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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to join my friend and colleague from South Dakota in decrying the relentless smear campaign that is being directed at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Of course, many of these attacks have come from expected sources-- liberal activist groups and people, for example, who leaked the Justices addresses so protests could occur on their lawns, lodging threats against these judges and their families--all because they disagreed with the decisions that the Court has made in one case or another.

And, of course, there is one instance where a person who was determined to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh was thankfully stopped by law enforcement. That demonstrates the dangerousness of some of these political attacks against the Court.

Sadly, these aggressors aren't limited to a small group of outsiders though. Attacks are being waged by elected Members of Congress. Some men and women in this building have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution but have repeatedly targeted the Court over supposed ethics concerns.

Last year, 15 of our Democratic colleagues recommended slashing the Supreme Court's budget, which actually would be unconstitutional, but they threatened to slash the Supreme Court's budget if it failed to meet their demand to implement a code of ethics which they had proscribed.

A few years ago, five of our Democratic colleagues threatened the Court could be restructured if it failed to rule a certain way in a case involving the Second Amendment.

And, of course, we can't forget the time when the majority leader, the Senator from New York, stood on the front steps of the Supreme Court and threatened two Justices by name if they didn't reach a preferred ruling in an abortion case.

Well, these are unprecedented attacks against the Court. They are inappropriate at best, and they are unconstitutional at worst. They show a complete lack of respect for the three separate but equal branches of government that comprise our constitutional Republic.

And they know that, but they are using these attacks to undermine public confidence in the Court.

They demonstrate a willingness to do whatever it takes to secure a partisan win, even if that means shredding the U.S. Constitution and undermining the separation of powers.

The partisan political attacks on the Supreme Court have varied, but the underlying objective has always been the same. It is about control. It is about power.

Democrats want to control the institution, control the Justices, and, thus, direct the outcomes. In other words, they want to make the judicial branch not an independent branch of government--a nonpolitical branch. They want to make it another political branch of government because they don't like some of the outcomes that the courts have decided.

Forget fair and impartial courts. That is not their objective. They want judges to fall in line and obey orders. In short, they want to politicize the independent judiciary. And if there is a threat to our democracy today, it is the politicalization of some of our most basic institutions--like the FBI, the Department of Justice--and now the left is targeting the Supreme Court of the United States.

So far, they haven't been successful, but that doesn't mean they are going to stop trying any time soon.

Last month, the New York Times published a piece by Congressman Jamie Raskin where he advised, as a supposed constitutional scholar, self- proclaimed. He wrote an article about forcing two Supreme Court Justices to recuse themselves from a case involving President Trump. The piece is literally entitled: ``How to Force Justices Alito and Thomas To Recuse Themselves in the Jan. 6 Cases.''

Here is a prominent Member of Congress--a Democratic Member of Congress, a self-proclaimed constitutional scholar--talking about how to force an independent branch of government to commit to a certain outcome and force the recusal of two sitting Justices. He argued that the Department of Justice has the authority to compel that. He is wrong, but that is his argument.

The decision on whether or not to recuse is reserved not for Members of Congress, not for the Department of Justice, or for anyone else. The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges provides clear guidelines on recusal, and it is ultimately up to the individual Justices.

Unfortunately, there is a full-fledged pressure campaign to blur the lines that separate the Supreme Court from other branches of government. For years, liberal activists and dark money groups have been on a warpath to destroy public confidence in the high Court's independence.

One of these groups is called Demand Justice, an organization whose highest goal is to pack the Supreme Court and install a permanent liberal majority. A couple of years ago, one of the cofounders of Demand Justice said:

It's time for [the Democrats] to see the Court as a political opponent, just as much as any GOP elected official, and run against it.

That is the type of people and the type of agenda we are dealing with here.

Demand Justice and other liberal groups recently sent a letter to Senator Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging him to use his power to investigate these so-called ethics concerns. They want the Senate to craft a law to dictate to the Supreme Court what their code of ethics should look like.

Forget about the fact that they already have a code of ethics. Democratic Senators want to dictate what that code of ethics should look like.

And, last night, Chairman Durbin tried to force a vote on this bill, but it was blocked. His unanimous consent request was blocked by the ranking member, Senator Graham.

As my Republican colleagues and I have said for months, any decisions about the Supreme Court's practices or procedures should come from the Court itself, not from Congress. The Senate has a limited but important role where it concerns the Supreme Court, and that is through the confirmation process. And we are all familiar with that.

All nine Justices underwent a rigorous background check. They endured hours and hours of questioning from members of the Judiciary Committee, met with Senators one on one, and ultimately were confirmed by majority vote of the U.S. Senate.

That is where the Senate's role starts and ends. We don't have the authority to drag the Supreme Court Justices before Congress in pursuit of some political agenda. There are clear limits to Congress's power under the Constitution--and for good reason.

The independent judiciary has been justly described as the crown jewel of our democracy. We have our fights. We have elections. But ultimately the Supreme Court gets to decide what the law is. That has been the case since 1804 in the case of Marbury v. Madison.

Our Founders deliberately designed a Federal Government with three separate but equal branches. A system of checks and balances sought to prevent any one branch from forcing its will on another.

If Chairman Durbin and our Senate colleagues on the Judiciary Committee respect the separation of powers, they will resist this latest attempt to hijack the Court. The Supreme Court is a separate and coequal branch, and its operations squarely fall outside of the authority of the legislative branch.

I often think back to a statement issued by Chief Justice Roberts in 2018, when he said:

We do not have Obama judges . . . [we do not have] Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges [who are] doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.''

It was true then, and it is true now. The men and women on the Supreme Court should not be pawns or players for either political party. The suggestion that judges are likely to apply perceived political views to cases is dangerous and disingenuous. We have been embroiled in the last few years with the hijacking of our justice system, including the FBI and the Department of Justice, for partisan political purposes, and it is very, very dangerous, because we know what goes around comes around.

Once a precedent is set around here, when the shoe is on the other foot, when the majority is in the minority, when the minority is in the majority, that same precedent will be applied in the future.

Public trust is absolutely vital to the health of our democracy, and the surest way to destroy that trust is by turning the Court into a political football. That is what our Democratic colleagues are risking.

It doesn't matter what case is before a court or what ruling is ultimately handed down, elected officials need to lead by example and support judicial independence. Members of this body must show faith in the judiciary and in our constitutional system of separation of powers, and that includes letting the judges do their job.

Look, the Court is going to hand down decisions that I don't like and that the Presiding Officer doesn't like, but that is not the point. The point is there is a fair and impartial process of applying the law and the Constitution to deciding what the outcome is.

I can't count the number of times I have been disappointed by a Court ruling, but I have certainly never advocated for restructuring the Supreme Court to ensure a preferred outcome of mine the next time. And I have never suggested cutting funds if judges failed to deliver my preferred ruling. That would be wrong.

And certainly, certainly, I have never threatened Justices with violence if they reached a decision I disliked.

And I never have and I never will use the power of Congress to try to subpoena a sitting member of the Court or force Justices to recuse themselves contrary to their decision, using the rules that exist--the code of conduct that exists for Federal judges.

So an independent judiciary is absolutely essential to our democracy, and I hope Chairman Durbin and our Democratic colleagues will show a little self-restraint and resist the far left's latest push to destroy public confidence in the Supreme Court or in the Court's independence.

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