Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Judge Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. This process shows how misplaced the priorities of the Senate are at a critical moment in time.

There is an epic national crisis that we should be addressing--a pandemic that is raging and causing unprecedented death and economic distress at a massive scale. Yet the Senate has been sitting on its hands since late April when we passed our fourth and final piece of COVID legislation then, reinfusing dollars into the small business protection program. The death toll in the United States was approaching 63,000. We have done nothing since, and the death toll is now approaching 230,000.

Here are a few of the many Americans we tragically lost to COVID-19: Benigno Hurtado-Andrade, Amalia Pasqua, James Shanley, Verna and Clarence Cuyler, Betty Damato, Keith Mitchell Jacobs, Ward H. Harlow, Jr., Kyong He Park, James Norton, Charlotte Marie Sims, Guus Smeets, Charles Krebbs, Dr. Gaye Griffin-Snyder, Hugh Freyer, Marcel Borg, Nancy Standage Borbon, Albert Garcia, Helen Flores, Dean Pryor Perkins, Darrell William Jones, Paul Abramson, Everett Pike, Grant D. Ross, Isabelle Papadimitriou, James Hughston, Jose Antoniao Reyes, William D. Shilling, Jr., Ronnie ``Bro'' Baldwin, Larry Singer, Leone (Kitty) Harriman, Sarah Roth, Sara Rose Varela, Kenneth E. Zwick, Sr., Pik Chi Chan, Melinda ``Nina'' Wernick, Roger Diethelm, Alan Zundl, Irvin Umberger, Dr. Kirk Barnett, Danielita Brown, Jose Sanchez.

The number of new coronavirus cases is now reaching record peaks. The Saturday headline from the Washington Post, which is the most-read daily newspaper in Virginia, says it all: ``U.S. hits highest daily number of cases since pandemic began.'' Papers all around the country carry similar headlines.

Ten months into this crisis, there is no national plan or strategy for dealing with it. The Chief of Staff to President Trump admitted defeat yesterday, claiming that we are not going to control the pandemic. It can be controlled with testing, contact tracing, isolation, and a commitment to mask-wearing, hand-washing, and social distancing. That is how other nations are controlling the pandemic. But the Trump administration is admitting surrender.

They now tell us that we will just have to wait for vaccines and treatments, but Americans cannot afford to wait. The economic devastation accompanying this healthcare crisis is catastrophic. The unemployment rate is 7.9 percent, which is 65 percent higher than when President Trump took office. And that number actually understates the magnitude of employment losses as millions have dropped out of the labor market to care for children or their parents or other loved ones affected by this tragedy. Women have been hit disproportionately hard in this forced exodus from the job market. President Trump's job losses are now the worst of any American President on record. Yet the Senate is doing nothing.

The largest public health crisis in 100 years, the most significant economic collapse since the Great Depression, and the Senate has done nothing to provide Americans relief for 6 months. This is inexcusable.

The House acted by passing the Heroes Act in May. I knew that the Senate majority would not simply embrace a Democratic bill from the House, but I believed they would do something. But the Senate majority would not even surface a proposal until the very end of July, just days before many CARES Act benefits expired and the Senate went into a month-long recess. It was not until mid-September that the Senate GOP finally brought up a vote on what we all called a skinny bill--one- seventh the size of the House proposal and dramatically less than what even the White House said was necessary to deal with the crisis. That bill contained no rent assistance as millions face eviction, no mortgage assistance as millions face default or foreclosure, no food assistance as millions face hunger, and no aid for State and local governments, whose falling revenues jeopardize their ability to employ so many of the health and public safety workers who we know to be essential right now.

Democrats opposed the skinny bill in the hopes that rejecting a partisan proposal would lead to a bipartisan breakthrough. That is just what happened in March with the CARES Act. We voted down a paltry partisan package and days later found a robust bipartisan bill to help all Americans. Our ``no'' vote on the skinny bill in September did jump-start serious negotiations between the White House and Democratic leaders, and the negotiations saw the two sides growing closer and closer.

But there was a problem. The Senate majority does not want a COVID relief bill. We could get there, but last week the New York Times and other publications made it plain that no deal was forthcoming. Why?

``McConnell moves to head off stimulus deal as Pelosi reports progress.''

``U.S. hits highest daily number of cases since pandemic began.''

``McConnell moves to head off stimulus deal.''

This is what we should be working on right now, but the Senate majority abandoned their commitment to helping Americans through this emergency on September 18--the day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Since then, rushing Judge Barrett to confirmation has been all that matters to them--no matter that Americans deeply need COVID relief; no matter that the rush to complete a confirmation in 1 month from nomination to vote is unprecedented in modern times; no matter that the Senate majority broke its word to their colleagues and the American public that a Supreme Court vacancy occurring in a Presidential election year would not be filled until after the election to ``let the people decide''; no matter that the rushed nomination jeopardized the health of attendees at the President's superspreading White House announcement and even staff and Members of this Senate

My question is, Why? Why rush this nomination, ignoring Senate precedent to do so, breaking your own word to do so, violating health protocols to do so, rather than spending our time providing comfort to families who are hurting and businesses that are struggling and closing? There could be no good answer to this question, but the actual answer is particularly heartless. The effort to rush the Barrett nomination is driven by the Republican desire to destroy the Affordable Care Act. That has been the goal for 10 years. I have seen it here on the floor virtually every day during the time I have been in the Senate since January of 2013.

The Republican majority--particularly during the Trump Presidency-- has done everything they can in Congress, in administrative sabotage, and in the courts to destroy the ACA and take healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans. Congressional Republicans even engineered a complete shutdown of the American Government in October of 2013 to try to achieve their goal, but they failed.

More States, even Republican States, have embraced the ACA. It has grown more popular every day with the American public. But by rushing the Barrett nomination, President Trump and the Senate majority see one last chance. In 2 weeks, the Supreme Court will hear the case of California v. Texas, a coordinated effort by Republican attorneys general, the Trump Justice Department, and many in Congress to destroy the Affordable Care Act.

The death of Justice Ginsburg on September 18--who had often voted to uphold provisions of the ACA as an appropriate exercise of congressional legislative power--offered a tantalizing chance to select as her successor someone who has written critically of the act and of the Supreme Court's 2012 opinion upholding the law. If she can be rushed to the Court by November 10, she can participate in the resolution of the case.

Getting her there quickly matters more to the Senate majority than helping the millions who are suffering during this crisis. If they are suffering now, imagine how the suffering would have been magnified without the ACA--millions without insurance to help them through the health crisis; millions of young people not able to be on family policies; millions turned away from coverage because of preexisting health conditions and now having COVID as an additional preexisting condition that will potentially disqualify millions more; millions facing termination of insurance as COVID-related health expenses run them up against lifetime coverage limits.

This rushed Supreme Court nomination not only ignores Americans' demand for help at a time of maximum need, it is done in a way that will likely increase their suffering, with full knowledge that is the case.

I will not play any part in an effort of such calculated cruelty. This vote will hurt the body, hurt the Supreme Court, and hurt millions of people in crisis who are struggling, and even dying, as the Senate ignores their needs.

Many of our Republican leaders won't even wear masks. They refuse to cover their noses and mouths to protect themselves and those around them. But this soulless process shows that they are glad to cover their eyes and their ears to block out the pleas of our suffering citizenry. I will oppose this nomination.

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