believe it is wrong for Senate Republicans to rush this confirmation vote before the American people have voted and our next President and the next Senate have taken office. I oppose this illegitimate process, and I oppose Judge Barrett's confirmation for a lifetime appointment to our highest Court because I do not have faith in her being a fair and independent Supreme Court Justice for the American people.

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