-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened to the Republican leader speaking about the Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is coming before the Senate either today or tomorrow, we hope, for a confirmation vote. We have solid support for her nomination on the Democratic side and three Republican Senators who have announced that they will join us to make it a bipartisan majority in her favor.
She is deserving of this. She has an extraordinary background. She has the kind of resume that every lawyer would dream of: to graduate from Harvard Law School and then to clerk at every level of the Federal judiciary, including clerk to the Justice she hopes to succeed, Stephen Breyer; and then to serve on the Sentencing Commission, which is considered one of the more prestigious assignments, trying to rationalize the sentencing under Federal law; and then, of course, to serve on the district court in the DC district and to issue some 570 or 80 different opinions--written opinions--during that time; to be elevated to the DC Circuit Court, often called the second highest court in the land, where she served as well with distinction; and now to be the first African-American woman nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is an incredible record.
And she has made the rounds, as they say, in the Senate, visiting 95 or 96 different Senators, sitting down with them privately in their offices, answering any questions or concerns that they wish to express.
So I think she is an exceptional person. If you look at her record in all of these cases that she has handed down written opinions in--as I said, it is close to 600, and 100 of them were criminal cases where she imposed sentences, and some 10 or 15 of those cases which have been highlighted by her Republican critics, relating to the issue of the exploitation of children and pornography, in every single case, she imposed a prison sentence.
So to argue that she is soft on crime is to ignore that reality and to ignore the reality that she is endorsed--endorsed--by the largest law enforcement organization in America, the Fraternal Order of Police. She is endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and other noteworthy organizations, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement, former prosecutors in the District of Columbia.
She has made it very clear that when it comes to applying the law to the facts, she does it with evenhandedness, so much so that she is respected by both sides of the table--the prosecutor's side of the table and the defense side of the table. That takes some doing, but she has achieved it. And that is why her selection by President Biden is the right person for the right time for the right job. She is going to make history if we give her this confirming vote.
Now, I will tell you, when you publish some 580 to 600 opinions, you are going to find something in one of those opinions to raise. I listened carefully as Senator McConnell went to one of those opinions and drew his own conclusions. I would ask him to take care in accepting that as the fair way to measure a person. People often say that in the U.S. Senate--they ask us: Are you conservative or are you liberal or are you a fiscal conservative? Where do you stand on civil liberties? And people announce a position that they would like to believe they fit in. Then folks go back and look at your voting record and then ask: Well, how do you explain this, Senator? So in any given day, any given vote can raise a question as to a generalization about who you are and what you believe.
For instance, there was a time, as hard as it may be to believe, when people were suggesting amending the Constitution of the United States to make burning an American flag a violation--controversial. All of us revere the flag, but the notion of making this an amendment to the Constitution was a matter of great controversy and debate.
I remember it well in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I came down against it, saying that I revered the flag, but the principles and values behind it were equally or more important to me, and so I opposed flag burning and so did the Senator from Kentucky. Yes, the minority leader, Senator McConnell, opposed flag burning. The organization that agreed with our position was the ACLU. Now, can I generalize from that position which Senator McConnell took years ago that he is an ACLU-type of Senator? It would be wrong to draw that conclusion. There may have been other instances where he agreed with them, but it was rare.
What I am saying is, if you can take one vote and measure a Senator and realize that it falls short of being an accurate and honest measurement, the same thing is true for a judge, to take one opinion and say: Well, she ruled against President Trump on the issue of immigration, therefore, she is an activist liberal judge. She ruled as well for President Trump in other cases in his favor, and ruled against Democratic Presidents when they came up with their proposals before the court. So generalizations are not fair for her or for individual Members of the Senate based on one opinion, one vote, and that is what many are trying to do.
I will also tell you that this notion--and it pains me to even bring it to the floor, but I know it is going to come up in the next day or two--that she is soft on crime. As I mentioned, the law enforcement groups would not be endorsing her if they believed she was soft on crime.
And the notion that she is somehow, in the words of one Republican Senator--that her sentencing ``endangers children,'' that is painful because he said as much in front of her family. And I thought about that, how painful that must have been for her to hear those words. They are not true. And to take one or two situations, each of them unique in their factual circumstances, and to generalize in terms of her position on an issue of that gravity is fundamentally unfair. But we have done it, too, on the Democratic side, and I am going to be the first to admit, as I look back in history, there are things that should have been handled better when Republican nominees were before us.
And the majority of Republican Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, I believe, were respectful and dealt with the judge in a fair manner. They asked tough questions, as they were expected to, but did not cross the line into personal attack.
There were three or four who broke that rule, as far as I was concerned, but the vast majority of Republican Senators were factual, were fair, and were basing their questions on sound legal questions before any Supreme Court nominee's consideration. That I think will be talked about over the next couple days, as it should be.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source