Transcripts For CSPAN2 U.S. Senate U.S. Senate 20240712

South of hartford. And i wish his story were exceptional, but you have all heard these stories, my republican and democratic friends. We will thank you for your continued support of the Affordable Care act. Our family has extensive medical needs, and we rely, we rely on the preexisting conditions and no lifetime cap coverage provisions that the a. C. A. Provides. Both of our sons have Serious Health issues. Harrisons developmentally impaired, has a rare genetic disorder, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, and a rare form of intractable epilepsy, characterized by multiple uncontrolled daily seizures. Imagine that. Imagine having a son like that. Jacob who just turned 15 has hemophilia a with an inhibitor. If you are unfamiliar with this disease, it means his body not only lacks the protein needed to clot his blood in the case of an injury but also rejects the typical medicine used to treat this disorder. This means that often the only way to treat his often spontaneous internal bleeds is a synthetic clotting factor that often costs around 9,000 a dose. When he has been injured in the past, he has to receive doses every two hours for the course of several days. This happened on six occasions since he was first diagnosed in 2011. Think about how lucky you are if you have healthy kids. Im im lucky. Ive got two young boys who are healthy. Harrison has cerebral palsy, hearing loss, epilepsy, daily seizures. Jacob has hemofeel hemophilia, medicine that costs 9,000 a dose. Wayne writes we have had to maintain double Insurance Coverage, both my wifes and mine. We could have been easily dropped by any number of Insurance Companies for exceeding both boys lifetime expense caps, well over a Million Dollars each, and might not have been able to obtain insurance in the first place due to their preexisting conditions. If these provisions were not made law by the a. C. A. , there would be no way we would have obtained or ever afforded Health Insurance. We would not have been able to keep our home. We likely would have had to file for bankruptcy by now. Both boys together have been hospitalized on over 36 occasions. Harrison has spent almost the entire First Six Months of his life in the nicu at a cost of over 1,000 a day. Remember, the a. C. A. Says Insurance Companies cant deny you coverage because you have a preexisting condition. Cant deny your family coverage because your child has a preexisting condition. What the Affordable Care act also says is that Insurance Companies cant cap your insurance. They cant say hey, if you have an expensive disease, were going to insure you for up to this amount of money and then were going to stop paying for health care. You cant do that on an annual basis either. The Affordable Care act says you cant as an Insurance Company give a dollar amount of coverage over the course of the year and then put you off because thats not really insurance, right. I mean, the whole idea of insurance is that you pay in whether you are healthy or you are unhealthy, but you are banking money and you are using other peoples banked money in case you get really sick, in case your Family Member gets really sick. So if your Insurance Plan doesnt cover you in the case that you have got kids like harrison and jacob, then its not really insurance in the traditional form of insurance. And so thats why the Affordable Care act said no, listen, Health Insurance is going to have to cover you if youre really sick or your children are really sick, and they cant pull that coverage after a certain dollar amount on an annual basis or a lifetime basis. So thats why wayne talks about the affordable of the yeas for his family of the a. C. A. For his family. He says we would have had to sell our home if not be bankrupt if not for the Affordable Care act. These key provisions are removed, he says, which seems likely, millions of individuals and families with loved ones having serious illnesses would be adversely affected. Thats a kind way of explaining what would happen to waynes family. He says they would be adversely affected. Wayne would lose everything if Insurance Companies were able to go back to discriminating against people with preexisting conditions and placing back onto Insurance Plans these annual caps and these lifetime caps. And, again, the president of the United States had the choice to go to court and ask for the entire act to be invalidated or for specific provisions to be invalidated. He asked for the entire act to be invalidated, which means that these provisions which protect wayne and his family will be gone if Amy Coney Barrett and four other justices decide to rule for President Trump and his request to invalidate the entire Affordable Care act. So dont tell us that were overhyping this threat, that were making up this idea that republicans want the Affordable Care act to disappear. Its much of what republicans have been doing for the last ten years. There has been no viable replacement plan that would protect wayne in the way that he needs and waynes children in the way that he needs. And while no one can be guaranteed as to what the Supreme Court is going to do, donald trump himself told you that hes only going to put people on the Supreme Court that will invalidate the Affordable Care act. He criticized john roberts over and over again as a republican appointee for upholding the Affordable Care act. He signaled to you that he was not going to appoint someone to the Supreme Court like john roberts, someone that would find a way to uphold the Affordable Care act. He told you that that was john roberts primary sin and that he wouldnt make that mistake again. He, in fact, told you once again just a few days ago that he hoped the Supreme Court would strike down the Affordable Care act, and if thats his hope, then i dont know that we can rely on the idea that he would have then coincidentally been picking justices to serve on the Supreme Court who wouldnt follow through on that request. Julie is from sandy hook. Julie says on march 25, 1994, i received a lifesaving kidney transplant at hartford hospital. At the time, i was working at a job that was not fulfilling and i was trying to complete my masters degree in education to get a job in teaching. I finished my degree, got married, had two children, got a dog, finally landed a fulltime teaching position in newtown. I know that if the law were overturned, i would not have been able to transfer my husbands Health Insurance and ultimately would not have been able to ashe have my dream of becoming a teacher. To achieve my dream of becoming a teacher. Now, thats a different story than waynes, right, but its not equally important, but its important. What julie is telling you is that she had a dream to become a teacher, and she needed to take the time out of the workforce in order to pursue that dream, and she needed Health Insurance during that time. What the Affordable Care act has allowed for and this was back in the 1990s that julie is telling this story, but why she is telling it is because the Affordable Care act gives you the opportunity to maintain Health Insurance while you are out of work or while you are transitioning from one job to another. It provides a nimbleness, a flexibility in the work force that didnt exist without the Affordable Care act protections. Julie also goes on to write that in august of this year, she was diagnosed with bcell nonhodgkins him foam a. She is currently receiving chemotherapy treatments. Im heem foam a. She is currently receiving can chemotherapy treatments. Im scared to return to work and not get my benefits. If the a. C. A. Were overturned, i might not be eligible for benefits because of my multiple preexisting conditions. This would mean financial ruin for my family since i need continuing followup care after i finish my chemotherapy treatments. So julie is now in this sort of classic situation in which she has a preexisting condition. She is currently receiving treatment. And she is living in fear about what happens to her and her family if all of a sudden the days of discrimination against people with preexisting conditions come back. But she is also telling the story about what happened to her earlier in life in which she went out and got herself reeducated to become a teacher but had fear about what was going to happen to her Insurance Benefits because of that. That fear doesnt exist for americans any longer because they had access to these private Health Care Exchanges when they lose their coverage perhaps even voluntarily because they want to go get another job. Now she is in this classic situation in which she has a serious, serious illness. And she talks about the fear that she has about what happens if the Affordable Care act is struck down. I think thats important to recognize as well. There is a generation of young adults who actually dont even remember the days in which you could be discriminated against by a an Insurance Company because of a preexisting condition who dont know what its like to obsess and obsess and obsess over that question. There are folks that are 30 years old today that during their entire adult life have lived under the a. C. A. , that are having kids now, kids that may have complicated medical conditions, and dont have to worry about that child living a life in which they are constantly chasing insurance. It just doesnt happen any longer. But now that prospect is returning because of this case before the Supreme Court. Now those parents are starting to worry. What happens if wairt if Amy Coney Barrett provides the fifth vote to invalidate the Affordable Care act as President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to do . What happens . Well, what likely happens is those protections for peoples preexisting conditions are struck down, and once again parents of children with complicated illnesses spend their life worrying about how this illness will define their childs future. Now, if you have a serious illness, its going to define your future no matter what, but to put on top of the daily search for treatment and the daily search for wellness the worry of whether or not you are going to be able to pay for that is a nightmare that we dont have to choose to endure as a nation because right now we have a law that protects against it. I always remember this very simple story from a few years after the Affordable Care act was passed. I was in a at a Community Pool in cheshire, connecticut, with my son who was then probably 4 or 5 years old. This young guy a few years younger than me sheepishly approaches me as i am playing in the pool with my son and said thank you. I asked what . He said i want to thank you for the Affordable Care act. I am here with my son. My son has a rare heart condition. I used to stay up nights worrying about what his life was going to be like, and i still have lots of worries, but now i have one less because of the Affordable Care act. Now i know were not going to go bankrupt paying for him, and now more than anything else, i know that his future is not going to be dependent on whether or not he can find a job that provides him health care benefits. He can pursue his dream without the constant worry of how we are going to pay for Health Insurance. It sounds like a simple thing, but its not. For any parent here, that idea that your child can be whoever they want to be or at least that their life wont be dictated by whether or not they can afford health care for their expensive disease that they have through no fault of their own, through no choice of their own, thats a big deal as a parent. The Affordable Care act relieves much of that worry. Thats why people are so concerned about Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the court will result in. Melanie from branford says in 2015 my husband cofounded a Biotechnology Company which is located at the iew con incubator uconn incubator in farmington. That was exciting. It was an ink baiter that i helped conceive as a state legislator and then as a congressman. She writes, he did this because the a. C. A. Made it possible for our family and the Company Employees to have health care. The company now has ten employee, all highpaying connecticut jobs. This entrepreneurship would absolutely, positively not have been possible without the a. C. A. The company transitioned to Employer Health care. Now through the Trump Administrations incompetence in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, sales of the companys product, they sell to other companies who are still closed because of coronavirus, sales have plummeted. So our company like so many others are struggling. If we lose our livelihood, we also lose the company Health Insurance which means we as the cofounders of the company would need to once again depend on the a. C. A. s Health Insurance if it still exists. Once again, another story about how the a. C. A. Allows for financial innovation. Allows for economic innovation. A company that was started in connecticut, a Biotechnology Company, because the a. C. A. Allowed in the early days for those entrepreneurs to insure themselves, their families, and their early employees through the Affordable Care act before they had enough money in the company to be able to provide employerbased insurance. All of that goes away. That cushion for entrepreneurs disappears if this act is invalidated. These stories go on and on and on. Individuals who will have their lives ruined and changed if the Affordable Care act disappears. And again, we might be months away from that occurring, months away from that occurring. In the middle of a pandemic. In the middle of a pandemic people losing their insurance, right at the moment when they need it the most because of the costs of confronting covid, because of the fact theyve lost their insurance, because of the recession or risk of losing insurance like melanies family is. What a nightmare. Its not my only worry, though, when i think about Amy Coney Barretts confirmation. Frankly, i nor my constituents have had enough time to really understand the consequences of Amy Coney Barretts nomination because of how rushed this process has been. In the middle of a pandemic when its abnormally difficult to be able to communicate with your constituents, weve rushed this nomination through which has made it almost impossible for people to figure out who she is, what she believes, and communicate that in time to their members of congress. I have a feeling theres a reason for that as well. The rush job is because republicans need to get her on the court in time for the a. C. A. Case because republicans want to get her on the court to hear election disputes, because republicans just want to get her on the court before a lameduck session makes it harder if the election goes against republicans. But i have a feeling its because they also dont want people to figure out what she stands for. One of the other areas of law in which Amy Coney Barrett is likely pretty radical, in fact certain is radical, is on the question of americas gun laws. Obviously i cared about this deeply. Ive bore witness to one of the countrys worst gun homicides in newtown, connecticut. Right now on the streets of hartford as in many other cities, gun violence is spiking. Its not shocking. Gun violence tends to track poverty when people are desperate economically, whether we like it or not they often l resort to violence. And we are at a moment of economic desperation. You should see the food lines at food pantries and food banks in connecticut. Its not coincidental to that economic desperation that were seeing an increase in gun violence. But gun violence is made a lot easier in this nation because of the ease of access to weapons. Our nation is just flooded with weapons. And many of them illegal weapons, many of them in the hands of felons, of dangerous people who shouldnt have them. And were attempting to pass a universal backgrounds check bill here in congress that would make it harder for felons, dangerous individual, people with serious Mental Illness to get their hands on guns. Its probably the most popular policy intervention in the country. I dont know that theres any other major piece of legislation that we proposed thats more popular than universally background checks. It gets 90, 95 of support, n. R. A. Members, nonn. R. A. Member, everybody wants background checks. States that have background checks have lower rates of gun homicide, suicides, Domestic Violence crimes on afternoon. On average. You know, its maddening to me when we havent been able to pass universal background checks here, but thats a political problem. Thats a problem of political power. The gun lobby has had much more political power despite the fact that 90 of americans want universal background checks. Its just a question of one side having more political power than the other. Thats changing. Witness the house of representatives passage of universal background checks last year. I think that we will be able to pass that if the election goes a certain way in the senate. But Amy Coney Barrett has a different idea as to what the barriers should be to universal background checks. Amy Coney Barrett believes that there is a constitutional prohibition against preventing all felons from owning guns. Amy Coney Barrett wants to take away the choice of who can own a gun and who cant own a gun from congress. Now thats not hyperbole. She will dell you that is her belief. Tell you that is her belief. She didnt serve on the male lat Appellate Court very long. But a case on the gun law came before her and she wrote a dissenting opinion which is a major outlier in Second Amendment jurisprudence. And it contains in it some pretty dangerous ideas that frankly people havent had the time to consider because of how rushed this nomination has been. In this case, the kanter case, Amy Coney Barrett says that this felon, i think in this case it was a nonviolent felon, should be able to own a weapon notwithstanding the state law that says all felons cant own weapons because Amy Coney Barrett comes to the personal opinion in this case that this individual is not dangerous. And what she says is that it is not for the legislature to decide who is dangerous and who isnt. It is for the courts to decide who is dangerous and who isnt. And if the legislature cant prove to me Amy Coney Barrett, that this person is dangerous, then i will declare the constitution doesnt allow for that person to own a weapon. The court now becomes the trier of fact. This isnt unfamiliar because this has been a sort of interesting strain of jurisprudence among this new Federalist Society vetted conservative judicial crowd. Thats sort of the issue in Shelby County as well, this Voting Rights case comes before the court and the Supreme Court essentially says we are going to be the trier of fact with respect to whether theres discrimination in this country. We are going to determine whether discrimination against people of color exists such that me need they need these voting protections that traditionally would be a function of the legislature to decide whether discrimination exists necessary to require these protections. But in Shelby County, the Supreme Court says no, well make the decision as to whether discrimination is a problem and if its not, then we will constitutionally invalidate these provisions of the Voting Rights act. Well, in kanter, what Coney Barrett says is that courts now will decide whos dangerous and who isnt because i believe the Second Amendment to only allow for guns to be prohibited to individuals who are dangerous. But the second thing she says in that case is equally is equally dangerous. She says she also would require a state or a federal government to prove that the law is efficacious in promoting Public Safety. Now that might not sound to you unreasonable but thats not what the Second Amendment says. The Second Amendment doesnt say anything in there about gun laws only being constitutional between they can be proved to be efficacious. And theres always going to be a study funded by the n. R. A. That will tell you that if you take guns away from people, you make a community more dangerous. The n. R. A. Is really good at telling you the only way to solve crime is with more guns. And so conveniently under Amy Coney Barretts conception of the Second Amendment, so long as she or others on the court can find a plausible argument that a gun law is not effective in promoting Public Safety, it can thus be ruled unconstitutional. Theres a hundred other courts out there with republican judges who have not found the Second Amendment to say what Amy Coney Barrett says the Second Amendment says. And for courts to all of a sudden micromanage decisions about whos dangerous and whos not dangerous and what laws are effective and what laws are not effective sounds to me like the kind of judicial activism that many of my conservative friends have been warning against. And i think the natural consequence of that would be to invalidate a whole host of background checks laws, perhaps to make it impossible, indeed likely to make it impossible for us to be able to expand background checks in a universal fashion as 90 of americans want us to do. And so while we are certainly spending most of our time talking about the threat to Americans Health care because were in the middle of a Health Care Epidemic and because the consequences are so serious, it is important to note that it is not only on the question of health care that Amy Coney Barrett is going to potentially fundamentally change this country, whether it be her likely vote to overturn roe v. Wade or the samesex marriage decision or her radical out of the box conception of gun laws and the constitutionality of them, her views are not in the american mainstream. But of course that makes sense because increasingly republicans arent using the legislature to try to mold this country into their world view, into their political view, because theyre conception of how this country should be is deeply unpopular. It isnt popular to repeal the Affordable Care act. It is unpopular to make it harder for the legislature to put into place universal background checks. It is unpopular to allow states to criminalize abortion. It is unpopular to allow for more dark money to be spent in elections. It is unpopular to provide less regulation to the pollution, oil, and gas industry. And so increasingly, republicans dont really try to push that agenda through congress. Because they have this other way now. Because the Supreme Court will get all of that done. The Supreme Court will eviscerate the civil jury to make it easier for corporations to prevail in their cases against consumers. The Supreme Court will declare that a womans right to a safe and legal abortion is not protected by the constitution. The Supreme Court will invalidate the Affordable Care act. The Supreme Court will stop legislatures from passing universal background checks. As republicans political agenda has become less aligned with that of the broad American Public, it makes sense that the senate has stopped legislating. It makes sense that the senate has just become this confirmation simple machine. I have been here for the last two years. We havent debated any legislation of substance here. All we have done is just confirm judges. I checked. We have done 20 pieces of legislation. Thats half as many as a normal senate would do. Most of the bills we have passed have been not most of them, but onethird of the bills that we passed have been post office renamings or commemorative coins, and we passed half as many bills overall as we would in a normal legislative session. Legislation is just grinding to a halt. Yeah, some of that is because the house is of a Different Party. Its difficult to pass a law when you have different parties in charge of the house and the senate, but there arent a lot of conference committees happening, there arent a lot of attempts to reconcile our differences in part because the senate is just confirming judges, record numbers of judges, because in part there were record numbers of vacancies because Mitch Mcconnell and Senate Republicans refused to confirm almost anybody in the last two years of obamas term in office. They essentially nullified that portion of his presidency, his right under the constitution to nominate and have considered judges to the federal bench. And so when President Trump won and republicans maintained control of the senate, all of a sudden they had more vacancies than ever before. They spent the last two years populateing the dech, filling those vacancies. Thats their right to do so, i guess, but it is also part of the strategy to push a conservative political agenda through the courts rather than through the legislature because that agenda is so unpopular, if it was pushed through the legislature, it would jeopardize republicans chances of reelection. This has been an unusually activist court, but it is likely to get more so with Amy Coney Barrett on the court. I want to do two more things before i yield the floor. I know senator kaine will be here shortly. I want to spend a few more minutes on why this pandemic is so intimately intertwined into this conversation about this nomination, and then finally a word on process. 220,000 americans have died and millions of others have had their lives changed forever by this pandemic. The number of people who have been laid off just sort of unfathomable to think about. The president tried a feckless travel ban in february and march. It didnt work. It wasnt going to work. And then he effectively gave up after that. He just put the states in charge, but then refused to resource the states in a way that would allow them to adequately and effectively confront the virus. One example is the president s refusal to stand up a National Supply chain so that we have been in constant crisis, first with respect to masks and face shields and Hand Sanitizer and then throughout the crisis with respect to tests and testing equipment and cartridges. I was visiting testing sites in connecticut just last week, and, i mean, were in what . Month eight of the pandemic, and still these testing sites in connecticut have no idea from day to day how many tests theyre going to have. I was visiting a hospital thats right in the middle of a historic hot zone in connecticut, and i did a roundtable. There were a bunch of people there. On my way out, one of the participant of the roundtable kind of followed me out. It happens often, my colleagues will know, wanted to have a private word with me. It was the purchasing agent for that hospital who wanted to tell me before i left exactly how nightmarish her life was not knowing from day to day how many tests they were going to be able to do and how she had to scramble every single day to figure out how to get the components for the tests and how there was no way to plan, right, no way to say okay, this week, im going to go to this site and this site and this site to do tests because i dont know where im getting them from. Thats just one of the ways in which this president has just fundamentally let us down. But now its something different, right . Now the president isnt trying to stop the virus. Hes actively trying to spread the virus. And the president s holding these political rallies where nobody is wearing masks, where people are Standing Shoulder to shoulder. He knows what he is doing. He knows that the effect of those rallies is going to be to spread the virus. He is shaming people who wear masks, chiding the Vice President for always wearing one. Hes now actively engaged in an effort to test people less because he thinks that makes the country look bad. Hes at war with his own scientists, regularly undermining his own officials at the c. D. C. And the n. I. H. I mean, there is nobody that is doing more to help this virus spread in the United States today than donald trump. And so then on top of that, to rush through a nominee who may end up invalidating the Affordable Care act, leaving people in the middle of a pandemic that you are responsible for as president with no insurance, that is cruelty built on sop top of cruelty. Some of my other colleagues have done this as well. And i want to do it just so that some of these peoples names end up as part of history, as part of some record other than a lonely obituary. Im just going to read into the record the names of a handful of the people who have died due to covid19 during this epidemic. I know it sounds like a futile exercise given the fact that i will read 20 names and 220,000 have died, but i dont really know what else to do at this point to try to convince this president to stop spreading the virus, to act in a responsible way like an adult other than to at least put some names to the numbers. Abidor and rachel farren. Adam russo. Maurice bucho. Robert herman. Mary margaret smith. Johnny gonzalez. Ann martinez. Amelia michaels. Jianmar flintis. Carmen carlo. The last four were related, mother, aunt, grandmother. Dr. John marvin brown sr. Robert Patrick Perry jr. Hing lee. Frank small, iii. Steven silverman. Alexander mcmillan. Deny perkins. Mary castro. Afollow so lee jr. Jerome mark specter. John robert hicken. Frederick harris. Jim shehan. Barry downs. Mark blume. Terrance Neil Thompson jr. Gordon pickering. Robert flanders. Carlos lamas. Juan gilbert dominguez. Sara ann staffa. Roberta peppitone. Jacqueline ross. Maria mendoza. William Charles Edward prince. Thats just two pages of names, individuals who have died due to coronavirus. The numbers are obviously absolutely overwhelming, and its, of course, not just those who have died. Its those who have lost their jobs. Its all those people who have had the illness. Eight Million People have been diagnosed with covid. Who knows what the overall number is, individuals who had it and didnt know it, thought it was Something Else or people who were asymptomatic. Is that number 100 million . Is that number 50 million . Its big, and all those individuals now have a preexisting condition. All those individuals now could be discriminated against by an Insurance Company if the Affordable Care act was to be invalidated. That is the ask of the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court on which Amy Coney Barrett will be sitting if this nomination is pushed through. Thats why these two questions of the Supreme Court nomination is before us today and the question of how we adequately confront the coronavirus pandemic are connected. Why we talk about them together. Finally, mr. President , let me say a word about process. This is not the most compelling argument to the American People. I dont think they really care too much about the processes by which we choose to conduct business here in the senate, but we do, we should. We chose to serve in this body. Ive thought a lot over the course of the last few weeks about the idea of restraint, the idea of restraint, the idea of temperance. Its been a seminal idea that humans have been considering for millennia, the idea of deciding not to do something that you have the ability to do. Right, the decision to restrain oneself to not use the maximum powers available to you because of the downstream consequences of your decision to operate at maximum power, your decision to use all of the facilities available to you. Its an idea that humans have considered, as i said, for thousands of years. And it is generally applied to this body, it is generally a very important facet of democracy. Because the constitution says very little about how the senate will conduct business. It doesnt micromanage our perceivings. Certainly, if you read our constitutional history, there was a belief that the senate was supposed to be different than the house of representatives. Obviously, we were chosen very different at the outset. We were given very different term lengths. The idea was that the senate was supposed to be able to look out for the Long Term Health of the country in a way that was different from the house of representatives, given their requirement to answer to the people every two years. And so over time, there was this understanding that the senate would have at its foundation some concept of fairness, some ability for the minority to participate. And so over time, there have been different rules about how many votes are required for cloture or different practices of how cloture was used, how often it was used, but always there was an idea that, you know, this place would be a shared experience, minority and majority would work together. Senator mcconnell has his version of history. I think democrats have a different version of it, but i dont think anybody can disagree that the changes to the way in which the senate operates have come faster and more furious during the years in which Mitch Mcconnell has been majority leader than at any time before. I mean, just while i have been here, we have seen the eradication of the filibuster for Supreme Court justices, we have seen the time that we have to debate justices dramatically shrunk. I think its now down to two hours. We have seen the elimination of the blue slip, the ability for senators from a particular state to have a say in the judges that are selected to serve in their states Appellate Courts. But we also saw this exceptional thing happen in 2016 in which Mitch Mcconnell as majority leader decided that he would not even consider Barack Obamas choice for a vacancy in the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the vacancy came about 11 months before the next president was to be sworn in. In retrospect, democrats didnt make a big enough deal out of it. I think because we thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win and thus ultimately while it would be a dangerous precedent to live with, it might not have a practical effect on the country. We just couldnt imagine in the winter and spring of 2016 that donald trump was going to be the president of the United States. In retrospect, we should have made a bigger deal out of what was happening in 2016 because this idea that republicans werent going to even consider, even do a courtesy meeting, have a hearing on Merrick Garland was and still is truly exceptional. And it fits into this pattern weve seen under senator mcconnell these past few years, this pattern of for saking forsaking restraint and using every conceivable power or let me back that up using more powers available to the majority than ever before in order to effectuate a political agenda. What republicans did in 2016 was unprecedented. Just say forget it, president obama, were not considering your choice for the Supreme Court because youre a didnt and were republicans. Now, at the time as we remember, republicans said that it wasnt political. It was it was because there was an important rule they were enforcing, this rule that you couldnt consider a president ial nominee to the Supreme Court in the last year of his or her term. I didnt hear my colleague say at the time that the rule was only applied when the president and the senate were of different parties. In fact i heard main of my republican colleagues, dug the chairman of the Judiciary Committee say that the rule is you dont consider Supreme Court nominees, senator graham said write down my word, hold them against me. And at the time we all knew that republicans probably werent telling the truth. We knew that it was probably just because it was president obama and they did not want Justice Scalia, a conservative justice to be replaced by someone who was more liberal in their views. We suspected that this idea that they were enforcing a rule was just a ruse to paper over what was simply a political decision not to give president obama a seat on the Supreme Court. Well, now we know it was a ruse because all of a sudden when presented with the exact same circumstance, well, in fact different circumstance in that this vacancy occurred weeks before the election rather than nine months before the leex, before the election, republicans have changed their tune. Because its about politics. Its just about politics. Its getting your guys on the Supreme Court and stopping the other guys from getting on the Supreme Court. And what Mitch Mcconnell said were going to use anything in order to effectuate our agenda, especially when it concerns the Supreme Court. Restraint which is a predicate for the effective operation of democracy is disappearing. And again, i know that it sounds ridiculous to make this suggestion but there is really no logical end to how you can maximize your powers as a majority body in the United States senate. Theres no constitutional prohibition on the Senate Majority saying members of the majority are going to get twice as much staff as members of the minority. Theres nothing stopping the majority from eliminating our speaking rights in committees on the floor of the senate. Theres a lot of things that the majority can do to make it increasingly impossible for the minority to have any role here, to be able to protest, to able to carry out our agenda. And i know that theres a lot of speculation, much of it driven by the republican majority about what democrats will do if democrats are given control of the senate. Will democrats go to new, extraordinary lengths to maximize their power given the extraordinary lengths republicans have gone to maximize their power . That is not a conversation that is ripe enough yet but what do republicans expect . What you did in 2016 is really wild. You basically invalidated the last year of a president s term at least with respect to that core function of appointing Supreme Court justices. Whats wild was you didnt have to go to the lengths you did. Republicans could have voted Merrick Garland down. At least recognize the legitimacy of the nomination, vote Merrick Garland down, perhaps forcing a conversation about another nominee that might be more amenable to the republican majority. That wouldnt be the last the first time that that has occurred. One of the statues here in the United States congress is of Oliver Ellsworth from connecticut who was elevated to the Supreme Court because George Washington believed his first pick couldnt be confirmed by the senate. So instead he chose one of connecticuts two United States senators who was beloved in this body when it operated not far away. And Oliver Ellsworth went to the court because of a quiet negotiation with the senate. Republicans under Mitch Mcconnell didnt even engage in a process with Merrick Garland. They just declared that the president s choice was illegitimate. I cant argue that they didnt well, i can argue they didnt have the power but certainly there was an argument that republicans in the senate could just refuse to consider Merrick Garlands nomination. But now having practiced that exercise of maximum power, using the majority to delegitimatize a president in that way, you put democrats if they win control of the senate really in an enviable position. Do we just unilaterally stand down and not choose to use the same tools that republicans did in the majority . Would we expect if we did that that if republicans regain the majority, they would follow our lead . Or would that be wildly naive . No, in fact i think there are now new rules in the senate. And i think republicans have set them. I get it that you can claim harry reids rule change as the original sin that legitimatizes everything that you have done since then. But the changes republicans have made have come at a dizzying pace, far more changes made, far more precedents shalterred precedence shattered than anything that happened when democrats were in control. And of course senator reid and many of us would argue that the reason that that change was made was because senator mcconnell doubled the number of cloture motions that were required in order to move legislation to a final vote. The change in the use of the filibuster by republicans during their time in the minority was what forced that change. But setting that aside, theres no question that the changes have come much faster and much more furious. And it just doesnt bode well for the future of our democracy when everyone uses the maximum power available to them with no concern for the Minority Party in order to get what they want. And its not just the republican majority that has done this. So have so has the executive branch. I listened to the presiding officer give his maiden speech on this floor about the overuse of executive power. And there were legitimate complaints about ways in which the Obama Administration had used maximum executive power when the legislature would not act. But again it doesnt compare with the ways in which this president has used maximum executive power in the absence of authorization from congress, both in the executive branch and in the legislative branch under republicans, restraint as a practice inside democracy is disappearing. Maximum power becomes the ethos. And that is a danger to democracy. Maybe not today but soon enough. I dont know how this body gets back into a conversation about comity. I dont know how we get back into a conversation about how we govern together. I have, frankly, voted for more of this president s nominees to the executive branch, to political offices and to the bench than almost all of my colleagues maybe on this side of the aisle maybe with the exception of a few. Because i generally have believed that if the nominee is in the conservative mainstream and if the nominee is generally qualified, that they should get their post, especially for executive point appointments, nominations under secretary positions. I do that in part because i think that its important to not use maximum power and maximum leverage, for me not to vote against every single nominee that the president puts forward just because i disagree with that nominee. That conversation about how we restore some comity and some restraint be its an important one, but it is likely to be impossible in the next congress because of how fundamentally broken this body will be after what happened to Merrick Garland and then on top of it, what is happening right now. We are eight days before an election. Were eight days before an election. We are jamming through Amy Coney Barretts nomination in record time, not because its good for the country. Just because you can. Just because republicans can. And likely because it is really important to effectuate your deeply unpopular agenda through the Supreme Court. We dont legislate here anymore because republicans have found out a way to get their agenda done through the court system. Amy Coney Barrett will likely be the fifth vote to invalidate the Affordable Care act, a political project for the republicans for the last decade, unfulfilled through the legislative branch, now achievable in the next several months through the Judicial Branch but only if Amy Coney Barretts nomination is rammed through right now. The rewriting of the Second Amendment, not available to republicans any longer in the legislative branch. The n. R. A. s priority list couldnt even get a vote in the senate with republican control now available through the Judicial Branch if Amy Coney Barrett is nominated. The consequences for the country are serious. If the source of power in this town, the source of policymaking and rule setting moves from this body across the street to the Supreme Court. And not equally as dangerous to the nation but still perilous is what will happen to this body is all that matters is political power when restraint vanishes and whoever is in the majority uses every lever available to them to try to get what they want, to try to stop the other side from getting what they want. It is one week before an election. We are here all night ramming through a Supreme Court nominee in record time simply because you can. Thats not a good enough reason. I yield the floor. The presiding officer the senator from virginia. Mr. Kaine mr. President , i rise in opposition to the nomination of judge barrett to the United States 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. And 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 covid19. Benino andratti. Amalia pasqua. James chanley. Betty damato. Keith mitchell jacobs. Ward h. Harlow jr. Kyon key park. James norton. Charlotte marie simms. Gus smeetz. Charles krebs. Dr. Gay griffin snyder. U. Fryer. Marcel borg. Albert garcia. Helen flores. Dean pryor perkins. Darryl william jones. Paul abrahamson. Everett pike. Grant d. Ross. Isabelle papadimitrio. James houston. Jose antonio reyes. William d. Shilling jr. Ronnie rowe baldwin. Larry singer. Leone kitty harriman. Sarah roth. Sara rose burella. Kenneth e. Zwick sr. Pick chichan. Roger dethone. Allen zuegel. Dr. Kirk bar net. 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 mostread 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, 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 well just have to wait for vaccines and treatments that americans cannot afford to wait. The economic devastation accompanying this Health Care Crisis is catastrophic. The Unemployment Rate is 7. 9 , which is 65 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, rather, loved ones affected by this tragedy. Women have been hit disproportionately hard in this forced exodus from the job market. President trumps job losses are now the worst of any american president on record. And yet, the senate safe 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 six months. This is inexcusable. The house acted by passing the heroes act in may. Now, 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 monthlong recess. And it was not until mid september that the senate g. O. P. Finally brought up a vote on what we all call a skinny bill. Oneseventh 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. No aid for state and local governments whose falling revenues jeopardize their ability to employ so many of the health and Public Safety workers that 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. Thats 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 jumpstart series 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, and 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 one month from nomination to vote is us precedented in modern times. No is unprecedented in modern times. No matter that a Supreme Court vacancy occurring in a president ial Election Year was promised not to be filled until after an election to, quote, 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. And 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. Thats been the goal for ten 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 courts to destroy the a. C. A. And take Health Care 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 a. C. A. Its 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 two weeks, the Supreme Court will hear the case of california versus texas. A coordinated effort by republican attorneys general, the trump justice department, and many in congress to destroy the Affordable Care act. And the death of Justice Ginsburg on september 18, who would often vote to uphold provisions of the a. C. A. 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 Courts 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. And getting her there quickly matters more to the Senate Majority than helping the millions who are suffering during this crisis. And if theyre suffering now, imagine how the suffering would have been magnified without the a. C. A. 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 had covid is an additional preexisting condition that will potentially disqualify millions more, millions facing termination of insurance as covidrelated 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 that is the case. And 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 wont even wear masks. They refuse to cover their noses and mouths to protect themselves and those around them. But this soulless process shows that theyre glad to cover their eyes and their ears to block out the please of our suffering citizenry. The pleas of our suffering citizenry. I will oppose this nomination. Mr. President , i yield the floor. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call the presiding officer the senator from new york. Mrs. Gillibrand i rise today to speak about the future the presiding officer the senate is in a quorum call. Mrs. Gillibrand mr. President , i ask unanimously to vitiate the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mrs. Gillibrand thank you. I rise today to speak about the future of the Supreme Court, the future of our country, and the responsibility this body has to the people of our nation. Mr. President , it seems that my republican colleagues have lost sight of what the people of our state have sent us here to do. They sent us here to raise their voices, represent their interests, and provide them with the help that they need. The American People are truly struggling, and they are calling upon us to provide them with real relief during this Public Health and economic crisis. That number should be our number one priority. Eight million americans have fallen into poverty during this pandemic, including an outsized number of people of color and children. The proportion of American Children who sometimes do not have enough to eat is now 14 times higher than it was last year. Parents are now joining food lines, joining food lines for food banks because they cannot feed their children. Cases of covid are on the rise as we head towards our third peak. As Small Businesses and their employees dont see a rebound on the horizon. People are sick. They are struggling and scared about the future. For months, my fellow democrats and i have been calling for a vote on the relief package the house put forward to address these concerns, and we have been met with silence. Then after dragging their feet, republicans put forward a totally inadequate 500 billion package that puts the needs of big businesses ahead of working families. Whats worse is that they know it has absolutely no chance of becoming law. Their only aim is to score political points. All the while, the American People keep suffering. The weeks we should have dedicated to negotiating a real relief package have instead been spent rushing through the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice. The hypocrisy is truly stunning. The same people who denied Merrick Garland a hearing months before an election are now trying to ram this process through while an election is already happening. Millions of ballots have been cast. Americans are already voting. Their futures are on the line. They should have a say in this outcome. But we know why republicans are rushing. They are rushing because they know its their last chance to impose a very extreme conservative view on this country. They are rushing because they see a clock ticking, ticking towards november when the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether 129 million americans with preexisting conditions will continue to have access to Affordable Health care. They are rushing to seat judge barrett at a time so that her role in that case, a case that could strip millions of americans of health care in the middle of a pandemic, at the very moment they need it the most, its simply inhumane. The Affordable Care act is a matter of life or death. I recently spoke to a new yorker named ali mirada who has been living with type 1 diabetes since 2006. Last december, she turned 26 and aged off her parents insurance. Because her work is contract based, she couldnt enroll with an employer. She made too much to qualify for medicaid, but not enough to afford 400 monthly premiums. She was uninsured from december to march and had to ration her insulin, putting her life at risk. It was only when the pandemic started and she lost all of her income that she was able to qualify for the essential plan in new yorks a. C. A. Marketplace and access her lifesustaining medication. If the a. C. A. Is repealed, ali will have nowhere to turn. And she is not alone. My friend kyle lives with downs syndrome. His father bill has multiple preexisting conditions. Bill right now works part time in order to help kyle who needs to be with somebody 24 7. They are worried about their cuts to medicaid which could affect the job coaching kyle received at the pizza parlor where he works and about the repeal of the a. C. A. Which provides them the only care they can afford. Rushing to seat this nominee means rushing to put alis life and kyles life and millions of americans in danger. My colleagues are putting them all at risk only to further a very conservative agenda. And it is extreme. Their agenda is to see the nominee who has called roe v. Wade barbaric, end of quote. When nearly eight in ten americans believe its a fundamental human and civil right so that women can make decisions about their bodies, including when or if or under what circumstances they will have children. A nominee who referred to Sexual Orientation as a preference, language thats not just outdated but truly harmful. When two in three americans believe love is love, they believe in marriage equality, they believe in the right to marry the person they love. A nominee who refused to admit climbing is settled science and not a controversial issue. When 99 of scientists and 81 of americans agree that humans are drivers of global warming. So whose views does she represent . Certainly not those of the people who sent us here. They believe in access to reproductive care. They believe in equal rights for the lgbtq community. They believe in science. And they believe that this seat should be filled by the next president and confirmed by the next senate. They have made it clear and dont want the process of a lifetime appointment rushed. This is the wrong judge for this seat, and this is the wrong process for a lifetime appointment. Its hypocritical. Its dangerous. Its not what the American People want. Mr. President , i ask my colleagues to stop ignoring the people who sent us here and to remember that its our job to look out for the best interests, no one elses. If we dont do that, we dont have the right to be here at all. Mr. President , i also want to express my condolences to the families and loved ones who have experienced the human toll of the coronavirus pandemic. Over 220,000 americans have died, and millions of others have been changed forever. Im going to read some of the names that we have lost, the families of these individuals have given permission for their names to be read on the senate floor, adding them to their stories adding them and their stories to the congressional record. Mark anthony erkiza. Paul osterman. Frederick harold quinn. Richard rosenburg. Charles mahoney. Felix shinma oru. Margaret hogan. Mamuda shaheen. Allen kaplan. William w. Boyd. Fred c. Meadows. Jose ramirez. David benfield. John a. Alexanis. Michael hughes. Bob mcdonald. Richard proea. Richelle smith. Jose joe ramirez. Steve petrifino. Edwina catwane. Abby spit disaster. Robert bobby mccost can i. Jose a. Matea. Eric b. Chavez. Anastasia cogera. Lynette scullen and joan scullen. Maru santini. Buck mckinney. Christina danielo. Cal schoenfeld. Greg papadake. Sara sally belin. Roland castillo. Nice coch. David toshman. Joseph lobionco. Edward alonzo. Mr. President , id also like to share some concerns of the people of new york over what a future without the Affordable Care act would look like. While my colleagues tried to rush this confirmation so judge barrett could be seated in a time to rule on a case that could cause millions of americans to lose access to their health care, i think its important that we remember how that case will affect the people we are here to serve. In new york, there are more than eight Million People with preexisting conditions who could face higher costs, fewer benefits, more troubling, more trouble finding the coverage they need if the a. C. A. Is repealed. There are more than three Million People who could be denied coverage all together over preexisting conditions that are deemed uninsurable. And there are more than 470,000 people who have been diagnosed with covid, each of whom could find themselves paying higher premiums for worse coverage. My mailbox has been flooded with letters from new yorkers who are cancer survivors and parents and people with disabilities who are all worried about their families not being able to access the care that they need. Working to take away their care, especially in the middle of a pandemic is inhumane. Jane from west islip wrote, as a cancer survivor, i am very concerned about health care and preexisting conditions. Were facing a health care meltdown. The next justice could be the deciding vote that determines whether health care for tens of millions of people, protections for preexisting conditions, and other provisions of the a. C. A. That benefit almost everyone will stay or go. Judge barretts documented hostility towards the a. C. A. Disqualifies her from a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. A vote for judge barrett is a vote to end health care. Oppose her nomination. End of quote. Jane is not alone in her concerns. Candace from brooklyn wrote im writing to urge you to oppose the nomination of judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Im worried that judge barretts statements on the Affordable Care act mean that if confirmed, she would vote to overturn the a. C. A. Millions of americans with disabilities rely on the a. C. A. To protect our right to health care. If the a. C. A. s overturned especially during a pandemic, millions of lives could be at risk, end of quote. This is a concern i have heard over and over and over again. Meredith from new york city wrote to me about stacy staggs, the mother of two Young Children who both have complex medical needs and disabilities who share a powerful testimony during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Meredith wrote when she spoke, she spoke for me. The a. C. A. And disability rights are at stake. This confirmation should wait until after the American People have chosen who should pick the next justice, end of quote. And parents across the state are worried about what a court with Justice Barrett would mean for their children. Susan from amherst wrote to me about her daughter. She said my daughter is an amazing young woman and a lesbians and an have i with a preexisting condition. Her depression has worsened because she sees what a confirms of Amy Coney Barrett confirmation could mean to her and many of her friends. Even pope francis believes that members of the lgbtqplus community deserve to be part of a family and should be able to participate in civil unions. Please help. She needs to have hope. The rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is concerning. Not only have senators senators have not had enough time to duly vet her, but we are in the middle of a highly consequential election in which millions have already cast their ballots. Further, judge barretts lgbtq rights record suggests she cannot be an impartial jurist on these matters. Im deeply concerned about the future of the rights of the lgbtq community, end of quote. And these letters also send dire reminders of what life was like for too many new yorkers before the Affordable Care act, a history we should never repeat. Jan from ridgewood wrote, quote, im 61 years old and have been selfemployed for most of my working life. This circumstance has made me a health care voter. For decades, i thought i was the only one complaining about the impossibility and the High Health Care costs. The cheapest plan i could find at a monthly premium of 6 had a monthly premium of 692. For me as an individual with my husband who is also selfemployed and a daughter, it was about 1,250. After my divorce, i went job hunting for Health Insurance. I was willing to work for free if i could be put on a health Insurance Plan. I didnt find any. The a. C. A. Put an end to that demeaning search. My income fluctuates so my premium goes up and down, but it has never been as expensive as it was before obamacare. There is ample evidence to suggest that judge barrett would overturn the Affordable Care act. Confirming such a justice during what is perhaps the worst Public Health crisis in American History and while the senate refuses to act to address the coronavirus economic and Health Crisis is unconscionable, end of quote. Let me say that again. Health care is so important that she was willing to work for free just to have it. Thats whats on the line here. Repealing the a. C. A. Would also mean an end to the rule of preventing Insurance Companies from charging women higher premiums than men and requiring them to cover essential Health Benefits for women. That means women would not only have to pay more, but it would also be harder for the more than four million new york women covered by private insurance to find coverage for maternity care, contraception, costfree screenings for Breast Cancer, Cervical Cancer and bone density, and it would return us to the days when uninsured women could be denied coverage altogether if they are pregnant or have a health problem. And it would put our older adults at risk. Striking down the a. C. A. Would reopen the Prescription Drug coverage cap, socalled doughnut hole, and could leave nearly 350,000 seniors in our state paying thousands of dollars in outofpocket costs for the medications they need. Thomas is one of those seniors. He writes, quote, the price for the family insurance is high, and without our present administration will go higher and millions of americans will not be able to have insurance. And this is the time it is needed with the lack of virus control. Many americans are out of work and will never be able to get a job that paid as much as the previous job. Many americans have died because the administration would not treat the virus when it was starting. Many homes have now now have less people bringing in money to pay bills because of this. The administration has no plan to replace obamacare. And with the second and third round of virus and flu, many more may die. Seniors are on a fixed income and seldom get any breaks when it comes to bills. Part d of medicare prescriptions really went up this year. At the end of the year, we fall in the doughnut hole and have to pay two or three or more times for our medicine than we are paying. And then at the beginning of the year, we must pay the deductible, which on average is 400plus dollars. But remember, we are on fixed incomes, so that means going without Something Else. Again, a zerodeductible plan doesnt cover much unless you pay above 70 a month. Do you expect the average american to have that much extra money . A lot of people live on Social Security alone. The present administration wants to stop that income, end of quote. The American People do not want to lose their health care, not in the middle of a pandemic, not ever, and they certainly dont believe we should be prioritizing this nomination over providing them with real relief. Christine from beacon wrote, quote, i find it appalling and horrific that instead of a humane relief bill for the people who have lost Family Members, jobs, homes, the stability of their children, shelter, food security, education, not to mention the social costs of interrupting normal Childhood Social Development and just the terrible grief and fear that people are dealing with, that instead of working on a relief bill, we have another judge infuriatingly and unfairly jammed into the court, the Supreme Court. My god, the lack of respect and audacity of beginning this process. There is wrong and right, and to quote a great patriot, this is america, and here right matters, end of quote. Christinas right. Doing the right thing for the American People matters. It is actually our job. New yorkers and the people across this country have lost their jobs and their employerbased health care and are calling on the senate to provide them with the relief they need to survive this health and economic crisis. Instead, republicans are pouring salt in their wounds by rushing this process in order to eliminate the Medicaid Expansion s and marketplaces those newly jobless americans have turned to for coverage. Overturning the a. C. A. Would immediately end the medicaid coverage nearly 1. 9 million beneficiaries in new york are relying on. These stories i shared represent the fears and the concerns of the people who sent us here to represent them. They are people with debilitating illnesses, parents worried about sick children, adults worried about elderly parents, and young men and women who live with conditions like diabetes and are already struggling to find insurance that will help them access the insulin they need. They are struggling, and its our job to get them the help they need. The American People oppose this nomination, and they are watching. And one way or another, they will be heard. Id like to read from an article in the New York Times by reed abel sopa and abby goodnauf entitled if the Supreme Court ends obamacare, heres what it would mean. The Affordable Care act touches the lives of most americans and its abolition could have a significant effect on many millions more people than those who get their Health Coverage through it. What would happen if the Supreme Court struck down the Affordable Care act . The fate of the sprawling decadeold health law known as obamacare was already in question, with the high court expected to hear arguments a week after the president ial election, the latest case seeking to overturn it, but now the death of justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg increases the possibility that the court could abolish it, even as millions of people are losing jobbased Health Coverage during the coronavirus pandemic. A federal judge in texas invalidated the entire law in 2018. The Trump Administration, which had initially supported eliminating only some parts of the law, then changed its position and agreed with the judges ruling. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court agreed to take the case. Mr. Trump has vowed to replace Justice Ginsburg, a stewart defender of the law, before the election. He is successful in placing a sixth conservative on the court, its new composition could provide the necessary five votes to uphold the texas decision. Many people many millions more people would be affected by such a ruling than those who rely on the law for Health Insurance. Its many provisions touch the lives of most americans from nursing mothers to people who eat at chain restaurants. Here are some potential consequences based on estimates by various groups. 133 million americans have protected preexisting conditions. As many as 133 million americans, roughly half of the population under 65, have preexisting medical conditions that would disqualify them from buying a Health Insurance policy or cause them to pay significantly higher premiums if the health law were overturned, according to the government analysis done in 2016 2017. An existing medical condition includes such common ailments as high Blood Pressure or asthma, any of which could require those buying insurance on their own to pay much more for a policy, if they could get one at all. Coronavirus, which has infected nearly seven million americans to date and may have longterm Health Implications or many or those who become ill could also become one of the many medical histories that would make it challenging for someone to find insurance. Under the a. C. A. , no one can be denied coverage under any circumstance, and Insurance Companies cannot retroactively cancel a policy unless they find evidence of a fraud. The Kaiser Family foundation estimated that 54 Million People have conditions serious enough that insurers would outright deny them coverage if the a. C. A. Were not in effect according to an analysis it did in 2019. It estimates are based on the guidelines insuressers had in place about who to cover if the law was enacted. Most persons would still be able to get coverage under a plan provided by a employer or under a federal program as they did before the law was passed. Protections for preexisting conditions are particularly important during an economic downturn or to those who want to start their own businesses or retire early. Before the a. C. A. , employers could would sometimes refuse to cover certain conditions. If the law went away, companies would have to decide if they would drop any of the conditions they are now required to cover. The need to protect people with preexisting medical conditions from a condition. Democrats attributed much of their success to reclaiming control of the house of representatives to voters desire to safe guard those protections. Mr. Trump and many republicans promised to keep this provision of the law but have not said how they will do that. Before the law, some individuals were sent to highrisk pools operated by states but even that coverage was often inadequate. 21 Million People could lose their Health Insurance. Of the 23 Million People who either buy Health Insurance through the marketplace set up by the law, roughly 11 million, or receive coverage through the expansion of medicaid, 12 million, about 21 million are at serious risk of becoming uninsured if obamacare is struck down. That includes more than nine million who receive federal subsidies. On average, the subsidies cover 492 of the 576 monthly premium this year, according to a report of the department of health and human services. The marketplaces and subsidies go away, a comprehensive health plan would become unaffordable for most of those people and many of them would become uninsured. States could opt could not possibly replace the full amount of federal subsidies in the state fund. 12 million americans 12 million adults could lose medicaid coverage. Medicaid Government Insurance program for the poor that is jointly funded by the federal government and the states is in the work force of obamacare. If the health law were struck down, more than 12 million lowincome adults who have gained medicaid through the laws expansion of the program could lose it. In all, according to the urban institute, enrollment in the program could drop by more than 15 million, including roughly three million children who got medicaid or the childrens Health Insurance program from their parents signed up for coverage. The law ensures that states will never have to pay more than 10 of costs for their expanded medicaid population. Few, if any, states would be able to pick up the remaining 90 to keep their programs going. Overall, the overall, the federal governments tab was 66 billion last year, according to the congressional budget office. Losing free Health Insurance would, of course, also mean worse access to care and quite possibly worse health for millions who are affected. Among other things, studies have found that Medicaid Expansion has led to better access to preventative screening medications and Mental Health services. 800,000 people with opioid addiction are getting treatment through medicaid. The Opioid Epidemic was spreading to all corners of the country. Health officials in many states say one of the biggest benefits has been providing access to Addiction Treatment. It requires Insurance Companies to cover Substance Abuse treatment. And they could stop if the law were struck down. The Biggest Group able to get access to Addiction Treatment under the law are adults who have gained medicaid coverage. The Kaiser Family foundation estimated that 40 of people from 18 to 25 with opioid addiction, roughly 800,000, are on medicaid, many or most of whom became eligible for it through the health law. Kaiser also found that in 2016, americans with medicaid coverage were twice as likely as those with no insurance to receive any treatment for addiction. States with expanded medicaid are pending much more on medications that treat opioid addiction than they used to. From 2013 to 2017, medicaid spending on prescriptions for two medications that treat opioid addiction more than doubled. They reached 887 million, up from 338 million in 2015, according to the urban institute. The growing insured population in many states have also grown more treatment providers, including methadone clinics, primary care doctors who prescribe to other anticraving medications. Ibuprofen and niotrexode. These significant expansions of addiction care could link if the struck down. 165 million americans who no longer face caps on expensive treatments. The law protects Many Americans from caps that ensures that employers insurers and employers once used to limit how much they have to pay and coverage each year or over a lifetime. Among them are those who get coverage through an employer. More than 150 million before the pandemic caused widespread job loss, as well as roughly 15 million enrolled in obamacare and other plans in the insurance market. For the a. C. A. , people with conditions like cancer or hemophilia that were very expensive to treat often faced enormous outofpocket costs once their medical bills reached these caps. While not all Health Coverage was capped, most companies had some sort of limit in place in 2009. In 2017, brookings analysis estimated that 109 Million People would face lifetime limits on their coverage without the health law. Some companies are saying they would cover no more than 1 million in medical bills per employee. The vast majority of people never hit those limits, but some who did were forced into bankruptcy or went without treatment. 60 Million Medicare beneficiaries would face changes to medical care and possibly higher premiums. About 600 million about 60 Million People are covered under medicare, the federal Health Insurance program for people over 65. And older. And people of all ages with disabilities. Even though the main aim of the a. C. A. Was to overhaul the Health Insurance market, the law, quote, touches virtually every part of medicare, end of quote, patricia newman, a senior Vice President for the Kaiser Family foundation which did an analysis of the laws repeal. Overturning the law would be, quote, very disruptive, she, end of quote said. If the a. C. A. Is struck down, Medicare Beneficiaries would have to pay more for Preventative Care like a wellness visit or diabetes check which are now free. They would also have to pay more toward Prescription Drugs. About five Million People face the socalled medicare doughnut hole or coverage gap. In 2016, which the a. C. A. Sought to eliminate. If the law were overturned, that coverage gap would widen again. The law also makes other changes like cutting the amount the federal government paid hospitals and other providers as well as private Medicare Advantage plans. Undoing the cuts would increase the programs overall costs by hundreds of billions of dollars, according to misnewman, premiums under the program could go up as a result. The a. C. A. Was also responsible for promoting experiments into new ways of paying hospitals and doctors creating vehicles like the Care Organizations to help doctors, hospitals, and others to better coordinate patient care. If the groups save medicare money on the care they provide, they get to keep some of those savings. About 11 Million People are now enrolled in these medicare programs, and its unclear what would happen to these experiments if the law were deemed unconstitutional. Some of mr. Trumps initiatives like the efforts to lower drug prices would also be hindered without the federal authority established under the a. C. A. Repealing the law would also eliminate a. 9 history of the payroll tax for high earners which would mean less money coming into the Medicare Trust fund. The fund is already heading towards insolvency, partly because of the taxes created by the law that have provided revenue for the fund have already been repealed in 2024. Two million young adults with coverage through their parents plan. The a. C. A. Required employers to cover their employees children under the age of 26, and it is one of the laws most popular provisions. Roughly two million young adults are covered under their parents Insurance Plan, according to a 2016 government estimate. The law was truck down, employers would have to decide if they would continue to offer the coverage. Dorian smith, a partner at mercer, a benefits consulting firm, predicted that Many Companies would most likely continue. 50 billion medical care for the uninsured could cost billions more. Doctors and hospitals could lose a crucial source of revenue as more people lose insurance during an economic downturn. The urban institute estimated that nationwide without the a. C. A. , the cost of care for people who cannot pay for it could increase as much as 50. 2 billion. Hospitals and other medical providers, many of whom are already struggling financially because of the pandemic, would incur losses, as many now have higher revenues and reduced costs for uncompensated care in states that expanded medicaid. A study in 2017 pie the Commonwealth Fund found that for every dollar of uncompensated care across those dates in 2013, the health law had erased 40 cents by 2015 for a total of 6. 2 billion. The Health Insurance industry would be upended by the elimination of a. C. A. Requirements. Insurers in many markets could deny coverage or charge higher premiums to people with preexisting conditions. And they could charge women higher rates. States could still regulate insurance but consumers would see more variation from state to state. Insurers would also probably see lower revenues and fewer members in plans to operate in the individual market and for stayed Medicaid Programs at a time when millions of people are losing their jobbased coverage. 1,000 calories, many labels are among dozens of law provisions that are less well known. The a. C. A. Requires nutrition labeling and calorie counties on menu chains at restaurants. It requires employers to provide reasonable break time. It creates a pathway for federal approval of biosimilars which are near copies of biologic drugs made from living cells. These and other measures would have no legal mandate to continue if the a. C. A. Is eliminated. The a. C. A. Has made significant progress in the ability to expand womens access to health care. Pushing for its repeal means putting that progress and womens futures at risk. I would like to read an article by jamil fields alsbrook from the center for American Progress entitled repealing the a. C. A. During the coronavirus pandemic would be devastating for Womens Health and Economic Security. It reads the Affordable Care act, a. C. A. , has been one of the most significant advances for Womens Health and Economic Security in a generation. The law expanded coverage to millions of uninsured people through Financial Assistance and public insurance and also improved the quality of existing coverage, including by expanding access to reproductive and Maternal Health services and by prohibiting discrimination against women and people with preexisting conditions. Yet its fate remains uncertain. On november 10, the u. S. Supreme court will hear oral arguments in california versus texas, a case that will determine the constitutionality of the a. C. A. Specifically, the high court will determine whether the individual mandates unconstitutional and whether the remainder of the law is inseverable from that provision. Especially with justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgs recent passing, the benefits and Consumer Protections that women have gained and come to rely on could swiftly be eliminated. In short, if the a. C. A. Is repealed, coverage for more than 20 Million People and the significant benefits of the Consumer Protections that have been gained under that law are at stake. Compounding this issue, the a. C. A. Repeal would come at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and resultant economic crisis have already burdened women. For instance, the unprecedented job losses have resulted in the loss of Insurance Coverage, barriers to maternal and Reproductive Health care have been erected. The providers women rely on who were already underfunded have been stretched to capacity and Health Disparities that have historically burdened black and latina women have been exacerbated and compounded. Repealing the a. C. A. During the pandemic would no doubt cost women, especially women of color, women with disabilities, women with low incomes and young women. First, repealing the a. C. A. Would reduce access to treatments and vaccines during the pandemic and allow covid19 survivors to be discriminated against in the insurance market, thus lengthening the time that the crisis will likely affect women and their families. Second, the economic crisis has already harmed women the most. In eliminating coverage and allowing gender rating and coverage caps would shift additional costs on to women. Lastly, existing barriers to maternal and Reproductive Health services, both those created during and before the pandemic would likely be exacerbated. One, repealing the a. C. A. Would prolong and worsen the effects of the pandemic for women and their families. While the repeal of the a. C. A. Would be chaotic and devastating, even in typical times, the current pandemic would only magnify its effects. Without coverage, women would experience barriers to covid19 treatments and a vaccine which could prolong the effects of the pandemic. These barriers would be most devastating, however for women of color given Health Inequities associated with covid19. Compared with white, nonhispanic people, black people are 2. 6 times more likely to contract the virus, 4. 7 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 2. 1 times more likely to die from the disease. Similarly, American Indian and alaska native people contract the virus at 2. 8 times the rate, are hospitalized at 5. 3 times the rate, and die at 1. 4 times the rate of white nonhispanic people. And latinx people are 2. 8 times more likely to contract the virus, 4. 6 times more likely to be hospitalized and 1. 1 times more likely to die from covid19 than nonwhite hispanic people. Even worse, if the a. C. A. Is repealed, covid19 survivors can be discriminated against from seeking Insurance Coverage. Without a. C. A. Protections, insurers in the individual market could once again charge enrollees more or deny them coverage if they have a preexisting condition. This could affect more than seven million americans who have been infected with covid19 as it could be deemed a preexisting condition. Even before the pandemic, a center for American Progress analysis found that nearly 68 million women, more than half of girls and nonelderly women in the country, had a preexisting condition. If the insurers are able to make the determination as to whether a person has a preexisting condition, conditions ranging from hivaids to Breast Cancer to the nearly six million annual pregnancies could again be included in this category. And importantly, black latinx, American Indian and alaska native people have higher rates of covid19 as well as certain chronic conditions such as Cervical Cancer, diabetes. Eliminating coverage and protections for people with preexisting conditions would harm these communities the most. Two, womens Financial Security would be threatened by an a. C. A. Repeal. Women have lost the majority of jobs since the start of the pandemic. In fact, multiple studies have pointed to the fact that the recession is tougher on women than men. One u. S. Bureau of labor statistics analysis explains that unlike past recessions, the Coronavirus Crisis has battered Industry Sectors in which womens employment is more concentrated. Restaurants and other retail establishments, hospitality and health care. Additionally, School Closures have forced women who are more likely to be primary caregivers for Young Children or sick Family Members to reduce hours or leave their jobs which can also result in coverage loss. In particular, black and latina mothers are more likely than white mothers to be the sole or primary breadwinners of their households, so they will be hit hardest by these additional financial burdens. Before the pandemic, there was already a wide gap between women and men, a gap that is exacerbated by race and ethnicity, given that black latinx and American Indian native populations experience poverty rates that are significantly higher than those of Nonhispanic White populations. Perhaps as a result, women were already more likely than men to forgo or delay accessing recommended care due to costs. Yet given the pandemic, losing the Financial Security afforded by having Insurance Coverage would be even more devastating for women. The a. C. A. Provided Financial Assistance for private Insurance Coverage in expanding enrollment in the Medicaid Program which resulted in the uninsurance rate reaching a historic low. As a result, the uninsurance rate among women declined by nearly half from 2010 to 2016. An a. C. A. Repeal would merely undermine the safety net programs when people need them the most. Women compromise 58 of medicaid enrollees, according to the 2018 data, and Medicaid Expansion resulted in a 13 decrease in the uninsurance rate of young women of reproductive age, 19 to 44 years old, low income. In particular, medicaid no and Lowcost Services afford necessary and Preventative Health care access to people with low incomes. A disproportionate number of women a disproportionate number of whom are women of color due to systemic racism, sexism, and poverty. In 2013 to 2018, due to the a. C. A. s coverage expansions, fewer black women and latinas reported delaying care as a result of costs. Narrowing the disparity between white women and women of color. Women who maintain access to Insurance Coverage could also face increased costs. The a. C. A. s prohibition on gender rating is repealed, insurers could once again charge women more for coverage in the individual and small group parkts, simply for being women, reinstating a practice that collectively caused women 1 billion more than men each year. Additionally, the a. C. A. Created the race law which eliminates the health care on the basis of sex, age, heritage. This was the first time it was applied broadly to health care. Lastly, if the Health Care Law is repealed, women with chronic conditions such as h. I. V. And cancer could be subject to annual lifetime limits, a practice prohibited under the a. C. A. That allowed insurers to require plan enrollees pay out of pocket for all services after they reach certain dollar thresholds. These increased costs could easily price many women out of insurance in the middle of a Public Health crisis. The a. C. A. Has also been associated with improving job opportunities. The majority of people in the United States Access Health coverage through their employer, yet by improving access to coverage that is not job based, the a. C. A. Has afforded people the ability to leave or switch jobs with assurance that they wont lose the coverage. Moreover, the a. C. A. Created at least 240,000 jobs in the Health Care Industry from 2014 to 2016, and women comprised the majority of health care workers. The chaos that would result from repealing the a. C. A. Would be felt particularly acutely by these employed in these jobs. Three, repealing the a. C. A. Would exacerbate existing barriers to Reproductive Maternal Health care services. According to the centers for Disease Control and prevention, pregnant people with covid19 have higher rates of hospitalization, admission to the intensive care unit and mechanical ventilation, and alarmingly, black pregnant women are disproportionately contracting covid19. Subsequently, there are concerns that the pandemic will exacerbate existing Health Inequities that have led to black as well as American Indian or alaska native women dying from pregnancy related complications at about three times the rate of nonhispanic women. Repeal of the a. C. A. In its entirety would result in reduced access to pre and postnatal care for as many as 13 Million People in the individual market because the individual and Small Group Health plans would no longer be required to cover certain basic Health Care Services known as essential Health Benefits. Including maternity and newborn care. Eliminating the expanded Medicaid Eligibility created under the a. C. A. Could also worsen the crisis given that Medicaid Expansion is associated with lower rates of maternal and infant mortality and covers 50 of births in the United States. Moreover, due to the many unknowns that remain regarding how covid19 affects pregnant people, some individuals may want to delay or forgo pregnancy , necessitating access to comprehensive Reproductive Health services. The a. C. A. Requires most plans to cover Birth Control with no outofpocket costs. As a result, women have saved more than 1. 4 billion a year in outofpocket costs op Birth Control pills. According to data from the National Womens law center, 61. 4 million women currently have access to Birth Control as well as other Preventative Services such as wellknown such as well women visits with no outofpocket costs, thanks to the a. C. A. Without requirements for those services to be covered, women would be forced to pay out of pocket or forgo care they could not afford to. Illustratively, without Insurance Coverage, Birth Control pills would cost a woman up to 600 per year. An intrauterine device could cost up to 1,000 out of pocket. Additionally, the pandemic has erected barriers that make it harder for women to access necessary Preventative Care, both as a result of job losses and barriers to accessing care during the pandemic. As a result, women have already delayed care in recent months. A repeal of the a. C. A. Would only lead to further delays given that plans would no longer be required to cover preventative screening, mental and Substance Abuse services, rehabilitative services, and a host of other services. President donald trump and his conservative allies in the senate are not only forgoing the responsibility to address the dueling economic and health crises, they are also rushing to install a new conservative justice of the Supreme Court who would tilt its balance in favor of striking down the a. C. A. With november oral arguments quickly approaching, this has increased the risk that the Health Care Law will be repealed given the Health Benefits protections against discrimination or Financial Security the a. C. A. Affords women, destroying that law would be immeasurably harmful to women at any time, but repealing the law in the midst of a Global Pandemic that has infected millions of americans and killed more than 200,000 people in the United States, would result in even more chaos and devastation. One of the newest groups of people with preexisting conditions who are worried about losing or being able to afford coverage are the covid long haulers. Id like to read this article from pew state line written by michael olav entitled covid19 long haulers worry about coverage costs. It reads andereas surisa has been through three gastroenteriologists already and is now moving on to her fourth. She has seen an Infectious Disease specialist, a hematologist, cardiologist, ear nose and throat specialist and psychiatrist. She has seen an Infectious Disease specialist, cardiologist. She had an appointment coming up with a neuropsychologist and another one with a neurologist. She has had an end owescopy, a colonoscopy, an e. T. Scan, brain m. R. I. And so many blood tests. She said i feel like a human pin cushion. She was planning a trip soon to an acupuncturist and has a referral for occupational therapy. Sirisa, a resident of blanchewood, new jersey, relayed this medical litany on day 164 of her covid19 ordeal. So far she said nothing much has helped. Before covid19, sirisa was a healthy, active 46yearold. She managed a dental office by day and sang professionally by night, a woman whoen overdose yoga and jumped on a waverunner any chance she got. Now beset by a multitude of unshakable symptoms, she said covid19 has transformed her into a shell of what she was. All parts of her body were in rebellion, she has diarrhea, piercing headache, numbness in her limbs, blurry vision, wringing in ringing in her ears and a loss of hearing. An insurmountable deficit for a physician. She gets a rash on her face. Finds light and sun painful on her eyes and sudden will i finds herself feeling uncomfortably cold for no reason. On top of all that, is an alarming brain fog. Quote, at some point in the conversation, she warned, i might lose my train of thought or forget words. When this will end if it will end, none of these doctors and specialists can tell her nor can anyone else, not at the federal centers for Disease Control and prevention, National Institutes of health or any other major health organization. As a result, teresa has no idea what life holds for her. Socalled long haulers like teresa pose policy questions that have yet to command much public attention. By day becomes more pressing for those with lingering problems. Unable to work, will they have access to Health Insurance, especially if the Trump Administration succeeds in overturning the Affordable Care act . Will medicaid be available to them . Will the federal government invest in research and treatments . Will they be eligible for disability benefits . Advocates say its essential to begin grappling with these questions now as it becomes increasingly clear that for many being ill with covid19 is not a transtoar experience. As time goes on and our infection rates go up, the fallout is that an extraordinary large number of people who were previously healthy working and engaged in the economy will now become shadows of their former selves, said diana barrett, survivor of founder corps connecting those affected by cofd. Barrett says it has 100,000 members. Peep are aging decades in the course of months who are still experiencing months after her positive test. People in their 20s are suffering heart attacks and strokes months after their moderate or even mild covid experiences. More attention needs to be paid to those with persistence serious covid19 symptoms said dr. Ameasure, dr. Amesh adalia, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for health security. Quote, in this pandemic so far, we fought mainly about the metrics and deaths and hospitalizations. Now we must think about people with long haul symptoms. How this affects society as a whole, what happens if people dont go back to their former level of activity for her part she mass no idea when or if shell be able to return to work. She lost her employersponsored health care and recently got an obamacare policy but with uncertainty hanging over the a. C. A. , she worries how long shell have it. Mr. President , i submit the rest of this article for submission. The presiding officer without objection. The senator from nebraska. Mr. Sasse thank you, mr. President. Senators that worked have worked through the weekend and the clock is winding down later today. Tonight after final confirmation vote, judge Amy Coney Barrett is going to become justice Amy Coney Barrett. For those of us advocating for her in my case its been since the summer 2017 that is welcome news. Shes an unbarrel lelled unapparel yelled nominee. None of the baseless allegations that have been leveled against judge barrett have swayed any votes. Democrats didnt lay a glove on judge barrett at her confirmation hearings and i think she ran circles around career politicians who want to outsource more law making to unelected judges. Some folks are upset about that. Even though many of my male colleagues on the Judiciary Committee also complimented the Judiciary Committee chairman on a very wellrun hearing, tragically the nrlt leader minority leader seems he has decided to make Dianne Feinstein a scapegoat for the unforgivable sin of being unwilling to turn more of judge barretts hearings into another Michael Avenatti clown show. I think thats just a painful moment in this institutions history and it speaks volumes about how low some people are willing to sink in response to outside activists who would like to see bare knuckle politics be the only thing that happens in the senate. Judge barretts opponents know that they dont have the votes. They know that they dont actually have public support. Theyve seen the polling rise steadily week after week after week over the last month as the American Public has gotten to joe nudge barrett better and judge barrett better and they are more comfortable with her and less and less open to some of the sort of hyperbolic rhetoric weve seen leveled against her. This is my fourth consecutive hour on the floor this morning. Ive heard a series of speeches. One of the things thats obvious is that there are a whole bunch of phrases that were written up. I dont know who wrote them up. I dont know how this process happens but speech after speech after speech uses really similar phrasing to try to alarm and disturb and unsettle the American People. I think the cynicism is just really tragic. Ive heard now i think four speeches in a row implying that when judge barrett becomes Justice Barrett later tonight, that obviously means the end of health care in america. The last speech actually included this phrase. A vote for amy barrett is a vote to end health care. The speech said a vote for Amy Coney Barrett is a vote to end health care. That isnt just pe preposterous just preposterous, its so destructive of the public good and public trust of i dont want this body to continue its decline. But i hope that next april, may, or june when the Supreme Court rules and when obamacare doesnt die as no expert thinks this case is actually going to do, theres nobody no Court Watchers who really believe that the Supreme Court is going to end obamacare this year. Severability is a pretty important legal concept that those of us who serve as Public Servants for a time should be helping the American People understand. And yet nobody on the other side of the aisle is talking about severability even though everybody watching the court case knows that even if the opponents of obamacare prevail in this case, that severability is what everyone expects will actually happen. And yet we hear again and again and again this rhetoric just motivated by the cynical desire to get people to vote out of fear and panic in the november elections. Nobody really believes this stuff. And so i hope the democrats that are making these speeches staying here all night to say ben and again things like a vote for Amy Coney Barrett is a vote to end health care, please have the courage to come back next april, may, and june and say you lied to the American People. You were just trying to scare them into voting and say what you were saying was b. S. Whoever wries these outside talking points, its really destructive and the senators know better than to parrot this pap. Theyre out of agruments but not out of sound bites. One of the things thats true in American Life, even with freedom of speech, even if your sound is nonsense you have a right to be wrong and a right to say it. Being well be here all day, its all over but the shouting. It seems we dont have to play the same speeches on repeat over and over again. We can actually do two things and i think we should spend a little bit of time on how we got here and where we go next. First we should explicitly name the senates most valuable player. As somebody who is a Junior Member of this body, i dont want to cross mitch, the gentleman from kentucky but the truth of the matter is the senator most responsible for the proceedings we have happening on the floor today is not from kentucky. The senator most responsible for the fact that Amy Coney Barrett is going to be confirmed tonight, the senator most response for the confirmations of neil gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh is the former democratic leader from nevada, senator harry reid. Senator reid blue up the filibuster for jew official appointments in november 2013 and the rest of how we got here is just a footnote on that history. Leader mcconnell walked through some of this history on friday and saturday, how at every turn from robert bork to Brett Kavanaugh, many progressives have in an effort to try to secure policy outcomes in the Supreme Court been escalating the confirmation wars. I wont repeat all of that history from friday and saturday here. But when harry reid went nuclear, he sent the senate on a path to this day. So here we are with more than 200 federal judges confirmed in the last four years, again ive been on the floor for the last four hours so ive heard multiple people l lament the pae of judicial confirmations on the floor. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Whether you have hate mail or love letters, your destination address should be las vegas, nevada. Theres simply no equivalent or comparable event in the confirmation wars since they were created with robert bork. No comparable event with november 2013 when mar r harry reid when harry reid decided to make this pejoratarian on confirmations. Where do we go next . Its no secret that some of my colleagues on the left are itching to blow up the legislative filibuster. Its a slightly better kept secret that a whole bunch of senators think its a good idea but fair of activist groups who decided to go after Dianne Feinstein as sort of a trial run to show what would happen to people who resist to turn the senate into a per major torian body. But i want to complement those folks who started to talk openly about their desire to blow up the filibuster for legislative process as well around here. I think it would be a very destructive thing to do but i appreciate the people who are at least talking about it explicitly. Ive been fighting about some of this with my friend chris coons. He is now open to blowing up the legislative filibuster, even though he was the leader of the Senate Letter in i think it was january of 2017 in defense of the filibuster. The position he had then when there was a new administration of a Different Party is the position that i had then and its still the position that i have now and regardless of what party holds power around here, in 2021 or 2025, im still going to be defending the senate as a body that actually tries to have a deliberative process. I think my friend chris is wrong about being open to blowing up the legislative filibuster but i dont think hes wrong because hes a democrat. I think a whole bunch of republicans were wrong about this issue in january 2017. I fought with them as well. I got lots of angry calls and texts from republican members of the house of representatives in early 2017 for defending the legislation tiff filibuster legislative filibuster because the house and senate are supposed to be different kinds of bodies. We have different purposes. And so my argument to democrats now or in january is the same as the argument i made to republicans in january of 2017 and that is that blowing up the filibuster would be to functionally kill the senate. It would dramatically change not just this institution but the structure of governance in our republic. Because without the filibuster, the Senate Becomes just another we have one of those. Called the house of representatives. The house and senate are supposed to have different complimentary functions. If we kill the filibuster in the senate, we will have simply 5149 votes radically changing the direction of the country. We would see governance swings on a pendulum where big chunks of American Life could be rewritten every two years with simple 5149 or 4951 majority changes and therefore new majority votes. We would become more like a parliamentary european system. Its a system that has some virtues but we dont have that system and our founders didnt pick that system on purpose. In an age of declining trust and increasing cynicism, the answer is surely not more instability. This would deplete, not replenish our declining reservoirs of public trust. Killing the deliberative structure of the senate would accelerate congress ongoing slow and bipartisan suicide where fewer and fewer decisions are made by the peoples elected representatives and more and more decisions would be made by an unelected bureaucracy that the people back home that we represent in nebraska or new york or rhode island or virginia, the speeches that ive been hearing this morning, where those folks dont have any power to hire or fire people that work in the Administrative State and accountability of governance to the people means that we want the elected representatives to be making most of those decisions, not the unelectable bureaucracy, even though lots of those people are well meaning Public Servants. Th senators like joe manchin, jon tester, kirsten cinema would see diminished influence as the people of west virginia, montana, and arizona not increasingly sidelined for even more representation of new york and california. Some of my colleagues apparently want to finish the work that senator reed began, that this would be to double down on the division, the cynicism, and the partisanship, and they would pretend that that is a day they would never regret, but i think it would be really useful for more of the folks who are thinking now about whether they are either in favor of ending the legislative filibuster or whether they are too scared to stand up to the activist groups that are demanding they end the legislative filibuster. It would be useful for a lot more of them to go on the record with the things they say to me in private about their regrets about november of 2013. Ive only been here since january of 2015, and i have had either seven or eight different democrats currently serving in this body tell me how much they regret the vote that they took at harry reids urging in 2013 to end the filibuster for confirmations to the judiciary. And i understand that a junior republican senator from nebraska doesnt have a lot of sway in the democratic conference, but maybe they would listen to the quote of a different, more influential senator. The quote is this if the right of free and open debate is taken away from the Minority Party and the millions of americans who ask us to be their voice, then i fear that the partisan atmosphere in washington will be poison to tht where no one will be able to agree on anything. That does not serve anybodys best interests, and it certainly is not what the patriots who founded this democracy had in mind. We owe the people who sent us here much better than that. We owe them much, much more. Again, im going to repeat the quote. If the right of free and open debate is taken away from the Minority Party and the millions of americans who ask us to be their vote, then i fear the partisan atmosphere in washington will be poisoned to the point where no one will be able to agree on anything. That does not serve anybodys interests, and it certainly is not what the patriots who founded this democracy had in mind. We owe the people who sent us here more than that. We owe them much, much more, close quote. That quote was from the junior senator from illinois in 2005, senator barack obama, speaking passionately to this body about why it was different, why it is different, and why we have a stewardship obligation to defend the deliberative structure of the senate. Senator, thenpresident obama, was right then, he is right now, and i fear that he will sadly be right in the future if partisan tribalists decide to blow up the senate and pack the Supreme Court. The debate over Amy Coney Barrett is over. We will be voting soon. But in the coming months, the debate for a critical piece of american governance will start. And i beg my colleagues to heed senator obamas advice. Protect americas structure of three branches of government. You lost this vote, but please dont burn down this institution. Again, you lost this vote under the rules that harry reid created in 2013. Please dont burn down this institution. Thank you, mr. President. Mr. Whitehouse mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from rhode island. Mr. Whitehouse good morning to you and cspan watchers everywhere. Were here in part because of a Supreme Court nomination, but were here also because of a Supreme Court process that has turned foul in a considerable number of ways, and id like to spend the time that i have with you this morning walking through some of the history that got us there. With respect to the nowstandard republican talking points that the only reason that were here today in this partisan wrangle is because of harry reid, i would submit that the spectacle of procedural wreckage that surrounds all three of the last Supreme Court nominees completely belies any suggestion that senator mcconnell would have respected the filibuster of a Supreme Court judge. They have broken essentially every rule that got in their way. It didnt matter what it was. Over and over again. And the idea that they would break every rule but that one simply makes no sense. So i can see that its sort of a cute and clever argument to go back and point out that harry reid broke the effort to stone wall all of president obamas appointees to the d. C. Circuit court, which was going on at the time, but the rest of the wreckage belies that this would have been protected by leader mcconnell and the mad headlong rush to load up the Supreme Court with nominees who have been through this very, very peculiar Supreme Court process. And to those who wonder why it is that we talk a lot about health care in the context of this nominee, look no further than the Republican Party platform that my colleagues supported which says that republican president s will appoint judges to reverse the obamacare cases. That is the language from from their own party platform. So expect some skepticism about the sincerity of republican expressions that they are shocked, shocked that we would try to tie the fate of the Affordable Care act to this nominee when they have put that in their party platform. One of the unpleasant aspects of the process that i am about to describe has been that the handoff to special interests of control over who gets appointed to the Supreme Court means that there is an audience for auditioning and over and over again, we have seen judges audition to that audience in order to get on to that allimportant Federalist Society list, or in the case of judge kavanaugh excuse me to get escorted by leonard lee owe, the operative of that operation right around the list and onto its very top. Nobody auditioned like Brett Kavanaugh. Judge barrett made her own effort, and that was to make it very publicly clear that she disagreed with justice roberts, the swing vote who protected obamacare, and that mattered because the outrage and the right wing that their Supreme Court, that they thought they had claimed actually made one decision against their political interests. A sense of betrayal by justice roberts. That was very acute, and it was into that environment that judge barrett added her unsolicited opinion, just threw it out there that roberts was wrong, that the dissent had it right, and obviously that allows us, in fact requires us to draw the logical conclusion that when she is the swing vote, shes going to go with the minority. So she telegraphed how she would rule on this matter. She became the nominee that was on the Republican Party platform that she should reverse the obamacare cases. How are we not supposed to notice this when you say this in all caps . So please, lets not pretend that we are making up a connection between this appointment and the persistent republican attack on our present health care system. So the first thing that you have to understand in looking at the republican judicial selection process, is that were now looking at three. Were now looking at three nominees that have come through this process. It began when i was in munich on a trip with senator mccain and judiciary chairman graham. He wasnt the chairman then, i dont believe, but we had gone to the Munich Security Conference together, and word came in fact, i believe senator barrasso was there as well, who is now presiding. Word came that Justice Scalia had died on a hunting vacation, and that there was a vacancy, and it became quickly evident that Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the d. C. Circuit court of appeals, a very widely respected judge, someone about whom republican members of the senate Judiciary Committee had said very good things in the past, presumably a consensus nominee, was likely to be the nominee of president obama. A man who very often tried for consensus and very often was spurned. In this case, it did not take long for someone to decide that that was not going to happen, and indeed that no obama nominee was going to be brought forward. It happened quickly, but not so quickly that a few members of the senate said that they would of course meet with the nominee. That would be standard practice. Of course they would. But in the event, my recollection is that no one did, no republican senator did. And that was a very sudden pivot by an entire body of people to go from normal process to something very knew and abnormal , and in my experience, when a whole lot of people all pivot together to go from what is normal to something that is new and abnormal, you look for a reason. If you see all the branches blowing in one direction on a tree, you may be indoors. You may not actually be able to feel the wind blowing. But when you see all the branches lean, you can draw the reasonable conclusion. In fact, you can draw perhaps the only reasonable conclusion that there is a wind blowing those branches. Which begs the question what was the wind blowing all those branches to so immediately step out of the norms of the senate . Not just one or two or ten, but as an entire caucus and pivot to its new abnormal response to a president ial nominee. To me, thats a sign. Thats a sign that Political Force is being applied. That a strong wind is blowing, and that all the branches have to lean in the same direction. And on we went through that process with very, very strong statements being made by judges about this null found minute that during an Election Year, you dont confirm Supreme Court justices. They invented that new principle highly convenient to that moment, and they described it as a principle. Here is senator daines in 2016. I dont think its right to bring a nominee forward in an Election Year. He put it in about the strongest moral terms that one could use. He used terms of principle. He used the distinction between right and wrong. I dont think its right to bring a nominee forward in an Election Year. Why . So that the peoples voice, the people who already gun voting have their voice reflected. So that was probably i dont know maybe eight months before the election. Here we are closer to eight days before the election and were going through this process. And theres been this extraordinarily abrupt reversal of that supposed principle from 2016. I dont think its right. If its not right, why are we doing it right now . Suddenly its right in 2020. And senator daines wasnt alone. Mitch mcconnell was the senate floor orchestrator of all of this. Of course, he said, of course the American People should have a say in the courts direction. Thats why we cant take up judge garland now because the American People should have their say months before the election. Here we are days before the election. Flipso changeo. What could that mean . Senator grassley, the American People shouldnt be denied a voice. That was then. This is now. Lindsey graham, hold the tape. Hold my words against me, the chairman said. If an opening here was his rule. If an opening comes in the last year of President Trumps term, well wait until the next election. Could you get clearer than that . If an opening comes in the last year of President Trumps term, well wait until the next election. Hold the tape. Ted cruz. You dont do this in an Election Year. So what does it signal when people take a stand assertedly on principle . That it wouldnt be right, steve daines. That you dont do this, ted cruz. That of course, of course the American People should have their say, Mitch Mcconnell and chuck grassley. What does it say when people take a stand on principle on one occasion and then on the very next occasion in the very next election at the first opportunity they completely reverse themselves on their supposed principle . Well, one possibility is that there has been a mini pandemic in the senate of hypocrisy, that somehow theres a little germ here and somebody brought hypocrisy into the republican caucus, and everybody caught it. And they feel an unhealthy desire to go out and violate principles that they espoused on the previous occasion. That doesnt seem very credible to me. What seems more credible is something is blowing the branches, that there is a force, a Political Force at work that causes republican senators to take a firm stand on principle albeit a novel one, a peculiar one, and unprecedented one, but in their words a firm stand on principle in the 2016 election and exactly in the very next case in the 2020 election, completely reversed that supposed principle. My experience in politics is that when you see people forced to engage in hypocrisy in broad daylight, look for power in the shadows. So we began with the garlan garlandgorsuch switch a radiarn you dont do this during an Election Year principle. Then we went on to judge kavanaugh and the narrative has developed on the republican side that judge kavanaugh was treated very unfairly. As if no witness came forward toe testify in the to testify in the senate Judiciary Committee that she had been assaulted by a young Brett Kavanaugh. I dont know what we were supposed to do with that information. Question were supposed to tell the good professor go away, we dont want to hear from you . Sorry, its a little late . The chance that a person headed for the Supreme Court might have committed Sexual Assault is something we dont take at all seriously, we dont want to get to the bottom of it, we dont want to know. This was a woman who was willing to come and testify in front of all of america, subject herself to the hostile questioning of a professional prosecutor hired by the republicans just for that occasion and she stuck to her guns and in my view was credible. To this day i still believe her. The nature of her testimony was very consistent with the testimony of Sexual Assault victims who have been through that kind of an ordeal. Do i know what happened . No. But she was a credible witness and she was willing to come into the senate Judiciary Committee and claim that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her. Of course we had to hear from her. Republicans want to blame democrats for that but seriously would you not have let her testify . Really . That does not seem very credib credible. So she came. She testified. She was credible. Despite the right wing having launched their flying monkeys at her in such very mens that she had to leave her house, hire a private security, go into hidi hiding, she nevertheless came. She nevertheless was credible. And all we asked for was an investigation to find out what had happened. Do our best to get to the bottom of it. It was going to be difficult because it happened years ago. But it would seem to me that we owed this institution and the Supreme Court our best effort. Did we get a best effort . No. We got a slipshod truncated decision that to this day the f. B. I. Refuses to answer questions about. Why . Why not give dr. Blasey ford, why not give the American People, why not give the Supreme Court a best effort from the f. B. I. To get to the bottom of whatever happened . There is every indication that the type line that the tip line that the f. B. I. Set up was never reviewed and followed up on. Ive been a prosecutor. Ive run the Attorney Generals Office in rhode island which is the lead prosecutive office for the state. Ive been the prosecutor for rhode island running prosecutions. The whole purpose of a tip line is to bring in evidence from the public, sort through it because every tip line has bonkers evidence in it, but you sort through the chaff to see if there is any wheat there, if theres anything that needs to be looked into. It does not appear that the f. B. I. Looked into anything that came in through the tip line. It looks like the tip line you can imagine the comments b box, it looks like they attached the comments box directly to the dumpster so that the tips went straight into the waste bin. I know of no tip that got followed up on. So once again why, why would the f. B. I. Allow itself to be associated with a truncated, incomplete investigation . Well, they said why. They said it was because they were not operating like an f. B. I. When they do. Theyre operating as the agent of the white house. They are operating at the white house bidding when they are doing these confirmation investigations. They dont behave like the f. B. I. Then and follow their procedures. They do as they are told. Thats a pretty strong clue. And once again a signal of powerful Political Forces at work to try to cram nominees even very troubled ones on to the Supreme Court. And then we come to judge barrett who had to be the subject of this massive flipso changeo of what was right for judicial nominees in an Election Year and innumerable minor broken rules along the way. As i said in all three of these recent nominations, there is a trail of procedural wreckage through the senate. I dont think my colleagues hate senate procedure. I dont think they get a form of malicious glee out of smashing senate procedure. When you see a lot of procedural wreckage in the senate, look for a motive. Look for a force. Look for a force. So three for three. Weve seen powerful signals of a motive force at work. And sure enough when you look at the process itself, you see some real peculiarit peculiarities. First of all, when these judges got selected, they had something in common. They all went through a process hosted at the Federalist Society and one by a person named leonard leo. The wall street journal Editorial Page Editor described this relationship as a subcontractor. The judicial selection got subcontracted out to this private organization and its operatives. Subcontracted out. The white House Counsel said this organization was insourced to the white house. Leonard lee owe was put on temporary leave from the Federalist Society, like thats a big deal, to supervise the process. Can we just stop for a minute and accept that it is weird that any private organization would be made the subcontractor for the selection of Supreme Court justices . I dont cold air if its the girl scouts of america. Its weird, and its wrong that a private organization should be the subcontractor for selecting judges. And it gets weirder and wronger when you see the big anonymous money pouring into that organization. The Washington Post took a pretty good, thorough look into this scheme, and they said that the whole scheme was 250 million worth of dark money. 250 million. They described it as a conservative activists behindthescenes campaign to remake the nations courts. On whose behalf, one wonders. But you dont know because the 250 million, the most of it is anonymous money. What we call around here dark money. So you have the last three nominees selected by a private organization secretively, which was also taking huge donations from anonymous donors. The whole scheme run up to 250 million, according to the Washington Post. Thats a pretty big deal. And if you cant see that that is a recipe for corruption, you are wearing blinders. Because the idea that a private organization becomes designated to pick whos on the Supreme Court and then takes big, anonymous donations is a prescription for disaster. But it does produce nominees, and at the end, you get your selection, one, two, three. Then those nominees get tv campaigns run for them. There is a big p. R. Effort, a political effort, and thats run by something called the Judicial Crisis Network, which had as its operative carrie severino. The Judicial Crisis Network gets boat loads of anonymous money also. So the same problem of a private organization, a Secretive Organization that takes boat loads of anonymous money having a central role in campaigning for these nominees. That is also abnormal. This is new. This is peculiar, and this is wrong, in my view. By the way, when that Washington Post article came out, leonard lee owe got blown like an agent in a covert operation, and to protect the Federalist Society, he had to jump out, go do Something Else, so he went out to go do dark moneyfunded voter suppression. And guess who jumped into his role for judge barrett . Well, well, well, none other than miss severino. The Judicial Crisis Networks offices are next to the federal societys offices. Same building, same floor. And how big is the money . Well, heres a little filing from the Judicial Crisis Network. From i. R. S. Form 990. Look at this. A contribution for for 17. 9 million. 17. 9 million. Do we know who gave them 17. 9 million to put on tv ads for a judicial nominee that had been selected by the Dark Money Group behind the Federalist Society . We do not. We to not. But somebody wrote a 17 million check to support a p. R. Campaign for Supreme Court nominee. How do we know they didnt have business before the Supreme Court . How do we know that when they are anonymous . And by the way, they did it again. Somebody gave 17 million to push off garland and help gorsuch, and then another 17 millionplus came in for the troubled kavanaugh nomination. Do we know that its not the same donor . No, we dont. It could be the same donor, in which case somebody gave 35 million anonymously to influence the makeup of our United States Supreme Court. And they may have business before the court. Theres a case called the caperton case in which the Supreme Court said you had a due process right not to have judges who had big money spent on their behalf to get the office rule in your case. This looks like a caperton problem. 35 million spent by conceivably one donor who may very well have business before the court. Why would you do this . Why would you do this . Why would you ever allow judicial nominees to be selected this way, funded by dark money anonymously, controlled by private, Secretive Organizations why would you do that . Why is that acceptable at all. I submit that were the shoe on the other foot, the other side would have its hair on fire about such a performance. The fact that this seems okay is yet another indication of the branches blowing in the wind here. Because it is not okay by any objective or reasonable standard. The only thing that makes this okay is if that Political Force makes this okay in the same way they made it okay to reverse the 2016 principle on the very next occasion in 2020. When you see hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows. And it doesnt end once the judges are selected and once the judges have their campaigns paid for by 17 million check writers when they are on the court, guess who shows up in orchestrateed choruses . Groups funded by dark money. In some cases, they are the litigating lawyer group. In some cases, they come on afterwards as what are called friends of the court. Ameek ee curiae amici curiae, friends of the court. We had one case that i looked at about the Consumer Financial protection board. It turned out that a whole bunch of amici showed up, amici curiae, friends of the court, a whole bunch of them. So i did this graphic in my brief that i filed. And it showed one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11 briefs filed in that case by nominally separate groups, all funded by the same organization. Donors trust. Eight out of 11 funded by the bradley foundation. And more overlapping donors throughout. This was just my work. The center for media democracy went back and did an even more thorough drilldown and came to even more astonishing conclusions about the overlap between the funding of these groups showing up and these orchestrateed choruses. By the way, they dont tell the court that they are all funded by the same groups. They dont tell the other parties that they are all funded by the same groups. Theres actually a disclosure in the briefing rule that says youre supposed to disclose who paid for your briefing. They use that to mean who paid for the printing of the brief. So you can take a milliondollar contribution from somebody or who knows, 17 million contribution from somebody, an then pay a couple of thousand bucks to yourself to have the brief published and disclose nothing to the court, nothing to the parties about whos really behind these phony baloney, trumpedup front Group Friends of the court. But they do provide an educating chorus for the judges and tell them how to rule. And by the way, the center for media democracy showed that not only is the funding going to be these groups, but the same funding is going over there to the Federalist Society to support this judicial selection operation. And from judicial crisis work, you have the interchangeable leonard lee owe and carrie severino. This looks like a single scheme. A single scheme through which a small group of very secretive big money donors, donors capable of writing a 17 million check to help influence whos on the Supreme Court get together and control the selection of Supreme Court justices, fund the p. R. Campaigns and the tv advertisements for those Supreme Court justices, and then show up through front groups to pitch the justices on what they want from them. That is about as unhealthy a situation for a court as one could have. Again, were like the frog the alleged frog in the pot. Its gotten worse and worse. It has stunk more and more. But it happened kind of gradually, and we have for some reason acted as if this is somehow normal. There is nothing normal about this. As a lawyer, i spent a good deal of my life in Appellate Courts. I have argued in the United States Supreme Court. I have argued in several circuit courts of appeal. I have argued over and over again before our state Supreme Court. To the extent that i had a specialty, it was appellate law. As the governors Legal Counsel in rhode island, i was involved in picking judges for the state courts. On the Judiciary Committee, i have been involved in picking judges for the federal courts. Folks, this is weird, this is not right. Nobody behaves this way. Nobody farms out the selection of judges to