in this direction, it will have consequences of the federal legislation beyond the a.c.a. as a result, congress' authority to robustly address climate change, civil rights, new technology, and other national challenges through legislation could be stymied or diminished over time. and with judge barrett's fascination with the exact meaning of the original writers of the constitution, i wonder what their thoughts were about nuclear energy, satellites in space, our u.s. air force which was not specifically authorized in the constitution. i think we'll find ourselves in a very difficult position where when we face the chal longs of climate change -- challenges of climate change, cyber warfare, that a court that looks back

will not grant congress the authority to protect the american people. also limiting the authority of the federal government, a 6-3 conservative majority could take on a more aggressive judicial view of agency actions. several members of the supreme court have already called for the reconsideration of the chevron decision. this is legal doctrine that instructs the federal judiciary to refer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statute that it administers. if the supreme court overturns the chevron deference, it could strike down agency rules that do not comport with the court's interpretation of the statute. this could make toothless environmental, food and drug safety, labor, and a host of other regulations enacted for the benefit of the workers and consumers. it would also shift the court's decision in favor of the corporate and special interests that tend to challenge these

agency regulations in the first place. and one of the reasons that the agencies were i have goin' the authority to -- were given the authority to implement our laws -- given by congress the agencies was expertise, an expertise that most cases far exceeds that of the united states supreme court. now, i intend to vote against the nomination of judge amy coney barrett to be an associate justice of the united states supreme court because i am convinced that she will not guard core constitutional principles, that she will not interpret the law to protect the rights of the vulnerable, and that she will read the law with a backward looking perspective not consistent with the realities of our time and the growing dangers we face in the future. and as my republican colleagues accelerate this nomination at a breakneck pace, it speaks to the deeply misplaced priorities of this body. we simply should not be

undertaking a supreme court nomination at this time, especially when it should rightfully take place during the next presidential term, after the voters that made their decision. the senate's foremost priority right now should be to provide adimmer pandemic relief -- additional pandemic relief. my colleagues have displayed a profound lack of urgency to address the many challenges americans face due to the pandemic. this is despite the repeated warnings from public health experts and economists about what will happen if we do not enact additional fiscal aid. my republican colleagues continue to turn a blind eye, even as covid-19 cases spike, businesses close, unemployment businesses close, unemployment >> and just because you can do

something doesn't mean you are doing the right thing. and i urge them to reconsider. let's get to the business at hand addressing the great challenge that we face for the pandemic then we will fix the senate and then i yield the floor. >> i note the absence of

time. >> the clerk will call the role.of >>. >> the senator from colorado. >> i asked the crown call been officiated. >> i want to acknowledge their people out of their homes and out of their communities and their our first responders on the ground in colorado fighting these fighters one - - cease-fires bravely every single day because of our ability to deal with m climate

change with the snow that has fallen is more of a benefit than a curse so i think the president for recognizing me with this confirmation. >> it wasn't that long ago that the supreme court justice to learn about the system of checks and balances with the rule of law and in particular it whenever a confirmed justice with the

that's what he tells his colleagues he tells a story. the majority leader more than any other is the overwhelming bipartisan a big qualified nominee will be a totally partisan exercise that has

destroyed the responsibility to advise sent than it is now at risk of killing the credibility of the supreme court and the lower courts as well. may not matter to the senators on this floor but have not consented to their right to the independent judiciary to elected politicians. and in his confirmation proceeding and renounces duty to revise the consent by giving consent i think that

has ever happened in the history of america warlords have one - - was a roster meeting with the shameless hypocrisy and deliberation is no longer necessary because the conclusions are all foregone confirming judge virtual lifetime appointment it is anything to have the power to cram down the throats of your political opponents. the truth is the system never

been a debate has never been a debate about what the senate should do the right thing to do for the senate it has always been a demonstration of what the majority can get away with of how they can exercise their power to entrench their power. i have no expectations my words will change the result tomorrow. my hope, mr. president, is that we can work this the moment the american people say

enough to begin to reclaim their exercise of self-government from those who have worked relentlessly to deprive them of it. and to do that we have to be very clear of what this moment means and what it calls on each of us to do the days and months and years ahead. the truth is this confirmation is the latest victory of a patriotic project that traces back to the earliest days of our country. since our founding that i've always been factions working toward the insidious purpose

to discredit the national exercise of self-government, that when the american people finally throw up their hands and discussed dis , these factions can distort it into an instrument of their interest instead of the public interest. today the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell joined by the freedom caucus in the house of representatives president trump and the legion of the donors impacts that assembled behind them. because factions like this one have a tough time winning broad support from the american people to their agenda seeking other less democratic means voter suppression, and in this case, cramming a nominee on to

the supreme court during the fleeting days of an unpopularpo administration. years earlier versions of these factions with terms like states rights individualism, freedom, and dubious claims like separate but equal. essentially turning american wordsca against the american people. we see it in the 18 nineties when the supreme court the freedom to strike down laws that were left workers unionized to establish a minimum wage prohibit child labor and the progressive income tax we saw in plessy versus ferguson to justify segregation.

we saw in 19 oh five when the supreme court broder the 14th amendment to have the protection of the law for those most formidable in our society to invent a liberty to contracts we can freely force 60 hours per week.ours per a few years after the rulin ruling, 145 workers after the employer took the liberty to lock them inside. we saw it one - - aside in the 1930s and the supreme court we were at the commerce clause in a failed attempt to persuade the new deal fdr historic effort to build an economy to lift everyone up, not just those at the very top.

resort in our time in citizens united and other rulings of the supreme court has asserted the right the billionaires to cryptodemocracy to deny the american people's right we see and judge parents adherence the scariest legal document in the federalist society from the 1970s to claiming to stick to the 18th century understanding to us to step up deceptively and the rest of the framers and any number of legal arguments. and they intended the second

amendment with the interstate commerce clause to forbid environmental protection because the men who gathered for the that could not a good recognize that we should be held liable we should have the right to vote can also not see the need to protect the child labor to require foodut labels and it is no surprise to me that the original list in the tea party invite have embraced they are stealinghe the authority of the founders in the effort to conceal the reactionary project.

and while the specific games of these factions have changed over time, the project has remained the same. to protect the power of them to enslave. freedom to segregate. freedom to pay workers less than they can live on and fire them because of what they believe or who may love, to a minor neighbors, prison and defined the schools and by elections. at all times the goal has been to preserve is the freedom to dominate others.

went to cement our power and to demolish the economic opportunity and civil-rights to empower their fellowme americans. why would they do this? because in truth the original promise of america of a society of which "-left-double-quote created equal with equal rights terrifies them. and those consequences for the citizens who benefited from this project political and economic equity insecurity an opportunity to degrade our democracy from central america andra generations today it is

the latest ill-gotten victory judge parents nomination comes on a path that effect on decades regardless of the cost of american people and their security and civil-rights. tenuh circuit, judge barrett sided with corporations in 85% of her business-related cases. she sided with employers accused of discriminating by race. she sided with employers accused of discriminating by age. she sided with debt collectors over consumers. she voted to block compensation

for victims of a compensation fund. she voted against the workers' fight for i'm -- big workers' fight for overtime. the pattern is clear. when workers sought protection of the law or the government, she stood in the way. i worry that once confirmed, she will continue that pattern with rulings to destroy hard-won protections for the american people, rulings to cripple agencies to keep our air and water clean, our food and drugs safe, and our families protected from scammers trying to rip them off. rulings to make it harder for americans to choose how and when to raise a family or marry the person they love, rulings to make it easier for felons to buy guns and harder for us to hold gun makers accountable when

their weapons kill and maim our children in their schools and on our streets. rulings to block any effort by the american people to fight the voter suppression, to fight the dark money and the partisan gerrymandering corrupting our democracy. and finally, i worry she will cast the deciding vote to destroy the affordable care act and strip health care from millions of people in colorado and across the country, for whom this is literally a matter of life and death. judge barrett's confirmation will cement a 6-3 majority on the court that will allow the powerful to do what they want while standing against the american people's efforts to protect one another, to support

one another, and to invest in each other through our democracy. that is where we are. that is where we are. and as dispiriting as this moment may be, we have been here before as a country. we are not the first generation of americans to face the -- a senate or a supreme court that will stand with the powerful against the people. we are not the first citizens to run into a wall of obstruction as we work to make this country more democratic, more fair, and more free. we have to learn from the examples of those who came before us, those who answered slavery with emancipation and reconstruction, a gilded age with a progressive era, a great

depression with a new deal, jim crow with civil rights. as it was for them, so it is for us to meet the challenges of our time. and unlike the forces that have brought us to this low point, we have a much harder job, because we have a far greater purpose. theirs has been to grind our democracy into rubble. ours is to build a strong foundation for the american people and the next generation. the american people need us to be building that foundation now. they have already paid enough for a government that fails to fight on their behalf. 50 years when 90% of families haven't had a pay love. the worst income inequality

since 1928. people working harder and harder than ever before but whose families are sliding farther away from the middle class. and now, and now a national government perilous by ineptitude, incompetence, indifferent in basic scientific ignorance that's led to thousands of needless deaths of our fellow citizens and pushed millions of families and businesses over the brink. we must end this era and replace it with more honorable commitment to competent and imaginative self-government responsive to the american people's needs.

their wishes are more than fair. they want a wage they can live on, a health care system that no longer reduces -- routinely reduces families to tears, with options they can actually afford and count on when they need them, schools that create ability and opportunity and colleges that leave students with more than just crippling debt, the chance to care for a new child or a sick family member without having to quit a job or lose their pay. safe communities where parents no longer have to worry about their kids being shot, criminal justice and law enforcement and immigration systems that don't treat people differently because of the color of their skin.

roads and bridges and airports that weren't built by their grandparents, broadband that works at home so kids don't have to go to school in walmart parking lots in this country tonight. an urgent and durable answer for climate change so the next generation doesn't inherit a planet hurtling toward incineration. none of this is unreasonable. all of it is achievable. and we can start with the coming elections, but that's only the beginning of the fight. i can assure you that the same faction that was willing to enlist every parliamentary

gimmick or to employ any oratorical sleight of hand or commit any act of institutional arson in service of someone like donald trump will continue to do whatever they can get away with in this body. they're not going to stop. they have spent decades and billions in dark money exercising their power to entrench their power. they will not abandon this project in a single election. we're going to have to overcome that, just as we'll have to overcome this supreme court. it won't be easy. it won't be easy but anyone who studied the history of our country, our democracy knows how

hard it is to make progress. it's never easy. time and again, americans have breached the ramparts of undemocratic power. it happened in 1848, in seneca falls when 100 people, mostly women, signed the declaration of sentiments. it happened outside the stone wall inn in 1969 when thousands stood up to police abuse of the city's lgbt citizens. it happened when cesar chavez lifted the plight of america's farm workers and corky gonzalez gave voice to the history and stifled pride of a people. it happened in 1965 when 2,500 citizens crossed the edmond pettus bridge on the way to the alabama capital city of montgomery. each time a few brave citizens

have advanced upon the works of despotism, their fellow americans joining them because they, too, long for a better country. perhaps this summer, we crossed this generation's edmund pettus bridge when fatigued by still-unending months of disease, ashamed by donald trump's embrace of white supremacy and his failing efforts to make the united states look like a police state, forced to reckon again with the brutal and systemic racism of our justice and law enforcement system, americans decided they could no longer stand a country on such terrible terms. or perhaps this generation's

edmund pettus bridge is still before us, unknown, but there for those who will do their part to bend the moral arc of the universe. but we must cross this bridge. i hope sooner rather than later. like our forebearers, we will cross it only by pursuing ideas so compelling that americans will fight for them to make a real difference in their lives. as always, our march won't begin in the chambers of the senate. but when dr. king, john lewis, and the many who joined them

crossed their generation's bridge, the senate eventually followed and broke the segregationist stranglehold on this body. rather than turn his back on what was obviously right, the republican leader everett decker scenario joined his democratic counterpart mike mansfield to lock arms in support of the voting rights act of 1965. the segregationist filibuster west virginiaered in the face of noble -- withered in the face of noble bipartisan majorities. to cross the edmund pettus bridge we will have to muster the discipline to stand behind an agenda that will endure, one sturdy enough for a project of

our own. and if we do our job, my hope is that 50 years from now our kids and grandkids will look back with gratitude that we built on this foundation a house that they and their children love to live in, an america that is more democrat, more fair, and more free. mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. bennet: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. merkley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be alleviated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. two powerful phrases we often hear in america -- one is we the people. another is the equal justice under law. we the people, the first three words of the constitution, written in supersize script so that everyone can have no doubt that that's what that

constitution, our constitution, was all about. you can see those words from across the room. they echo so often, how can we possibly forget that the soul of our constitution is, as president lincoln described, of, by, and for the people? of, by, and for the people. that second phrase -- equal justice under law -- a phrase so important to our system that it's calved above the doors of the -- carved above the doors of the supreme court. just across the hall you can gimmick into the johnson room. it served when johnson was the majority leader of this chamber as his offices, and you look out the window, you can see the supreme court building with that

phrase carved into it, equal justice under law. two powerful phrases that, taken together, lay out the foundation for our democratic republic. they also represent a vision that is aspirational, one that we had not achieved when our constitution was first written, one that we have not achieved yet today, but that we work towards, we strive towards generation after generation, knowing that in our hearts that is what we wish to achieve. a nation where everyone is created equal, in which everyone is afforded the same rights and privileges, you're all treated

equally, have the full measure of opportunity to pursue their life ambitions. today, this evening, we are considering in this final 30 hours of debate a nomination for the united states supreme court for a person who will wear one of those nine black robes and sit in that supreme court chamber across the plaza from where we now stand, a person who will sit in a chamber behind the doors with equal justice under law inscribed. but instead of making a stride towards that vision of equal justice under law, instead of making a stride towards that vision of government of, by, and for the people, this nomination

imperils that vision. this nomination, if confirmed, this nominee, will damage that vision. we have a decades' long scheme by a powerful and privileged minority to destroy the we the people vision of quality and opportunity -- equality and opportunity in our constitution, to erode the foundation of our institutions so that they can rig the system in their favor. this has always been a dynamic proliferate republics, those who love that vision of government of, by, and for those people and those who fear that vision of government of, by, and for the people because they want to rig the rules in their favor. they want to rig the rules with a vision that would never have a

chance at the ballot box, that would never be embraced by the majority. they want to the pull the levers of power from behind the scenes in their own favor, to accentuate income inequality, to accentuate wealth inequality, to prevent those people from voting who disagree with them, with every type of contrivance to suppress and intimidate voters. if there is anything in which freedom of speech has meaning, isn't it that speech that you make when you mark your ballot for whom you wish to be your representative, perhaps the most powerful moment of expression in a republic. judge amy coney barrett, the nominee, is certainly not the

architect of this scheme, but she is certainly a full-fledged partner, enthusiastically embracing the federalist society and its mission to thwarting the will of the people of the united states of america. she doesn't read those first three words of the constitution, we the people, as meaning government of, by, and for the people; she reads it as we the powerful will decide what's best for ourselves and everyone else, thank you very much. boy, talk about a philosophy that undermines the integrity of our constitution. that's it. and she's just one of a stream of jurists rushed through in the last four years, organized by

the federalist society to further undermine the rights of the worker, to undermine the civil rights of americans, to undermine health care rights and reproductive rights, to undermine environmental laws. it is an agenda that is the exact opposite of the vision of our constitution. and here we have the members of the majority of this chamber facilitating this scheme. they stand determined to shatter any norm, to destroy any precedent, to break any rule that stands in the way, to

abandon any principle they so recently passionately proclaimed in their singleminded grab for power. this single-minded mission of stacking the court with extreme right-wing jurists for the powerful over the people, jurists who rather than standing firm in defense of the constitution will use those black robes for the dark, dark deed of destroying any pretense of government of, by, and for the people. just four years ago, the majority of this chamber, the same majority, the republican majority, said they had discovered a new principle that they felt with all their hearts was the right thing to do, that

never under any condition, under any set of circumstances, should this chamber ever debate or vote on a nominee for the supreme court during an election year. they made that argument, though the election was far away, the vacancy occurred early in the year. the nominee was named by the president, president obama, in march. but that distant election on the horizon, we have to protect it, and we should hear from the people before we decide to debate and vote. you know, it's disturbing to see a so-called deeply held principle vaporize like light

rain on hot summer asphalt. it's disturbing to see a so-called deeply held principle be so easily acquired when it violates the precedence of this nation and so easily abandoned when it's convene to do so. there is just one principle here. it is the principle of power. it is the principle of we will because we can. it is the principle that we have no principle. we will toss our integrity to the winds. we will trash our arguments of yesteryear. we will forget the speeches in which we foe passionately proclaimed our positions because we have a moment of opportunity for power for the powerful, and we will seize it.

what's different between this year and four years ago, where the majority said there should never, under any circumstances, ever be a debate on a presidential nominee? during an election year? what's different? four years ago there was a vacancy. this year there is a vacancy. four years, it was an election year, a presidential election year. this year it is a presidential election year. it is the same choice of whether to debate or whether to hear from the voice of the people before deciding how to fill this vacancy. and it's the same choice with one difference. that difference is that four years ago the vacancy oh, cured

ten months -- occurred ten months before the election and this year it occurred just a few weeks before the election. and we all recognize if one was really disturbed that this was really a conflict, that disturbance would be much greater this year when there's no time -- so little time, just weeks. in fact, it's not really weeks before the election because the election is under way. 50 million americans have already voted. so it's not just a year of an election. it is during an election. i would love to see an outbreak of integrity in this chamber, an outbreak of principle in defense of our constitution. it is so often that we admire

character. we admire when someone says, that person is as good as their word. and i would like to be able to say that when i heard my colleagues say they had a passionately deeply held principle four years ago, that they were as good as their word. that's what we admire, character, principle. we all have heard the quote, i disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it. it's a quote attributed to voltaire by beatrice evelyn hall. it was more of a description of voltaire's character. that he believed in a principle so firmly that even when it disadvantaged him to his point of death, he would defend it.

who in this chamber argued four years ago that during an election year there should be no debate or vote on a nominee and has that voltairean character to defend it when it's inconvenient today, not even inconvenient to point of death, just inconvenient because of some pressure you might receive politically. who will stand up and be that voice of character in this chamber? we all await to see just a few people stand up and be a voice of principle in this chamber. we all stand here and wait for just a few people to be a voice of integrity in this chamber. the country waits for a position that can be admired of principle, of character and of

integrity. it's not just that passionate argument four years ago. it's also about breaking rules. just the other day the chairman of the judiciary committee broke the committee rule that at least two members of the minority needed to be present for a quorum to advance judge barrett's nomination, and he broke another rule to close debate that says there has to be a minority member present. well, why don't you just stand up and tear up the rules of the committee? the parliamentarian of this body said that's okay. that's okay. so apparently there are no rule rules to what happens here under this majority. what is the end all of this

effort to break the norms, break the rules, break the passionate principles pronounced four years ago? certainly not to ensure equal justice under law. certainly not to embody we, the people governance, certainly not because there's precedent for this action. oh, wait. i was standing here the other day and i heard a member say we stand on precedent. well, we're under our 45th president, although some say it's 44th because cleveland was elected twice in 1884 and out of office and back in 1892.

but we say it's our 45th president, president trump. under our first 43 presidents, this president never once, not a single time refused to debate and vote on a nominee for a president for the supreme court. but four years ago under our 44th president, the republican majority said, we're breaking that precedent and for the first time in u.s. history, we're refusing to debate and vote. now, i would have had some respect for saying we will debate and we will vote because that's our responsibility under the constitution. in fact, many times in our history we have debated here in the senate and we have voted and we have struck down a nominee. i was surprised to see that

almost a quarter of the time, almost one out of four nominees have been turned down by this chamber for the supreme court. that would have involved actually being here on the floor and making arguments. that would involve actually taking a vote so you could be evaluated, your position could be evaluated by your constituents. that would have involved fulfilling your responsibilities and having the accountability that goes with fulfillment of those responsibilities. but there was no fulfillment of responsibilities four years ago. there was no accountability because there was no vote taken the first time in u.s. history. so don't tell me -- don't tell me, colleagues, that you stand on precedent or we can look back to history to a republican president. president lincoln -- president

lincoln was concerned about filling a supreme court position during an election. so what did president lincoln do? he delayed the nomination until after the election. how about that, president? how about the republican majority -- precedent? how about the republican majority follow the precedent from president lincoln? and then there's the mcconnell precedent. what's the mcconnell precedent? that he put forward four years ago? we never vote or debate a nominee during an election year. how about that precedent? so precedent after precedent after precedent, the historical centuries-long precedent of never failing to debate and vote broken, the lincoln precedent of

not to do a nominee's debate and vote during election, broken, the mcconnell precedent, as put forward with great passion four years ago, broken. the goal is to transform the supreme court into a supermajority, a superlegislature for the superelite, a 6-3 supermajority in a nine-member superlegislature operating for the superelite. that whole vision in our constitution of having a supreme court that defends the rights of americans from the excesses of law written by congress or the excesses of the executive branch not following the laws, that's gone. this is not about nine referees

in black robes. this is about having a supermajority in republican robes for the superelite of this country. and why is that such an important strategy for my republican colleagues? because the superelite understand something fundamental which is that sometimes the people of the united states have a grassroots movement and they, holding the constitution near and dear in their heart, holding their freedoms near and dear in their heart, they rise up against this manipulation by the superelite and they pass laws to protect civil rights. they put forward a vision of protecting the environment.

they say workers have to be treated fairly, fair day's wage for a fair day's work. and the superelite doesn't like that. but you know what? if they can turn the supreme court into a superlegislature they control, they don't have to worry about it because they can have the laws written by that nine-member court. they can pull the levers of power through the court and the court doesn't have to stand for election ever. lifetime, it's done. it's locked in. that's the strategy, the very successful strategy to undermine the vision of our constitution. that's superelite with their supermajority of the nine-member

superlegislature, they can stand in the way of efforts to save our planet from climate chaos. they can stand in the way of tackling rampant economic inequality. they can stand in the way of taking on systematic racism and opportunity for everyone, regardless of the color of the skin. they can stand in the way of equality of opportunity for lgbtq community. they can stand in the way of security and integrity for our elections. they can tear down the work done when these two chambers, the house and the senate, are mobilized to fight for the vision of our constitution, pursuit of happiness, fair

opportunity. they can strike it down. they can strike down health care, they can strike down reproductive rights. perhaps the most diabolical part is their effort to destroy the integrity of our election system. now, one form of assault on the integrity is gerrymandering, where states draw the lines in order to favor a particular party. and this has been done in states controlled by democrats as well as states controlled by republicans. when the analysis is done across the country when it comes to representatives in the chamber down the house, the house of representatives, political scientists estimate it is a 15-20 seat bias in favor of the

republicans. 10 to 20 seats. that's a big deal in the house of representatives. it is certainly in terms of equal representation is simply wrong because it is unequal representation. but the supreme court decided it was okay. they decided it was all right. or we can talk about the voting rights act designed specifically to stop tactics to suppress voting or to intimidate voters because isn't voting the foundation of our electoral system? isn't it the foundation of our democratic republic? but in 2013, in a 5-4 decision, the five justices in red robes

gutted the voting rights act to unleash voting suppression and intimidation across our country and we see the results in county after county after county. we see it in state after state after state. and, you know, here's the thing. before the supreme court struck down the protection of the integrity of voting, we had a bipartisan majority, a large, extensive, huge bipartisan majority in defense of election integrity in this chamber. but once the court struck it down and it massively favored one party over the other, the republicans abandoned their principles on this and have blocked every effort to restore protection of voting integrity in our nation.

or we can look at the impact of money from corporations on elections. in citizens united ten years ago, the court decided we need to give the ultimate source of massive power, ultimate influence on elections, by freeing them up to put as much money into campaigns as they should like. so if a corporation -- if i offend them and i offend them all the time, chooses they can put 100 million into campaigning against me in my state, it's like a stadium sound system designed to drown out the voice of the people. imagine you're at your ball game. you're there in the stadium with all your community members, and you're trying to make your voice heard. everyone should get a fair

chance to have their voice heard. but the big speakers above you drown you out. that's citizens united. it doesn't facilitate speech in the town square. it suppresses speech in the town square. it drowns out speech in the town square. it's as if our founders had said, we want everyone to have a chance to stand up and take their position, make it known in the town square before the election is held for the mayor, but thought it would be okay if a corporation bought the town square and prevented anyone else from speaking. that's citizens united. that's the grotesque violation of free speech in america done by five jurists in red robes for

the superelite. so it's at pretty good deal for the fossil fuel megapolluters. our entire planet is at risk. they want to eliminate all the restrictions, regulations to free them to pollute, even though they know that people of this country really value clean air and clean water. so control the courts so they can strike down those rules to protect our air and our water. there are 0 many challenges involved in the revenue to support our country, and i mention this because it's another reason the superelite

want a supermajority in the nine-member super-legislature, and it's because the rich don't want to pay for the infrastructure of this country. leona hemsly once said only the little people pay taxes. president trump has said things very close to that. so very wealthy people have a lot of enterprises going on. corporations have a lot of enterprises going on. they're using our legal system continue usually, but they don't want to -- continuous list but they don't want to pay for it. they're using our transportation system continue -- continuously but they don't want to pay for it. they're benefiting from our education system but they don't want to pay for it. leona helmsley said it well for

the superelite -- only the little people say taxes. that's the philosophy supported in this effort to control the courts. big banks like this. they want to make sure that there's not an uprising of the people that says you got to shut down that wall street casino that prevents us from putting the entire american economy at risk. they want to keep that casino in place. and companies that are trying to maximize profits and stock values certainly don't like laws that protect workers' rights and protections. there are many ways the superelite can pull the levers of power from behind the scenes. hundreds of lawyers -- that's very valuable. hundreds of lobbyists working on capitol hill, far more lobbyists for the drug industry up here

than there are members of congress. media campaigns to influence public opinion, costs a lot of money, but that's another power. think tanks to generate ideas that can move the conversation in their direction. of course, the money in elections -- absolutely key. but the courts -- the courts are the final defense against the people. if you can control the courts, who aren't elected, who are invulnerable to the people, that's your final defense. at the heart of this court strategy is the federalist society, organized in the 1980's. they put high ideals on their website saying they are, quote, founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of government powers is central to our constitution. sounds pretty good -- preserve freedom. it is innocuous.

but it is not about preserving freedom. that's the media strategy. it's about crushing the freedom of ordinary people to participate in our elections. it's about crushing the ability of ordinary people to get a fair day's pay. it is not about the separation of powers. they want the majority in the senate to work to create a majority in the court closely connected to each other in this web of the powerful pulling the levers behind the scenes, the opposite of separation of powers. as described in the book "the lie that binds" the federalist society sprang up -- a court system impervious to the will of the voters.

that superelite, they realized long ago the power and initiatives they wanted were not going to be popular, and, thus, this strategy -- this strategy relevant to this confirmation. the federalist society has been funded by that same group and expanded into a behemoth with some 70,000 attorneys. it started in no small part by a grant received from the olin foundation, the conservative grant-making foundation that was the force behind business-friendly law and economics at law schools throughout the country. i've heard people say, you know what? i joined because they had the money to buy us dinner, and i was a poor law student. according to the new york observer, the olin foundation gave out hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to think tanks and intellectuals. the architects of today's

sprawling right-wing movement for a quarter century, the crown jewel of the olin foundation's work, -- the federalist society. the olin foundation wrote to its trustees in 2003, all in a all, the federalist society has been one of the best investments the foundation ever made. since its founding, the federalist society has put forward extreme right-wing legal theories, and as their influence and power have grown, they've worked hard to bring those theories into the mainstream. mainstream arguments like originalism, ms. judge barrett, the late justice antonin scalia, gorsuch and kavanaugh all claim to hold. this is how judge barrett explained her philosophy during the hearings. i think interpret the constitution as law. i interpret text as text.

i understand it had the meaning it had at the time people ratified it. the meaning doesn't change over time. well, that's a great cover story. it's a great cover storks but it is a cover story. it is a cover story for the superelite to manipulate america. and it dissolves upon any detailed examination. because we know, if we bother to read history, that virtually every clause of the constitution had founders who disagreed on what it meant p. yes, you had a pretty homogenous group, white, wealthy men signing that piece of parchment in philadelphia, but they had multitudinous views of the clauses. there was a lot of ambiguity that enabled them to come together and say, i can accept that. we'll argue later over what it meant. so this originalist philosophy is saying, well, here's the

secret. therethere are a bunch of peoplo had different views at the time it was written, but i'll choose the one meaning that benefits the powerful in america, that fits the we the powerful vision of the constitution, not the we the people. that's pretty clever. pretty clever and pretty diabolical if in your heart you care about this nation, you care about the beautiful, extraordinary vision that we will be a government not dedicated to those who are in the elite, like the kingdoms of europe, but will draw its power from the opinion of the people. that's the view i hold. that's the view our founders aspired to. that's the view that's being undermined day in and day out by

the federalist society. madison wrote, quote, no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea or so correct as to not include many equivocally denoting different ideas. he's speaking directly to my point. that the founders had many different ideas about what each clause of the constitution meant and what it would mean if it was applied. he went 0en to write that all new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skilled, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal until their meaning be did i qui dated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions. the words are more or less obscure and equivocal until their meaning be ascertained by

a series of particular discussions. again noting that the right philosophy is to seek to understand the motivation, the principle on which those ideas were infused. not to cherry-pick one of the many conflicting positions in order to sustain power by the powerful. we can see this in one of the early fights in the history of our united states over our constitution. the year was 1791, just four years after the constitution was written. treasury secretary alexander hamilton was working on his financial plan to build up the country's credit, and he wanted congress to charter a national bank. hamilton had that goal in

position. madison and jefferson did not like the idea of a national bank. they argued about the constitution. hamilton said, as long as the constitution didn't specifically say that the government couldn't doing is, that it then could do something. and the opposite position held by jefferson and madison was, no, the constitution only allows something to be done if it's absolutely necessary to implement an enumerated power. this argument is over a clause of the constitution called the necessary and proper clause. it says that government has the ability to enact laws for the necessary and proper fulfillment of the enumerated responsibilities.

but hamilton read that as allowing something that is relevant and useful to facilitate an innumerated power -- in other words, serves the purpose of that power -- and mad i had son and jefferson said, no, no, no. it only means something can be done if it's absolutely essential. not that it's relevant or useful but it's absolutely essential to implement the innumerated power. so one is a very expansive view of what is allowed by the constitution and one is a very constricted view. all of these men were involved in writing the constitution, all to my point about the differing views held about each clause of the constitution. we have the greatest minds of

the age, including two had worked together to not only write the constitution but also the federalist papers but had completely different interpretations. so it takes a lot of chutzpah to say i know exactly what the universal view was of the clause of the constitution and to do so to get the end result you want, which is government for the powerful. that is a powerfully corruptive assault on the core vision of our constitution. well, let's take a look at another piece of the so-called federalist pro-business view point which is that corporations are people and they have full freedom of speech. well, the originalist say isn't that obvious from the constitution? well, no, actually it's not at

all obvious because corporations in their current form did not exist when the constitution was written and so it's not only not obvious, it's completely wrong. corporations were created for very specific purposes in our early years. professor brian murphy, the history professor at baroke college in new york wrote the following, americans inherited the legal form of the legal form from britain where it was bestowed as a royal privilege on certain institutions to organize municipal governments. that is quite different from the corporations we have. americans wondered if they should abolish them entirely or find a way to demock ra advertise them, so the first

american corporations ended up being cities and schools and charitable organizations. we don't really begin to see economic enterprises chartered as corporations until the 1790's. now, the work being done on our current constitution was being done when we were under the articles of confederation that were in place from 1781 to 1787, a six-year period. during that period corporations were not economic enterprises, as the professor pointed out, they became economic enterprises in the 17 the 0's -- 1790's. and somehow these judges, the justices of the supreme court in their red robes for the superelite say that the constitution makes it absolutely clear that these massive business corporations have the same freedom of speech and the ability to participate in

elections as if they are people because they are people but they are not people and these economic enterprises did not exist when our constitution was written. if you want a single example of the complete corruption of the basic argument made by the federalists, this is certainly an example to put forward. murphy continues, the founders did not confuse boston's son of liberty with the british indian country, they could distinguish between different varieties. they understood it was limited to a courtroom. corporations could not vote. corporations could not hold office. early americans had a far more comprehensive understanding of corporations than the court gives credit for.

well, this is, indeed, the challenge that we have. because we have a powerful elite that has created a system completely alien to the core philosophy of our constitution of government of, by, and for the people. and they have the money to create those hundreds of lobbies working for their vision and to pay the lobby -- lobbyists working for their vision and the money for the media campaign for their vision, they have the money to create the federalist society chapters to recruit people when they first start law school and indoctrinate them in this particular vision promising

them great support and reward in their careers. to support this mission of government by, -- government by and for the powerful. the network is extensive in ways that need to be completely understood across the country. a network of affiliated groups. take the case of the freedom and opportunity fund, a nonprofit mr. leo who is very involved in the federalist society launched in 2016, over two years the freedom of opportunity fund gave money to another group, the independent woman's voice. in fact, about half of that group's revenue came in that manner. in an in-depth report from "the washington post" when kavanaugh's confirmation was

running into trouble, leaders from the independent woman's voice sprang into action, mobilized to peek at rallies, appear on fox news. they went to extraordinary lengths to make sure the federalist society's nominee did not get the full examination by the people of this country. now, mr. leo is listed as president of the b.h. fund, the american opportunity fund. they don't have employees, they don't have office space. they don't have a website yet the b.h. fund received $24 million from a single anonymous donor, gave $3 million to two other groups another one which was a lobbying arm of the n.r.a. and had an ad campaign supporting neil gorsuch. vast money in a vast web being deployed to influence americans in every possible way because

these folks hate the vision of government of, by, and for the people. the federalist don't just carry out public relations campaigns. they don't just recruit law students. they proceed to be in the very center of things presenting oral arguments. they presented every oral argument on every single abortion case that has come before the supreme court since 1992. they are involved in issue after issue after issue. they've been investing in -- invested in litigation efforts against the a.c.a., the affordable care act, trying to strike down health care for americans before the act was in law, before there was anything to litigate against. federalist society member randy barnett had a 16-page legal memo against the law which became a source of talking points during debate and laid the framework

for subsequent court challenges. is it any wonder that so many of us across the nation are terrified of judge barrett's confirmation, what it could mean for the health of our citizens? i was interested to hear a colleague on this floor, a republican colleague say these are scare tactics. these are scare tactics to say that the court might strike down health care. these are scare tactics. does that colleague not believe the president of the united states when he said he will nominate someone who will strike down the a.c.a. and its health care bill of rights? it's not a scare tactic to say the individual who chose the nominee said he intended to strike down roe v. wade and to pick somebody who would strike down the affordable care act. now, the affordable care act in my home state has meant 400,000

people gained access to medicaid -- under the expansion of medicaid. and one of the ironies is the largest percentage beneficiaries are in the reddest parts of the state. and the biggest beneficiaries in terms of providing health care are rural hots and -- hospitals and rural clinics because the people who previously came couldn't pay the bills and didn't have the resources to expand their operation and now they did. when people go to my town hall and say they don't like the a.c.a. i say let's have a vote. do you like the idea of children being on your policy since age 26 because that's in the health care bill of rights in the a.c.a. no, no, overwhelmingly, we like that. how about tax credits to allow middle-class americans to buy

health care. no, we like that. how about comparing policies on the website so you can pick the best policy for your family? no, no, no, that's a step forward. but the federalist society, the president, and the republicans in this chamber have decided that they are going to tear down health care for 20 million americans. so it's hardly a scare tactic because there's very powerful forces at work on that mission. one of the health care bill of rights that people really love in my state and actually in all states across this country, is a protection to get a policy at the same price even if you have preexisting condition. i was at a fundraiser, a walk-a-on this for multiple sclerosis, for ms., when a woman -- m.s., a woman came up to me and said things are so

different. i said, what do you mean? the weather is different? the turnout is different? she said, no, no, no. a year ago if someone was diagnosed with m.s., we knew they would have a hard time getting the health care they need pd if they didn't have health care and would have lifetime limits from getting health care. but she said now we get the care we need. so that is the goal. that is the goal of the federalist society tear down health care for millions of americans. you may wondering if when i noted that the court was against the foundation of our democracy, the former five justices, soon to be six justices in red robes, want to tear down the basic foundation of our democratic

republic. but let's look a little more closely at that. perhaps i can persuade you. because the court decided that corporations are people and that they can spend their unlimited concentrated assets in campaigns. the case citizens united. why do we call it dark money? well, because the corporations can give their money to a 501-c-4, a so-called nonprofit, the nonprofit gives their money to a super pac, and the super pac discloses the nonprofit as the donor but not the original donor. so it's laundered. nobody knows who funded the super pac that is attacking you with millions of dollars of ads. so that certainly is the court weighing in for the absolute

suppression of the voice of the people, a voice drowned out by unlimited corporations from the largest, most powerful, largest organizations that exist in the world. let's take a closer look at shelby county. shelby county which gutted the voting rights act, protecting the foundations for citizens to fully participate but the court strikes it down. strikes it down. and last year in rutual versus common cause, they said jer mannedderring is -- gerrymandering is just fine. and they decided unequal reputation was just fine. instead of defending the vision of our constitution, they supported it being struck down.

and we know the courts have a huge ability to legislate from the bench for the powerful. we see it time and time and time again. and, by the way, on that decision, elena kagan and ginsburg and breyer and soid myer noted the right to join with others to advance beliefs, to choose their political representatives is assaulted by this decision. colleagues, we are in dark and dangerous, tumultuous times. it's exactly those times that require us to stand on principle with integrity to defend our institutions. this process, which has violated

precedent after precedent after precedent, the 200-year precedent in which always a nominee is debated and voted on violated four years ago to steal a supreme court seat. the lincoln precedent of not putting forward a nominee during an election. the mcconnell precedent of saying we never debate and vote in an election year, enunciated just four years ago. the rules broken in the judiciary committee. all of this about one position, and that one position is power, but not power for the vision of government of, by, and for the people, but power for the powerful to undermine the ability of the people to have government of, by, and for the people. let us honor our oath to the

constitution. let us defend the integrity of the court. and let us strike down this nominee to defend the integrity of the court. i yield the floor. mr. menendez: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i rise to speak in opposition to the confirmation of judge barrett to the supreme court. we should not be holding this vote. we are in the 11 segregate hour of a -- we are in the 11th hour of a presidential election. millions of americans have already voted. the american people are sending a message, and we ought to hear

what they have to say. instead, what's happening in the senate san obscene power grab by my republican colleagues to bypass democracy and force the least popular, most extreme views of their party onto the american people with no regard for the life and death consequences of their actions. to my friends in the majority, you had a decade to create an alternative to the affordable care act. you still have no viable plan. and after failing to people it in 2017 and suffering an unprecedented electoral rebuke in 2018, you're relying on the supreme court to do your dirty work. oral arguments in california v. texas, the legal challenge brought by republican-led states with the trump administration's

support, are on the court's docket november 10. we know full well this a 6-3 conservative majority on the supreme court is likely to overturn it. or maybe just gut the a.c.a. so deeply, it will effectively be dead, as if that's somehow any better. at least 20 million people are at risk of losing their health care coverage, and 135 million may lose protections for preexisting conditions p. the fact that you are even willing to roll the dice with their health care in the middle of a global pandemic that has already affected more than eight million americans and killed over 224,000 of your countrymen is reckless and cruel. don't you see, you're playing

with fire. and you don't seem to care that hundreds of millions of americans, americans you represent, are going to get burnt. it's not as if you are are not hearing from people in your state who fear a future without being a seas to health care. it's -- without access to health care. it's that you're not listening. yesterday i spent some time with new jerseyans for whom the affordable care act, in their words, not mine, is a matter of life or death. for several of them, going without quality health care coverage is, in their words, a death sentence. i wonder how many of you would have the courage to listen to their stories, look them in the eye and tell them, you have no plan to protect their care? i suspect not many. so i'm going to share just a few of their stories.

stephanie vigario is a 31-year-old essential worker, a pharmacy technician from newark, new jersey, who caught covid-19. she spent two months -- two months -- fighting for her life in a hospital. including 35 days on a ventilator. by the grace of god, she survived. but her life may never be the same. even after all the intensive rehabilitation she went through, she is still working on her recovery. and there are hundreds of thousands of covid-19 survivors like her grappling with the long-term health consequences of a disease we don't yet fully understand. organ tissue damage, weakness and fatigue, chronic shortness of breath -- these americans now have a preexisting condition.

and without the affordable care act, health insurance companies could once again be pricing them out of coverage or denying it altogether. i also had the privilege of speaking with scott chesney offer have ronna, new jersey. scott is a married father of two who at the tender age of 15 was paralyzed from the waist down. he faces a lifetime of expensive medical needs. to quote him, aging with a disability, a preexisting condition, is tough. your body breaks down. thankfully, my wife has health insurance, because if i don't get the medications and therapy i need, i don't live. but without the affordable care act, scott will likely face annual caps and lifetime limits on his health care. paying out of pocket for his care would likely lead to

medical bankruptcy, and that burden weighs heavily on him every day as he thinks of his wife and children's future as well as his own. final lid, i want to share the story of daria caudwell, because her situation speaks to the challenges that so many of our constituents across the nation are going through. daria lost her job and her health insurance as a result of the economic fallout of this pandemic. and this happened at the very time she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable type of blood cancer. she is 62 years old, not old enough to enroll in medicare. she's pawing for cobra right now. but it will soon run out and she will need to find new coverage p. before the affordable care act,

someone like daria with expensive preexisting conditions would basically be blacklisted from the individual health insurance market. an insurer would take one look at her medical history and the fact that some of her cancer drugs like revlamin cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, and they would simply turn her away. she said, quote, dissolving the affordable care act would cost me my life. that sounds dramatic, she said, because it is. i don't want to die. but i feel like a price tag has been put on my head and the constant threat is beyond anything i thought i would ever have to endure. it's nearly as devastating as the diagnosis itself. now, i'm not telling this body these stories just to pull at your heartstrings, though believe me listening to these men and women, as i did

yesterday, moved me beyond tears. i'm sharing their stories, their incredibly personal struggles, to remind my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that to the american people, this is not ideological. this is not abstract. it is personal. these are matters of life and death. of course, the affordable care act isn't the only issue at stake here. the very reason we are here considering a supreme court nominee in the final days of a presidential election is, i believe, because my republican colleagues fear the will of the american people. the number of americans who support the most far-right positions of the republican is shrinking and so stacking the supreme court is their only path to advancing their unpopular agenda, and they know it. they know that most americans,

nearly 80%, according to the last decade of gallup polling, oppose criminalizing abortion. the overwhelming majority believe in the right of a woman to decide when she has children, and they know it is none of the government's damn business. they know that most americans support action on climate change and limits on how much poisonous pollutants companies can potch into the air. they know that most americans, including responsible gun owners, support lifesaving background checks and tougher gun safety laws. and they know that most americans believe that their lgbtq sons and daughters and friends and neighbors should be able to marry the people they love and live their lives free of discrimination. my colleagues seem to have forgotten that, as elected representatives of the american

people, they are supposed to reflect the will of the american people. and guess what? the will of the people changes. this isn't the 1950's anymore. but rather than adjust your sails to the winds of change, rather than meet the american people where they are on issues of life and death, you would prefer to sink the whole ship. now, those of my colleagues who know me know that i try to see the best in my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. i really do. i pride myself on my working relationships with so many of you, and some of you i even consider dear friends. but i'm stunned -- just stunned -- by the hypocrisy. where are your principles? when you blocked merrick garland's nomination, you didn't say it was because president obama was a democrat and the

senate was held by republicans. you said very clearly at the time it was because a supreme court vacancy should not -- not -- be filled during a presidential election year. you said the american people should have a voice. now it's clearly you don't even believe the words you were saying at that time. you were determined to deprive a democratically elected two-term president of his constitutional prerogative in order to fundamentally alter the makeup of the supreme court. you did it in order to tip the scales of justice against women, workers, voters, lgbtq americans, patients, consumers, and immigrants for generations to come. and judge barrett is the culmination of a 30-year fever

dreamed up and cooked up by the federalist society and the its corporate benefactors. now they'll finally have enough justices to $their bidding. -- to do their bidding. and the american people are the ones who will have to deal with the real-world consequences of this shameless hypocrisy. we have to remember what this is all about. this is about the right of an lgbtq american to be by the bedside evidence their loved one as they take -- by the bedside evidence their loved one as they take their last breath. this is about the ability of a rape or incest survivor to terminate an unwanted pregnancy without government intrusion. this is about the ability of a cancer patient to afford her treatment and baby with a heart defect to get treated without hitting a lifetime limit within weeks of being born. so i am he a urging -- so i'm urging you, no, i'm pleading

with you, to think long and hard about the congresses of your actions, for both the american future and for the future comity of this body. you have twisted and distorted every rule and broken every norm to get your way just because you currently have the power to do so. that does not make it right. you're poisoning the well of the senate and flooding our nation with bad blood and you've revealed yourselves to be so fearful of the democratic will of the american people that you would confirm a justice to the supreme court whose views are far outside the mainstream just days before the conclusion of the presidential election. i urge you not to go through with this vote. this is an abuse of power that

will ultimately inflict great harm on the american people. history -- history is not going to forget it. and i think some day, probably sooner than you would think, you are likely to regret it. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: the american people should have a voice in the selection of their next supreme court justice, therefore this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.

senator mitch mcconnell, february 13, 2016. i don't always agree with senator mcconnell, but i agree with him on that one. this is a violation of our rules, of our history. there have been 13 vacancies within the last months of a presidential election year in american history, nine of them were before july 1. of those nine, seven were confirmed by the senate, two were not. one under president ontyler and the other was merrick garland. there have only been four vacancies in the supreme court that have occurred after july 1 of an election year. zero of them have been confirmed. three in three cases, including abraham lincoln, there weren't even nominees. the president waited until after the election.

in there was a nominee. the senate tabled the nomination. so all of this talk that we've had about history and precedent, those are the facts. 13 in the last ten months, nine of them before july 1, all were confirmed except one 150 years ago and merrick garland. i agree with mitch mcconnell on the february 13, 2016, the american people should have a voice in the selection of their next supreme court justice, therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. he said that eight months before the election. this confirmation, if it takes place tomorrow, will be eight days before the election. it doesn't pass the straight-face test. if there's a concern about the

will of the american people, about one-third of the voters have already voted. this election is already a third over and yet we're barreling forward with this nomination. we shouldn't even be here. we shouldn't even be having this discussion. one of the reasons we shouldn't be here is that the judiciary committee broke its own rules in order to vote this nomination out. here's rule one under quorum, section 3 of the judiciary committee rules. seven members of the committee actually present shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of discussing business. nine members of the committee, including at least two members of the minority, shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business. what an inconvenient rule. but i have to presume that that rule, which has been there for

years, was put there for a reason. in order to preserve the tradition of comity and respect for the minority that this body has often stood for. nine members of the committee, including at least two members of the minority shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business. that quorum was not there when this nomination was reported out. so we've trampled precedent, we've trampled history. we've even trampled the rules. i know my colleagues say it is in a good cause, we need to get this conservative justice on the court. it's in a good cause. i'm reminded of "a man for all seasons," about the ends justifying the means. so roper says, so now you give the devil the benefit of the law, the rules?

and sir thomas said, what would you do, cut down every law. and roper says, i would cut down everything. and roper says, when the last law was down, where would you hide, roper. this country is planted thick with laws coast to coast, man's laws, not god's. and if you cut them down, you're just the man to do it, would you stand up right in the winds that would blow then? yes, i'd give the benefit of the law for my own's safety -- own safety's sake. that's why we have rules for all of our safety's sake. but we're going to violate those rules. we're in the process of violating those rules. and i've heard a great deal of pearl collection about packing the court. someone is talking about

breaking the rules and packing the court. article 3 of the constitution doesn't establish how many members of the supreme court there should be. the number on the supreme court has been changed seven times in our history. it has ranged from four to ten. i don't want to pack the court. i don't want to change the number. i don't want to have to do that. but if all of this rule breaking is taking place, what does the majority expect? what do they expect? they expect that they are going to be able to break the rules with impunity and when the shoe maybe is on the other foot nothing is going to happen? the people over here are going to say, oh, well, we can't change these rules. one of the things that's amazed me since i've come here is how people feel they can do things to one another and never have it have any consequences, never have it come back on them. the shoe may be on the other

foot. we don't know what's going to happen next week. okay. the other piece of this nomination that bothers me in this process is that there's been all of this talk about qualifications. i would argue that qualifications aren't the qualification, it's what kind of judge they will be. there are thousands of people in this country who are qualified to be a judge. there are 1,700 federal judges, almost 2,000. there are 30,000 state judges. there are lots of people who are qualified who have been to law school, who have been judges, who are smart, who can write opinions. that's not the issue here. the issue is, what kind of judge will this person make? that's what's important? what's their philosophy? this is a lifetime appointment.

how are they going to decide important cases? these are important decisions. one week after the election on november 10, we're going to have an argument in the supreme court about the future of the affordable care act. literally tens of millions of people's insurance is dependent upon that, not to mention the requirement in the affordable care act which is the only legal requirement in the country to protect people with preexisting conditions. i'm tired of people around here saying, i'm for protecting preexisting conditions when they voted to gut the affordable care act 35, 40, 50 times. the president of the united states signs a legal -- an executive order, we're going to protect preexisting conditions. it means nothing. it's not worth the paper it's printed on. the only way you can protect people with preexisting conditions is to pass a law that you can do that and we did it with the affordable care act.

if that law is struck down, 130 americans are at risk. they are at risk. so i want to know what kind of decisions is this person going to make? the affordable care act is on the chopping block. a woman's right to choose is on the chopping block. the scope of government action, what can we do here in this body, in this congress, in this government? that's on the chopping block. election disputes are on the chopping block. i'm going to talk about that later. but we have this bizarre current practice where we have a so-called hearing and there are all of these questions and the witness, the perspective judge says, well, i can't answer that because that might come up when i'm on the court. i can't tell you what i think about any of these things. it's as if you were courting someone, you're thinking about

getting married, a lifetime commitment, just like a lifetime appointment to the court. and in the middle of one of your dates you say, well, i really like to travel. do you like traveling? she says, i don't know. i can't tell you will until after we're married. i'm not sure. i couldn't give you a definitive answer to that. and then you say, well, i love opera now. my favorite thing to go to opera. how about you? i can't answer that question. i can't tell you because that's a hypothetical and i'll tell you when you invite me to an opera after we're married. and then you say, you how about kids? i really want a big family. no, i can't answer that question. that's exactly what goes on in these hearings. judge barrett didn't answer much of anything. i can't answer that. i think that's nonsense. she can say, here's how i think about that issue now but i

reserve my -- my right to change my mind in a particular case with particular facts after i've read the briefs and heard the argument. but here's how i think about that now. but, no. these hearings are a waste of time. we learn whether or not she did her laundry, but we didn't learn anything about how she's going to decide these cases for the next 30 years. and this isn't something abstract. this is going to affect individual americans' lives. and, yet, we're not allowed to find out what she really believes. but you know what? for these last three nominees the dark money folks have spent about $250 million to put them over the finish line. a quarter of a billion dollars has been spent by people, we don't know who they are, to push these nominations.

these folks aren't investing that money on speck. they know what they are getting. we may not know what we're getting but they know what they are getting. they didn't spend a quarter of a billion dollars in the hopes of knowing what the results were going to be. they know. they know but we don't. they are investing. they are not contributing. okay. we do have some indication of what her philosophy is in the abstract. we won't answer questions about particular cases, but in the abstract we know she said she's an originalist. she said that scalia was her mentor. she was his clerk. so she's an originalist. what does that mean? well, it means if you have a provision of the constitution in order to interpret what it means, you look at two lace --

two places. you look at the text, what does it say? and then you look at the intent, the understanding of the text of those 55 men in philadelphia in 1787, that's it, period. that's the analysis. well, there's a couple of problems with that. article 1, section 8 authorizes the docto raise and support an army and a navy. what about the air force? what about the air force? it doesn't say armed services. it says army and navy. so we look to the text, army, navy, doesn't mention the air force. so let's look at the intent. do we think those guys in philadelphia looked ahead 115 years to the wright brothers? of course not. that's ridiculous. that's a ridiculous

interpretation. well, how do you decide the air force, and more recently the space force, is constitutional? well, you do a reasonable interpretation. what was the broad intent? to protect the country. and therefore the air force an space force are constitutional. but by an originalist standard neither one passed the test, not in the text, not in the intent. that's supposed to be the test. it's nonsense. it's a nonsense theory. then we have provisions, the air force is pretty easy and the president has to be 35, that's easy. there's two senators from every state, not three, not one. but what about a term like due process? what about due process in the fifth amendment? what does that mean in a real

case? can you be dlown in jail for life -- thrown in jail for life and not have access to a lawyer? is that due process? it was for about 150 years. it wasn't until the 1960's that right to counsel in the giddeon case became a constitutional right. did they invent that? no they were trying to put that into due process. there's no way to determine what a term like due process meant in 1787 or 1868 or in 2021. it takes a court to think about it and to apply some growth in morality, ethics, law, politics, culture to put life into a provision like that. you know, there are other ones. let's see. due process.

equal protection of the laws. equal protection of the laws. it took about a hundred years to get from the 14th amendment to brown v. board of education. so the fact that segregated schools was a violation of equal protection of the law wasn't very obvious in 1868. it took a hundred years for us to get to the place where, yes, everybody realizes that that was wrong. and this is one of the fallacies in the originalist theory. and judge barrett was asked about this. what about brown v. board of education. what about loving v. virginia. i was in law school when loving was decided. it was illegal in virginia to have an interracial marriage. it was illegal in a lot of states. i venture to say it was probably illegal everywhere in 1868. but the court in 1967 decided

that marriage was a fundamental right. it was something -- it was part of the equal protection of the laws. and then it was wrong to tell people of different races that they couldn't marry one another. how did the originalists handle that case? they don't dare say brown was wrongly decided or loving was wrongly decided. you know what they say? you know what she said? it was a superprecedent. come on. that's a label -- it doesn't mean anything. that's a dodge. that's intellectual dishonesty. if your theory works, it works. and if you have to say that brown or loving or dozens of other cases, miranda, gideon, those are all superprecedents, it doesn't speak well, very well for your theory. it's a copout. now, if antonin scalia was here who i knew in law school, by the

way, if he was here -- i knew him as nino. if he was here, he would say angus, if the constitution neemeds amending and changing, you don't do it through the courts. you do it by the amendment process. that's why they wrote it. the problem with that is we'd be amending the constitution about every two weeks around here. can you imagine if we have to do an amendment to the constitution going through congress by two-thirds and three-quarters of the states to legalize the air force? or say that due process means that you don't have to give evidence against yourself, that you have a right to a lawyer, that you have a right to be told what your rights are as in the case of the miranda decision. the space force. we passed the space force last year. we also do a constitutional amendment? if that were the case, if we had to do a constitutional amendment

every time there was a change in something in the constitution, in the meaning of a term in the constitution, the constitution would be as long as the u.s. code. it just doesn't make sense. the real problem with the originalist theory -- this is judge barrett. and i know she's intelligent, capable, law professor, judge for only three years, by the way, but three years. the real problem is the originalist theory to which she subscribes, and she says she subscribes to it, allows no room for moral or ethical growth. everything is frozen in 1787 or 1868 if you're talking about the 14th amendment. jefferson got this.

jefferson wasn't one of the framers. he was in tbrans at the time -- france at the time the constitution was written, but he's certainly one of the founders of the country, the declaration of independence, and a successful president. he wrote an interesting letter in 1816 on exactly this point. exactly this point. and here's what jefferson said. i'm certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. that's the way i feel. but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions -- that means us -- must advance also and keep pace with the

times. listen to this wonderfully -- concludes this. we might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regiment of their barbarous ancestors. now, i don't think our ancestor, the framers were barbarous, but they hadn't really thought about things like right to counsel, right to be aware of what your rights were under the constitution as a criminal defendant. they certainly weren't aware of the awful, awful impacts of racial segregation and racial segregation in the schools. they weren't aware of those things. and jefferson is right. we have to be able to allow our institutions to change as we become more developed, more

enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstanc circumstances. institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times. i understand the problem with judicial legislation. i don't want to convert the supreme court into an unelected third branch of the congress that has lifetime tenure. i get that. the supreme court in its interpretation of the constitution can't be totally unmoored from the text of the constitution or the intent of the framers. but it's got to take a broader view of what these vague terms like due process, equal protection of the laws, privilege and immunities, what those things meant and what they mean today as we've grown and learned. as we've grown and learned.

the other piece of this originalist philosophy and one that i think may have the greatest as -- effect as it takes root in the supreme court, it's not in cases like roe v. wade. it's more cases like the affordable care act or the environmental protection agency or the f.d.a. or any effort whatsoever around here to do something about climate change. this is a straitjacket for the powers of the federal governme government. that's what it's about. that's why those guys invested $250 million. they want to triple, strangle, and squeeze the federal government so that it can't act on behalf of the american people. that's what's going on here. they don't like the regulatory state. they want to repeal the new deal some originalists even questioned social security and medicare beyond the powers of the federal government.

that's what's going on here. and yet they have a narrow crabbed view of the powers of the federal government, but these originalist folks have a broad view of the powers the state government to impose on your personal rights. i've always thought of the constitution as being an elaborate, vegamatic which slices up power so that it isn't concentrated in any one place. that's what the constitution is all about. the fundamental issue of all political science is ipso kastodiac. who will guard the guardians. we create a constitution to give power to people over our lives and then how do we control them from abusing us. because history tells us it will

always happen. lord acton in the 19th century said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. and the framers knew this. they were geniuses in terms of understanding human nature. so they created this elaborate rube goldberg scheme to make it hard to make laws. and boy, did they succeed as we well know. but even after they created this scheme with two houses and vetoes and conference committees and two-thirds and treaties and all of this complex institution to make laws, they still weren't -- they were still scared. they were still afraid of the powers of a rampant majority. they were still afraid of what their government would do to

them. so they passed the bill of rights. the bill of rights. i've always thought of the bill of rights as a kind of force field around us as individuals. things that they can't do to us, they can't take away our freedom of religion, they can't take away our freedom of speech. they can't go after the press. the government can't do these things. but the originalists have a narrow view of what the federal government can do to help us but they have a broad view of what the states can do to trample on those individual rights. they want to throw us back to a time when every state has its own rules on these fundamental rights. i don't think individual americans' rights should depend on geography. they shouldn't depend on where they live. fundamental human rights has been -- that are in the jurisprudence of the united states supreme court over the last 150, 200 years, they should

not be kicked back to the states to be compromised or minimized. finally, madam president, what's going on here is an undermining of confidence. we take this whole thing for granted, these magnificent hal halls, marble columns, the speeches, the votes. it's all -- you know, it's always happened therefore it always will. no, we're an experiment. we're an experiment that's been going on for a little over 200 years. in human history, we're a blip. we're an anomaly. democracy is very unusual and very hard. and it depends on trust. if you stop and think about it, it depends on trust.

when my town clerk in brunswick, maine says here are the votes. trump 87, biden 104, i trust that those are the right numbers. i trust. and if i don't, then -- that way lies chaos. and what this senate is doing right now is undermining -- it's one more drip in the undermining of confidence in this institution. it's no secret that confidence in congress has plummeted over the last 25 or 30 years. and we're doing it. we're adding one more brick to that wall of lack of confidence in this process. by violating our history and our rules to barrel through to a confirmation that i think is inconsistent with the rules and principles of this body and our own personal obligations.

this is a blow to the senate. what this process says is anything goes as long as you have the votes. we don't care about the rules of the judiciary committee, we don't care about the history and traditions of the senate. if you have got the votes, ram it through. this body is built on some restraint, on some rules of comity and restraint and responsibility and thinking of -- of what happens next. you're going to win this. you have got the votes. you're going to put this judge through, but at the cost of just pulling one more support out of the edifice -- out from underneath the edifice of this magnificent government. it's not only a blow to this

institution, it's a blow to the court. it's a blow to the court, and here's why. here's why. of all the things that judge barrett said and didn't say in her hearing, the one that disturbed me the most was her failure to commit to recusing herself if a matter comes before the court shortly after her confirmation involving this election of her patron, donald j. trump. that's a gimmee. do you know why? because all the court has is its credibility. the court doesn't have an army. it doesn't have the power of the purse. all it's got is its integrity, its reputation for fairness. it says -- if you go out that door and look up, it says equal justice under law. that's what it's all about.

the judicial cannons -- canons speak to this issue directly. often in our lives we want to avoid impropriety. the judicial canons go even further. 2-a of the judicial canons says a judge must avoid the appearance of impropriety. what could appear to be more improper than a judge appointed by the president of the united states and ten days later, she votes on a matter that will involve his election? he has already told us he wants this election to go to the supreme court, and he's already told us he wants his judge there. that's -- that's corruption in real time. that's impropriety in front of our eyes. that answer alone should have disqualified her. if she didn't have the integrity to say of course i won't vote on

an election matter involving this president. of course i won't. but she didn't. as far as i'm concerned, that's a disqualification. now, i'm not a supreme court justice. i wasn't on the law review. i'm a little country lawyer from brunswick, maine, but i know impropriety when i see it, and this is it. this is it. the constitution is a wonderful document. it has served this country well. the evolution of jurisprudence through the united states supreme court with fits and starts has generally served this country well. but to put a justice on this court under these procedures, under these circumstances who we're pretty sure is going to take positions antithetical to

those of a majority of americans and could take positions that will be profoundly damaging to a majority of americans is an abdication of our responsibility. madam president, i understand that the majority has the votes. i deeply hope that tonight or tomorrow morning, some members of the majority will wake up and have an attack of conscience, say i can't do this, it's not right. it's not right. i can't sacrifice the reputation of the senate, compromise the reputation of the supreme court, undermine the procedures and history of this body. i can't do it. i hope four members of the majority will find it in their hearts and minds to take that position. i'm not optimistic, but i think

we all need to go into this decision, and i think all those who vote tomorrow have to understand what they're doing and what it means and what it will mean to the people of this country. madam president, we could have done better. we should have done better. we owe it to the american people to do better than this. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor.

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: is there a quorum call? the presiding officer: there is not. ms. klobuchar: i come to the floor today following my friend, the senator from maine, at a critical moment for our country and for the united states. americans as we know are facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis that has gripped our country for over nine months. but, sadly, that is not what brings us to the senate floor today. it is not why the republican

leader has called the senate into session. is it to pass the legislation that we need to pass to carry on the work of a cares act, to help people out in our country right now when nearly every state is starting to see increases in this virus again? that is not why we're here. on this rainy, cold sunday in october, instead of meeting to debate and vote on a comprehensive bill to provide relief to the american people during this soul-crunching pandemic, we are instead here today because our republican colleagues insist on rushing through the nomination of judge amy coney barrett to be an associate justice on the united states supreme court to fill the vacancy left by justice ruth bader ginsburg.

and let me start with justice ginsburg. because that is really where it all starts. justice ginsburg was an icon. she was celebrated well into her 80's by people young and old. i will never forget my own daughter when we were at an event and got a photo with justice ginsburg, my daughter was just in college, and we had that nice photo of the three of us, and she said to me, mom, i'm going to cut you out of this because i want to put it on facebook and the notorious r.b.g. is just so cool. justice ginsburg made justice cool because justice ginsburg understood that justice is supposed to be about people and it's supposed to be about the constitution. she started when no one gave her

a chance, going to law school when there were hardly any girls going to law school. in fact, they told her not to and she ended up graduating first in her class. she then comes up with landmark theories on equal protection, and she is told maybe a man should argue these cases because they are so important and a man would have a better chance of winning them. she says no, i'm do them myself and she wins five out of six cases. she ends up on the supreme court writing landmark opinions and infamous dissent. and at her memorial in the capitol, it was the rabbi, and i was so honored to be there, a moment i'll never forget and the rabbi said, you know, those dissents weren't cries for defeat. they were blue prints for the future. that is how i must think of this moment in time as we are in the middle of voting, as over 50

million americans have already cast their ballots making their voices heard, that you can't take away the fact that this nomination was plopped down in the middle of an election, which is what i've argued from the beginning. this will not be a cry of defeat for the people of this country that care about justice ginsburg's legacy, her legacy on protecting women's right, her legacy on voting rights, her legacy on so many other fundamental issues to the people of this country. we know what her last fervent wish was. those were her words, fervent wish. only justice ginsburg would use those words at the end of her life. but she did. she said her last fervent wish was that the next president, the president who wins this election, should be able to pick the person to take her place.

that's what she asked for. and that's what so many americans, the majority of americans think should happen here. but that's not what's happening. we are not doing what we should be doing. and people are watching. more than 220,000 americans have lost their lives. so many families have lost loved ones. millions more have gotten sick or no longer have jobs. people are scared for them selves and their families. moms are trying to balance their toddlers on their knees and their laptops on their desk. they're having to teach first graders how to use the mute button. but instead of working to pass a relief package, something that 74% of the people want us to be doing right now, that's right, when they were asked go you think we should be pushing through a judge or working on pandemic relief, 74% of the

people said you should be working on pandemic relief. but instead we are here not in a rush to justice but a rush to put in a justice on the united states supreme court. the president has made his intent clear. in fact, in his way he sent out a tweet telling us his intent. he said if i win the presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right thing unlike bush's appointee john roberts on obamacare. this is no surprise, i guess. the affordable care act is something my republican colleague have been trying to repeal for ten years. and just one week after election day, the court will hear a challenge to the law coming out of the state. state of texas that millions of people are depending on for health care, especially during this pandemic after we learn more and more about people

who have gotten covid who then end up struggling later and of course what would that be called? that would be called a preexisting condition. yet this is what this president, my republican colleagues are focused on. and the american people, democrat, republican, and independents are continuing to face reals, not this -- reality, not this reality in this chamber tonight but the reality in their lives and once again misplaced priorities in a rush to do what the president wants. the coronavirus is in fact still raining across our country because of the president's failed leadership. that's true. his lies, his refusal to listen to science, cases have been up, as i noted in about two-thirds of the states in just the last few weeks. the president was first told about the potential for this virus back in january.

he was telling people he knew behind closed doors that it was airborne and it was deadly. he knew that back in february. he said it would go away, though, to the public. he said this will go away by easter. he said people will be back in church by easter. there are people who went to church around that time in minnesota who died. he said it would go away with warmer weather. we all know that these things did not happen. so for me this is personal like it is for so many americans. my husband got sick with the coronavirus. he got really sick. he ended up with pneumonia in the hospital on oxygen for over a week. and why is this so personal what the president says about this for me? because back then we were just cleaning off every surface in our house which of course is still important now, but we

thought oh, that's good. we'll just clean off everything, wash everything. but the president we now know, we found out a month or two ago that back then in march he knew it was airborne but he said he didn't want to tell the american people because he thought it might panic people. he didn't tell you the truth. now we know that at least 130,000 american lives could have been saved if the president had taken real action early on. that comes out of a new study from columbia. that's 130,000 families who would still have their mom or dad or grandparent with them at the table, with them at the table this thanksgiving if the president had done what we needed to get testing in place to do contract tracing, to listen to the experts. and no, it is not just the big

ten football, as much as we love big ten football in minnesota. it is not just those players who should be able to have that testing. it's not just the people in the white house that should be able to have that testing. there are consequences of this failed leadership. the american people who are dealing with this pandemic are not concerned about the false claims in the president's 3:00 a.m. rants or his attempts to relitigate the 2016 election right now. they're just trying to make it through the day. they need help. but instead of giving them that help, here we are once again jamming through a nominee. in fact, according to reports senator mcconnell is actively telling the white house not to negotiate on a bipartisan package just so the senate would do this.

they have broken promise after promise. they've blown up every precedent. they've ignored all logic and taken on every risk just to push this nomination through. why the rush? well, i can give you some ideas. one as i mentioned, just one week after the election, just two weeks from now, the supreme court will consider the future of the affordable care act. we also know, and this is coming directly from the president via tweet, that he wants the justices to potentially count the ballots. those are his words, not mine, and that he wants nine justices on that court. now, i will not concede that this election is going to end up in court, not the way people are voting, not the numbers we're seeing out there, not th the reality that people are facing

but that is what he wants in place. everything is on the ballot but many of these things end up in court. we know that. and during the judiciary hearing, many of my colleague would act like the supreme court was some faraway distanced ivory tower institution, debating things anlz talking -- and talking about things like in their word, the dormant commerce clause. what else did they decide? they decide who you can marry, where you can go to school. they decide if you can use contra accepts. -- contraception. they decide all kinds of things. they decide if you can vote. they decide if you can have health care. all those things are decided in the supreme court. what is on the ballot when it

comes to health care, what is before us with this justice? the affordable care act. what is this about? i still remember the day that we passed the bill. i was here early in the morning on christmas eve. and i also remember the day when our colleagues tried to repeal the bill and my friend senator mccain actually whispered to me what he was going to do before he did it but he came in and put a big thumbs down why he himself struggled, industrialed with his -- struggled with his own life. what did the affordable care act mean to people? millions of people got coverage. millions of people that weren't able to get coverage before. and then for everyone, even people that had coverage before, they got something that they so badly needed. and that is protection from being kicked off your health insurance for preexisting conditions. what else did it mean? young people can stay on their parents' insurance until the age

of 26. what a difference that makes. it makes a difference for people like every lynn -- everybody lynn -- evelyn and morea, honor roll students. they play basketball and softball. one is a pitcher. one a catcher. one was born and early on got severe diabetes when she was very young. does it matter which one? the pitcher or the catcher? they both deserve good health care, especially now when they both know they have diabetes but early on did it matter which one? they both deserve good health care. people like steve, a senior from tower, minnesota who has a heart condition and relies on his prescription medication to stay alive. like elijah from st. paul who was born with cerebral palsy and because of the affordable care act is now 16 and a proud boy

scout. or christie, a mom from bloomington whose daughter had a tumor. like casey whose broker lives in alexandria and has chronic kidney failure and needs a transplant. without the affordable care act her brother will die waiting for a transplant. like emily from minneapolis whose mom was diagnosed with breast cancer or bernette from the suburbs of st. paul whose daughter has multiple sclerosis and depends on the a.c.a. or janet from rochester whose broker has a mental illness or liliana from fridley who has a 21-year-old son with autism and needs children to stay on their insurance until they're 26 or melanie, a senior from duluth being treated for ovarian, cancer and needs access to health care. repeal after repeal after repeal attempt. that is what's been happening here. and none of that worked so what

happened? a case was brought in texas and the administration is now before the supreme court arguing that the entire affordable care act, not just one provision, they are arguing -- and let me be clear about this -- that the entire affordable care act, all those provision, all the coverage i just mentioned should be thrown out. during judge barrett's hearing there was a lot of talk from my colleague on the other side about the doctrine of severability which the supreme court has said includes a presumption in favor of throwing out part of a statute in order to save the rest. their point, i suppose, was that the american people shouldn't actually be worried about the case pending before the supreme court. it's okay. so i asked judge barrett whether the brief that was filed by the trump justice department which argues that the entire affordable care act must fall represented the president's

position before the supreme court. she confirmed as a former clerk of the supreme court to justice scalia, she confirmed that it did. and she confirmed that if the president believed that the court should throw out just part of the affordable care act and save the rest, he could direct the justice department to withdraw the brief. that has not happened. that is not the position of this administration. they have told the court that they want to throw the whole thing out. and now they are rushing to confirm the president's nominee with the hope that she will cast a deciding vote to strike down the a.c.a. for me as i noted at the hearing, it is about following the tracks. no, the nominee didn't give us a sense of pending cases. we know that. but she didn't even give a sense of what she thought about existing laws that are on the book or about certain

fundamental rights that other nominees have discussed. so i followed the tracks. just like we do when we go hiking. when we go hiking in northern minnesota when he was growing up, my mom would always say, okay, that's a deer track. or that is an elk. or if we were really lucky, that's a bear, and you would follow those tracks down the trail or down the road, and then you would get to the corner and maybe you would see that deer. every so often, you did. we would follow the tracks. so that's what we must do, ordinary citizens, u.s. senators, to try to figure out where this justice is going to be on these fundamental cases that are in front of the court. you've got to follow the tracks. so what do we have? well, we've got the fact that president trump promised that his judicial appointments would do the right thing and overturn

the affordable care act. he tweeted that it would be a big win if the supreme court strikes down the health care law. and if that wasn't clear, he just went on "60 minutes" -- he released a tape himself on thursday and then it was on tonight, and he said it will be so good if the supreme court overturns the affordable care act. okay. so this isn't something from three years ago. no,, no, this is something we all saw tonight. then on september 18 when the nation was mourning the loss of a judicial giant, president trump saw his moment and on september 26 at what became a superspreader party at the white house, he announced his nominee. so here is what we know as we follow the tracks. in an article judge barrett wrote for the university of minnesota law school journal called "constitutional commentary" in 2017, the same year that she became a judge

this was published, she wrote that chief justice roberts -- these are her words -- quote, pushed the affordable care act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute. that was a case called nfibv. srebrenica i willious that -- v.sebilius that she was writing about. direct criticism of the chief justice's decision to allow the affordable care act to stand. and in the 2015 interview on king v.burwell, this is another case that involves the affordable care act, another case where she have justice roberts sided in favor of the affordable care act, there judge barrett acknowledged that the majority holding is good because millions of people won't lose their health care subsidies, yet she praised the dissent by justice scalia, saying it had

the better of the legal argument. now, remember, she spent all her time in the hearings saying whatever the policies are don't matter. what matters is the legal argument. what matters is the law. in her position, which i don't agree with, but her position was that justice scalia had the better of the legal argument. that is one big track to see where she is coming down. when she accepted the president's nomination at the white house, she made clear that she considers justice scalia one of the most conservative justices in our nation's history as a mentor. those are our tracks. but it's not just on health care. what other tracks do we have to follow? well, she signed her name to a public statement featured in an ad calling for an end to what the ad called the barbaric legacy of roe v. wade. which ran on the anniversary of the 1973 supreme court decision.

there is your track. she wrote her own dissent, disagreeing with long-standing court rulings on gun safety, expressing her legal opinions that some felons should get guns. she once discussed the dissent in the marriage equality case asking whether it was really the supreme court's job to make that decision. those are the tracks that lead all of us down that path to the point where you go around the curve and you realize at least one thing for sure, and that is that judge coney barrett's judicial philosophy is the polar opposite of justice ginsburg. voting rights. here is another example. given the timing of this nomination and the fact that we're just over one week from election day, when i asked judge barrett would she say that

mail-in voting is essential right now, even though the coronavirus continues to spread and people are having to choose between their health and their vote, she said it was a matter of policy. when i asked her, she wouldn't say voter intimidation is illegal, even though in minnesota an outside contractor was recruiting poll watchers with special forces experience during the judge's hearing. that is clear voter intimidation. i was not asking her about an ongoing case. i was actually asking her just if it's against the law. it is. it violates 18 u.s.c., section 594. and while in the case in minnesota, the company has now agreed to cancel its plan after minnesota attorney general ellis opened an investigation, we are seeing threats to the right to vote in states across the country. and when i asked judge barrett even refused to acknowledge that the constitution empowers

congress to protect the right to vote. so the inescapable conclusion from these tracts is that judge barrett again would be very different than justice ginsburg. justice ginsburg was a champion of voting rights. when a 5-4 court gutted a key provision of the voting rights act in shelby county v. holder, justice ginsburg wrote in her famous dissent that the constitution uses the words right to vote in five separate places, and in each place it reaffirms that these are -- these are their words, justice ginsburg, congress holds the lead rein in making the right to vote equally real for all u.s. citizens. justice ginsburg understood that voting not just -- you don't just say it's a fundamental right. it's how you protect it. how do we do that? by standing up to voter intimidation and voter suppression, by protecting our

democracy from a president who tries to undermine free and fair elections, by protecting the millions of people who are going to polls right now during this pandemic, some risking their lives to cast a ballot. and during her hearing, judge barrett did not make these simple commitments. so i am very concerned about this fundamental issue of voting rights. the stakes have never been higher as they are right now. look at what's happening. in texas, they are trying to force each county to have only one ballot dropbox, including harris county which has 4.7 million people, one box. a judge stepped in and said no, this is wrong, and then three trump-appointed judges on the fifth circuit vacated the district court's order. no matter what the size of your county, you just get one box. in tennessee, republicans have tried to prevent ballot dropboxes, and they have argued

in court that covid-19 is not a valid excuse to vote by mail. in south carolina, the u.s. supreme court earlier this month reinstated a south carolina requirement that mail-in ballots must have a witness signature so voters in south carolina are going to be forced to go out in the middle of a pandemic and find someone to witness their ballot. and as we saw last monday in a case that went to the supreme court from pennsylvania, judge amy coney barrett could, in fact, be the swing vote on a case like this. this is a case where last week the supreme court issued a split 4-4 decision that lets stand the pennsylvania supreme court's ruling allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots received within three days of the election, even if they are not postponed. and just last wednesday, the supreme court blocked curbside voting in alabama which was intended to help who? voters with disabilities. in defense, justice sotomayor

quoted howard porter jr., a black man in his 70's with asthma and parkinson's who said this -- so many of my ancestors even died to vote, and while i don't mind dying to vote, i think we're past that. we're past that time. that's how i feel a lot about what this judge who is before us now, per views on originalism, her views are not change -- on not changing with the times like so many other justices interpret the constitution to mean so that it matters to everyday people, but not this judge. some of my republican colleagues have, i noted, think that this is something distant and far away. as i noted, we cannot divorce this nominee in her views from the election we are in now.

the last time we had a vacancy so close to a presidential election was in 1864. then-president abraham lincoln did the wise thing, the right thing, and he waited until after the election to fill the vacancy. and in 2016 when justice scalia died about nine months before the election, senator mcconnell said this -- the american people should have a voice in the selection of their next supreme court justice. therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. that is what we are talking about with the unfairness of this, with the sham of this proceeding, and i laid out for you tonight the reasons i believe that this has become such a high priority instead of passing pandemic relief. during the week of judge barrett's hearing, more than 220,000 more people got

covid-19. at least 2,700 more people died from it. nearly 800,000 people filed for unemployment. more small businesses closed, too. according to one study, recently around 800 small businesses are closing every day. in my home state, one in five small businesses say they will be forced to close if we don't do something about it. let me give you an example. jose frias from st. paul is one of them. he is a third generation business owner who owns boca chika family restaurant which includes a fast food, taco house, and catering service. he started as a manager 20 years old and worked his way up, taking over two years ago, his dream. the future looked bright, but then the virus hit. jose was forced to go from 98 employees to just 48. his guest restaurants closed entirely and revenue from

catering is down 90%. in his words, the business, which he has been running with his sisters, aunts, nieces, and a few remaining staff, was his whole life and it has come to a standstill. this is happening all over the country. on october 6, federal reserve chair jerome powell made clear that it would be tragic if congress fails to pass an economic relief package. we have start-ups that were already in a slump before this. the numbers are plummeting more. small businesses closing. a conservative supreme court that has done nothing when it comes to antitrust, nothing. yet justice ginsburg, she always dissented. she made the cases for those small businesses. but the trump judges, they have gone the opposite way. i want to end with this. america, you deserve better. you deserve leaders who will put

you first. you deserve leaders who will protect your jobs, your families, and your health care. you deserve a supreme court nominee who will speak truth to power or at least acknowledge when basic precedents exist, even if it is inconvenient to the president who nominated her. there may be nothing we can do any longer to stop this confirmation, but there is one thing you can do to determine the future of this nation. those blueprints for the future that justice ginsburg would refer to. you can vote. and when you cast your ballots, remember where those tracks lead. there is another way than this administration and than this hypocrisy we're seeing and than this gridlock that has taken over this u.s. senate. it is spelled out right there in

the first three words of the constitution. we can be a nation in which we the people truly means all the people, a nation in which the people have a say in which the people determine the future. remember, this isn't donald trump's country. it is yours. this shouldn't be donald trump's judge. it should be yours. thank you. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: thank you, madam president. a little over a month ago, i came to the floor to honor the late justice ruth bader ginsburg, a trailblazer and icon and friend. i shared what she meant as a personal hero to me and as a role model to millions of other

women. i discussed her ground-breaking work and how much of what she fought for is now on the line, and i talked about the message ruth left before she died, stating her, quote, most fervent wish, close quote, that her replacement not be named, quote, until a new president is installed. it's been 37 days since ruth died. i miss her. america misses her. it has also been 37 days since mitch mcconnell declared he would disregard ruth's most fervent wish and move ahead with a corrupt and illegitimate process to fill her seat on the supreme court. just eight days -- eight days -- before the election, when tens of millions of americans have already cast their ballots and just 15 days before the supreme court will hear a case that could overturn the affordable

care act, donald trump, mitch mcconnell, and their republican buddies are shoving aside the wishes of the american people in order to steal the supreme court seatment. mitch mcconnell and the senate republicans violated the long-established rules of the judiciary committee to rush their nominee through, giving each other a wink and a nod before they turned a blind eye to their own rule breaking. they even violated the rule mitch mcconnell made up in order to keep one of president obama's nominees off the court long before anyone was voting. no confirmations of justices in an election year. so they made up the rules, then they broke those same rules. they cheated. why? why was it so important that they were willing to turn their backs on the very rules that they had put in place? why rush through this

nomination? why? because the republican party is scared that they can't win through the democratic process, scared that they can't win by playing by the rules, that they can't win when the american people decide the outcome, that they can't win when elections matter. what we're seeing today is the last gasp of a desperate party, a party working to undermine our democracy so that they can keep pushing their extremist agenda just a little longer, a party that doesn't reflect the views of the majority of americans or the values that we hold dear. this is a party beholden to billionaires and extremists, that is desperate to keep its grasp on power and willing to break any rule, any precedent, or any principle to hold onto

that power just a little longer. the republican senators bat down every concern. no supreme court nominee has been confirmed this close it a presidential election. they say, no problem. republican senators plunge ahead with an illegitimate nomination made by a morally bankrupt president. the rose garden ceremony to celebrate the nomination turns into a coronavirus super-spreader event. republican senators brush it off. republican senators will press ahead with hearings while members of the judiciary committee are in quarantine and some of them refuse to get tested. hundreds of thousands of americans are dead and millions are waiting for the federal government to finally show up and fight this pandemic. republican senators say, sorry, no time. senate republicans have better things to do than pass a relief

package, things like steal a supreme court seat. here's the ugly truth -- donald trump and his republican buddies know that confirming amy coney barrett to the nation's highest court is their path to advance an extremist agenda long after the country is fed up and disgusted with their failures. in the middle of an election, in the depths of a pandemic, their extremist agenda is all that matters, and that's why they are so desperate to ram her nomination through the senate. the confirmation hearings were a sham. the conclusion was foregone, and the nominee spent days ducking and donald trumping legitimate questions about where she stands on issues of crucial importance to the american people. it was little more than a p.r. stunt. but what the nominee refused to

say was actually very informative. she refused to say whether the ruling upholding the right to contraception was correct. she refused to say whether the government can criminalize a same-sex relationship. she refused to say whether it's wrong to separate children from their parents in order to deter immigration. she even refused to say whether climate change is happening and whether it poses a threat to human beings. this was no hearing. this was a farce. barrett's attempt to remain silent on key issues spoke volumes. it shows that she believes these critical rights, protections, and values are debatable, up for grabs. and barrett's refusal to embrace these commonsense values shows just how out of step, how

extreme barrett is and will continue to be if she is confirmed. let's be real. we already know what barrett is all about. we know why corporate interests and right-wing zealots are so excited about her, why so many republicans will vote to confirm her and why trump, who has handed the judiciary over to the federalist society, has nominated her. it is because she will advance their extremist conservative agenda. so her question-dodging isn't a problem for them. it's part of their strategy to get her onto the court. they know where she stands, and so do the american people. we already know because her record is clear. take reproductive rights. president trump pledged to nominate supreme court justices who would overturn roe.

listen to him. he said he would only appoint someone who would overturn roe. and then he picked barrett. in 2006, barrett signed a newspaper ad calling for the end of roe and describing roe as barbaric. she was a member of an antichoice group while on the university of notre dame faculty. and how will she overturn roe? after all, roe is the current law of the land. but barrett has that all worked out. she holds a dangerously radical view on legal precedent. in a 2013 law review article, she suggested that the supreme court is not strictly bound by precedent and that public debate about roe leaves open the possibility of overruling it. to state it plainly, barrett believes women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their

own bodies. she is a clear and present danger to roe. when it comes to the affordable care act, again, listen to trump himself. he said he would only nominate judges who will end the a.c.a. law, judges who would take away health care coverage from millions of americans. he picked barrett. barrett's record indicates that's exactly what she will do, work to gut key provisions that protect millions of americans. she criticized chief justice roberts' opinion in 2012 upholding a critical part of the a.c.a., saying that he, quote, pushed the affordable care act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute, close quote. in a media interview in 2015 she

said that in another supreme court decision that upheld the alaska, the dissenting -- the a.c.a., the dissenting justices who wanted to overturn the a.c.a. had the, quote, better of the legal argument. while claiming just to follow the text of the law, barrett's record shows that her purported text actualist approach is nothing but a facade, merely a cover for her to reach a result that will further the interests of those with money and power. now, barrett's record isn't just cringe-worny, it's -- cringe-worthy, it's downright alarming. just one week after election day on november 10, the supreme court will hear a case that will determine the fate of the affordable care act and right now 17 cases that could undermine the right to abortion care are one step away from the

supreme court. 21 states are ready to go. they have already drafted laws they can pass immediately, laws that could be used to restrict abortion in case roe is overturned. and it's not just reproductive rights and access to health care that are on the line. trump and his republican enablers want a justice who will rubber stamp trump's racist and xenophobic attacks on immigrants. from ripping away protections for our dreamers to rewriting the census. once again, this is exactly what donald trump told us he would do after he lost earlier court case. trump and his republican enablers also want a justice who will turn back the clock even more on workers' rights. trump wants a justice who will erode workers' abilities to join

together and fight for fair pay and working conditions and to push back against employment discrimination. we know this is what they want because those are the policies the trump administration has pursued and what barrett's anti-worker record tells us that she will do. and there's another thing about barrett's record that deserves special attention just eight days before the election. trump and his republican enablers want a justice who will strip away voting rights, especially from communities of color and marginalized communities. trump wants a supreme court justice to help undermine our democracy. we know this because trump already told us his game plan to do it. trump and his republican enablers are working to make voting as difficult, confusing,

and scary as possible, and they're using every tool in order to do it. trump has lied repeatedly about mail-in voting. he's falsely claimed that it's the source of rampant fraud. trump's lawyers have sued states that have taken action to try to help americans vote safely during this pandemic by expanding vote-by-mail. and at the same time, trump and his cronies are working to dismantle the u.s. postal service, slowing down mail delivery, and creating even more barriers to the ballot at a critical moment in this election. we've all seen the president's reckless, dangerous statements over the past few months, casting doubt on the election itself, peddling the fact-free claim that this election will be quote, the most rigged, close

quote, in american history and that he is, quote, not sure, close quote, that the election results will be accurate. most alarming of all, trump has repeatedly refused to commit to the a peaceful transfer of power, and he said that he will not accept the election results if he doesn't win. and as her confirmation hearing shows, barrett is just the justice donald trump is looking for. in her hearing, barrett refused to recuse herself in a case that might decide the outcome of the election, and she refused to say whether she believes that a president should commit to the peaceful transfer of power. she also refused to say whether voter intimidation is illegal -- which it is -- whether the president can unilaterally delay an election -- which it cannot -- and whether the constitution

empowers congress to protect the right to vote -- which it does. the stakes have never been higher for our democracy. on one issue after another, on one right after another, trump and his republican enablers have made it clear they want a court that will bend over backwards even further for the wealthy and well-connected while running roughshod over everyone else. they want a court that will keep them in power, even when voters have had enough of their fearmongering and division and graft. and barrett is their choice to do just that. and that's why this vote is so critical. a vote for barrett is a vote to strip health care from millions of people. it is a vote to turn back the

clock on reproductive freedom, to endanger freedoms and immigrants -- endanger dreamers and immigrants, to imperil efforts to address systemic racism, to place workers' rights, voters' rights, lgbtq rights, gun violence prevention all at risk. ultimately it's also a vote to rubber-stamp an illegitimate process against the will of much of the nation and against a backdrop of a deadly crisis that the senate republicans have ignored as americans have died. let's be very clear. if trump and republicans succeed in ramming this nomination through, the american people will expect us to use every tool we have to undo the damage and

restore the court's integrity. i'm under no illusions here. democrats have fought tooth and nail, but the republicans control the senate. the reason the republicans are willing to break every rule to jam through an illegitimate nomination eight days before the election is that they have realized a truth that shakes them down to their core. the american people are not on their side. people all over this country are fighting to reclaim our democracy. they are registering to vote and they are voting. they are voting like never before. they are speaking out and telling their stories. they are fighting for a democracy that works for all of us, not just for the privileged few. and they will continue to fight

until they've taken our democracy back from those who have worked around the clock to undermine it. now, i want to spend some time drilling down on what's at stake with this vote starting with the impact that dismantling the affordable care act will have on my constituents in massachusetts. i will stop with an op-ed that i wrote with amy rosenthal, the executive director for health care for all and kate walsh, she's the president and c.e.o. of boston medical center. it was published in the "boston globe" and entitled the a.c.a. yeah and coverage for massachusetts residents is at risk. here is what we wrote. dave was laid off from his hotel job in march due to the coronavirus pandemic and he lost his health insurance too. a week ler he was rushed to -- a

week later, he was rushed to the emergency room with a lung problem. he was able to enroll in health care better known as obamacare. he is one of the hundreds of thousands of massachusetts residents given a lifeline by the a.c.a. yet the multi-year effort to repeal the law is coming to a head at the worst possible time. just days after the november election, the u.s. supreme court will hear oral arguments in a case seeking to overturn the a.c.a. and supreme court nominee, amy coney barrett, has a clear record on the issue. she has openly questioned the constitutionalitiy of the a.c.a., arguing that the supreme court's ruling upholding the a.c.a.'s individual mandate was, quote, illegitimate. if she is confirmed to the

court, she may provide the decisive vote to strike it down. for people like dave and more than 23 million others nationwide, access to health care hangs in the balance. a need for health care coverage has never been more dire than during the covid-19 pandemic. it has laid bayer devastating disparities in access and outcomes. the a.c.a. expansion led toward progress with equity with the gap between the insurance coverage rate between black and white adults dropping by 4% and the difference between hispanic and white adults falling by 9.4%. overturning the a.c.a. would further exacerbate inequities in

access to health care. the elimination of the a.c.a. would also be devastating for people with specific health care needs, including 1.8 million people living with substance abuse disorders and mental illness. it would also be stripped away from 135 million people who have preexisting conditions like diabetes, cancer, asthma, and those now who have had covid-19. insurance companies could once again charge women 50% more than men -- than men for coverage and impose lifetime caps on benefits. it would strip a popular feature for families, coverage for those up to age 26 who have sought coverage on their patients' plans at a time when youth unemployment has doubled due to covid-19.

in massachusetts, where our state's health reform law served as a model for the a.c.a., many falsely believe we would be protected in the a.c.a. were struck down. this is not the case. thanks to the a.c.a., a number of new protections were implemented in the commonwealth. the provision allowing young people to stay on their patients' plans and for seniors caught in the medicare doughnut hole. these protections could be gone overnight if the a.c.a. were invalidated. in addition, an a.c.a. repeal would impact access to health coverage and health care for hundreds of thousands of massachusetts consumers. the state's health insurance coverage expansions were only possible with the partnership and funding from the federal government. this is especially true for the expansion of mass health, our

medicaid program, as well as the availability of affordable coverage through connector care. over 375,000 massachusetts residents could lose their health coverage and the state stands to lose up to $2.4 billion in federal funds. these immense cuts would create a funding gap that would be impossible to fill even during normal times. the challenge is even greater now. according to some estimates, massachusetts may face a deficit of up to $6 billion as a result of the pandemic. these funding shortfalls could have devastating implications for the health care safety net in massachusetts. taking coverage away during the worst pandemic we have experienced in the last century is simply despicable and we

should -- all be outraged. massachusetts deserves more from its president and from its government. all of us must speak up, speak out, and make it abundantly clear that the a.c.a. cannot be repealed. speaking of includes speaking of ow the a.c.a. transformed people's lives. so many in massachusetts have shared their stories and how they would be harmed if health care were ripped away. i want to introduce you to a few of those people. marlini, deb, and charlotte. marlini receives her health care through connector care. it is for low-income families who don't qualify for any other

program. her family uses the chip program. she says without the help she gets from mass help and connector care, she couldn't pay her rent and bring food to the table for her kids. the affordable care act helped massachusetts expand medicaid and more affordable insurance plans like the ones marlina uses. but if trump's supreme court nominee overturns the a.c.a., massachusetts could lose $2.4 billion in federal funding, over 375,000 people like marlini and her children could lose their coverage. deb from greenfield knows what it's like not to able to pay for health care. she told me, quote, i was an american whom obamacare saved at the very moment i lost my career and my health. she writes, you must step in and

take action. we cannot sit idly by while our access to affordable care act hangs in the balance. deb is right, and there are millions of people across this country who have lost their jobs during this pandemic and economic crisis and could be in the exact same position that deb was in. and, finally, i've checked back in with my friend charlie and her mom rebecca who live in rivere. charlie and i fought side by side at the capitol during the health care fights in 2017. her mom reminded me about that. she said due to severe preclampsei, charlie was delivered early and weighed 790-grams.

that's about 1 pound, 12-ounces. she was in the nicu and without the a.c.a. she would have exceeded the lifetime cap before coming home from the hospital. additionally she would have been uninsurable because her birth is a preexisting condition. with access to health care, charlie was able to thrive despite some pretty significant diagnoses and now at the age of 8, charlie lives a very much typical life. repealing the affordable care act now would be devastating for rebecca and charlie. they can't go back to lifetime caps or sky-high rates and denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. none of these families can. and, like so many policies, black and brown communities will

be disproportionately affected if the a.c.a. is destroyed. i want to read another op-ed i wrote recently that was published in shndaland, it discusses stripping away health care for communities of color. over ten years ago president obama signed the affordable care act, a.c.a., into law. since then, we've made progress. millions of americans now have high-quality affordable health insurance. we no longer have to worry about being denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. millions of young adults can stay on their parents' plans until age 26. states were given the option to expand medicaid eligibility, providing coverage to more than 12 million low-income americans.

but now the a.c.a. is at risk because republicans are trying to ram through amy coney barrett's nomination to serve as the next associate justice of the supreme court. they are trying to push her through -- her confirmation through at breakneck speed because just one week after the november elections, a case to overturn the a.c.a. will be in front of the supreme court and republicans want barrett to have their back to cast the deciding vote and to deliver a death blow to the law. republicans have railed against the a.c.a. from the day it was passed, making its repeal a tenet of their platform in every congressional and presidential race. they have tried dozens of times trying to -- tearing it down all

while ignoring the good it has done for the american people. among the chorus of a.c.a. detractors is judge barrett. while she tried to claim during her supreme court hearing that she's, quote, not hostile to the a.c.a., her record says otherwise. she criticized chief justice roberts vote in 2012 to uphold the a.c.a. her nomination is just the latest republican attack on the a.c.a. and if she is confirmed, mitchell mcconnell and donald trump might get their wish and succeed in ripping health care away from tens of millions of people during a global pandemic. and here's what that would mean. in the middle of the covid-19 crisis insurance companies would instantly be able to enforce

caps on coverage or deny coverage to the 133 million americans with preexisting conditions like asthma, diabetes, even pregnancy. covid-19 itself could be considered a preexisting condition for the millions of americans who have survived the virus. the 12 million low-income americans now covered by medicaid expansions would lose their coverage, including more than 850,000 americans struggling with opioid use disorder, people who rely on medicaid for lifesaving medication-assisted treatment and counseling services. millions of young adults would be thrown off their parents' insurance forcing them to pay out of their own possibilities, even as many -- own pockets, even as many struggle under a mountain of student loan debt. and the damage won't stop there.

repeal of the a.c.a. would have devastating consequences for black and brown communities that disproportionately benefit from its coverage. the a.c.a. helped narrow disparities and access to health care in the united states and provided millions of black and brown families affordable options for care. without the a.c.a., one in every five black americans and one in three hispanic americans would be uninsured. if the a.c.a. is dismantled, black and brown communities that benefit from medicaid expansions would be kicked off their insurance, in the midst of a maternal mortality crisis that disproportionately impacts mothers of color, moms across this country could lose access to the well woman visits and the maternity coverage currently required by the a.c.a. so let's call out the supreme

court nomination for what it is. donald trump and the entire republican party's big chance to compete and complete a decadelong partisan attack on the a.c.a. and on americans' rights to health care. it's the big chance for a desperate party to impose its extreme views on the people of this country because they couldn't actually get it done through congress. the majority of americans want the senate to wait until after the election to choose a new justice. it's because this is a life-or-death situation for their friends, their families, and for millions -- tens of millions of their fellow americans. in 2012, after yet another attack on the a.c.a. was defeated in the supreme court,

justice ginsburg wrote that, quote, the crisis created by the large number of u.s. residents who lack health insurance is one of national dimension, close quote. and she cited, quote, the inevitable yet unpredictable need for medical care, close quote, as a reason to uphold the legislation. justice ginsburg was right. health care is a basic human right. we fight for basic human rights. we fight against this nomination, and we fight any attempt to rip away health care from families. we do this together. it's not just health care. for tens of millions of people -- it's not just health care for

tens of millions of people that's on the line. a woman's right to make her own health care decisions is also in jeopardy. roe v. wade is a landmark case that protects a woman's right to abortion care. a few weeks ago, i published an op-ed in "the cut" that discusses what this nomination means for the right to abortion care, and i want to read it now for you. this is what i wrote. quote, the decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life, to her dignity. it is a decision she must make for herself. when government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices, end quote. justice ruth bader ginsburg said that 30 years ago at her supreme

court confirmation hearing. she understood that reproductive freedom is foundational to equality and critical to women's health and to their economic security. without access to high-quality reproductive health care, including contraception and safe, legal abortion, we cannot have true equality. but president trump, senate republicans, and their extremist allies just don't care. they've spent almost four years of the trump administration -- and many years before that -- undermining health care and turning back the clock on reproductive rights, and that is why they have nominated amy coney barrett to sit on the supreme court. she's the ticket for a desperate right-wing party that wants to hold on to power a little longer

in order to impose its extremist agenda on the entire country. president trump and his republican enablers have tried to deny this obvious fact. the president recently said that he didn't know how barrett would rule on reproductive rights, and republicans in the senate have fallen in line. the republican party knows the large majority of americans do not support overturning roe v. wade. they benefit when we stay on the sidelines, and they want us to sit back and stay quiet while our fundamental freedoms are on the line. but we see right through their radical play. president trump picked barrett as his supreme court nominee to take us back in time. roe v. wade established the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion and has been the

law of the land for over 47 years. but over and over and over again, president trump has bragged -- bragged -- about his plans to appoint justices who would, quote, automatically, close quote, overturn roe. the affordable care act expanded access to reproductive health care, like no co-pay birth control for millions of people, but president trump has promised to overturn the affordable care act in its entirety and sent his justice department to ask the supreme court to do exactly that. barrett is trump's ideal candidate to accomplish his plans. in 2016, she signed a newspaper ad calling for the end of roe and describing the decision as barbaric. she was a member of an

antichoice group while on the university of the notre dame faculty. she is also critical of the affordable care act and the supreme court's past decision to uphold the law in court. her position on abortion and other reproductive rights are clear. she believes women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies. if barrett's nomination makes you scared and angry, you are right to be. 17 abortion-related cases are already one step away from the supreme court. 21 states have laws that could be used to restrict abortion in the case that roe is overturned. and if barrett's confirmation is rammed through quickly, she'll have the opportunity on november 10 to hear a case about overing it up the affordable care act -- overturning the affordable care

act and a lifetime on the nation's highest court to undermine the rights and the values that we hold dear. access to birth control has changed the economic futures of millions of women, and access to safe abortion care is an economic issue, too. for a young couple with modest wages and piles of student loan debt, the decision to start or expand a family is a powerful economic one. for a woman working two jobs with two kids already in day care, an unplanned pregnancy can upend budgets already stretched too far. for a student still? high school or working towards a college degree, it can derail the most careful plans for financial independence. indeed, one of the most common reasons that women decide to have an abortion is because they cannot afford to raise a child. and let's be explicitly clear.

if these attacks succeed, they will have disproportionately negative consequences for women of color, who are lore facing some of the -- who are already facing some of the most insurmountable barriers to abortion care. rich women will still have access to abortion and reproductive care, but it will be black and brown women, women with low incomes, women who can't afford to take time off from work, and young women who were raped or molested by a family member who will be the most vulnerable. this is not a moment to back down. already it is inspiring to see so many women and friends of women coming off the sidelines in this fight, and we must continue to speak up. call your senators and make sure this conversation is grounded in our real experiences. men must speak up, too, because reproductive freedom affects us all.

voting is already under way across the country, and there are only 26 days before the election is completed, and the data show that most americans want to wait until after the election for a new justice to be confirmed. justice ginsburg gave us our marching orders, do not fill the supreme court seat until after the election when the next president is installed. we will fight hard together to honor her wish. there are countless powerful stories that demonstrate why abortion rights are so important, and i'm are going to read a few of them. the first is from my friend and colleague from michigan, senator peters, who became the first sitting u.s. senator to share his abortion story. i'll just read an excerpt of that powerful piece that was published in "elle magazine."

in the late 1980's in detroit, peters and his then wife heidi were pregnant with a second child, a baby they very much wanted. heidi was four months along with with her water broke being leaving the fetus without am knee otoache fluid, a condition it could not possibly survive. the doctor told the peters to go home and wait for a miscarriage to happen naturally. but it didn't happen. they went back to the hospital the next day and the doctor detected a faint heartbeat. he recommended an abortion because the fetus still had no chance of survival. but it wasn't an option due to a hospital policy banning the procedure. so he sent the couple home again to wait for a mis-karen. -- a miscarriage. the mental anguish someone goes through is intense, peters says,

trying to have a miscarriage for a child that was wanted. as they waited, heidi's health deteriorated. when she returned to the hospital on the third day after another night without a natural miscarriage, the doctor told her the situation was dire. she could lose her uterus in a matter of hours if she wasn't able to have an abortion, and if she became septic from the uterine infection, she could die u the doctor appealed to the hospital's board p for an exception to their antiabortion policy and was denied. i still vividly remember he left a message on the answering machine saying, they refused to give me per pigs not based on good medical practice, simply based on politics. i recommend you immediately find another physician who can do this procedure quickly, peters

recalls. the peters were able to get into another hospital right away because they were friends with its chief administrator. heidi was you shall ared to an emergency abortion that saved her uterus and possibly her life. the whole experience was painful and traumatic, heidi shared in a statement. if it weren't for you are urgent and critical medical care, i could have lost my life. reflecting on the experience now, senator peters says it, quote, enacted an incredible emotional toll, close quote. so why go public with it? well, it's important for folks to understand that these things happen to folks every day, he explained p. i've always considered myself pro-choice and believe women should be able to make these decisions themselves. but when you live it in real life, you realize the significant impact it can have on a family. peters decided to share the story at this moment because the

right to make such decisions as a family, free of politics, has never been more at stake. he is alarmed by the threat of donald trump's supreme court nominee, amy coney barrett, the threat she poses to women's reproductive rights. the very conservative nominee called roe v. wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion, barbaric. if the republicans successfully have her fill ruth bader ginsburg's seat, she could reverse abortion in america or curtail it. it's important for folks willing to tell these stories to tell them, especially now, peters says. the new supreme court nominee could make a decision that will have major ramifications for reproductive health care for women for decades to come. this is a pivotal moment for

reproductive freedom. senator peters is right. this is a pivotal moment for reproductive freedom. i've heard from so many of my constituents about roe. i'm going to share two of their stories. the first is from kate who lives in medford, massachusetts. she wrote, most of my life, my strong support for abortion was as impersonal as it was important. a late bloomer, i barely dated until i was in my 20's, then quickly met and married my wonderful husband. our birth control always worked perfectly. anyway, we are both family-finded, and dreamed of building a family big with lots of kids. my husband and i had one

daughter planned and loved, but the second child was not so easy. i suffered three miscarriages in two years before a baby finally stuck. pregnancy brought months of crushing nausea. but the sicker i felt the better, the doctors said, things must be going well. healthy, healthy, healthy they told me time after time. by late may, the end was in sight, big and ripe and swollen, i bundled myself into the hospital for an ultrasound. i brought a tiny sweater to knit while i waited. after an hour of examination, the doctor entered the dark room. she saw the swert and asked, is it for the baby? i noded and proudly showed her how all the pieces would line up just so to fit my newborn daughter. a month was plenty long to

finish such a small project. it's beautiful, she told me, her eyes filling with tears. she turned the monitor toward me so i could see the big, black fluid-filled holes in my baby's brain. there was so little that i knew that day. i didn't know about dandy walker malformation or the corpus callosum. i knew love. i knew fear. i knew my values and i knew that i was in boston, medical mecca, hub of the universe. i learned more about brains in general and my baby's brain in particular. m.r.a. revealed poor prognosis. my daughter would not likely ever walk, talk, support the weight of her own head or swallow. i learned that infant hospice

was out of the question and that i could not refuse a feeding tube for my baby. dumbfounded, i asked the neurologist what does a baby like mine do? just sleep all day? he wins whined -- he babies like yours are often not comfortable enough to sleep. i knew what i needed to do. 35 weeks pregnant and i was afraid to tell my husband, my doctor, my genetic counselor, but i talked to my family and i called the hospital. it was a friday afternoon. my doctor was busy delivering triplets. i left a message. i want to know all of my options, i said. all of them. she called me back at 6:30 p.m. and talked fast. she gave me the number of an adoption agency in upstate

new york that specializes in medically complex children. i'm so sorry, if you want an abortion, you have to decide before the end of the day, you have to be on an airplane monday, you have to show up tuesday with $25,000 up front. i am so sorry she said again. i did not have $25,000. i didn't know if the number led to a safe, legal doctor or if it led to some back-alley quack. i only knew my desperation. i called the number right away. the woman on the phone was very kind. she too apologized, but dr. dr. hearn does not practice after 36 weeks and you will be 36 weeks on the last day of your procedure. yes, of course, i said. we'll be there. we'll find the money. and we did. there wasn't one day of open

banking before our trip so a loan was out of the question. we had to rely on my family. they were able to increase their credit while we flew across the country and withdrew the fund from their retirement account to cover the bill later in the month. without them, i don't know what would have happened. i know now about abortion funds. about but just as i didn't asking if it was safe and legal. i didn't want to risk financial help. i met mr. hern and the medical team. my third trimidwester abortion was safer in the 36th week than full-term life birth many we laid my daughter to rest. friday morning, after brief labor, i delivered her whole and still into the hands of my

savior. he brought her to me after. she was still warm but not quite warm enough. dr. hearn saved my daughter from immeasurable suffering. he saved my family from having to go against our deepest-held families. dr. hearn saved me from my own desperation, and every step of the way he saved my dignity. i want to share one more story. this one is from wndy in -- wendy in greenfield, massachusetts. i will just read a part of what wendy wrote. she said, i know first hand that overturning roe, whether overtly or by chipping away at access to abortion until roe becomes

meaningless, will not stop women from seeking abortions. it will, however, deny women access to safe abortions. abortion has been with us since women have been getting pregnant and it will continue to be with us no matter what the politicians and judges decide. in 1961, i was 17 and abortion was not yet legal but i was pregnant and did not want to be. i was fortunate because i was able to tell my parents and they helped me find a doctor, but finding a safe, compassionate doctor turned out to be a different story. we knew an illegal abortion could be expensive and my parents didn't have much money. so we made a plan together that i would go by myself in the hopes he would take mercy on me and would charge me less. i know there were many heroic doctors who helped women back

then at great risk to themselves. but this doctor, who i'm sure had seen other young women alone and without support thought he could take advantage instead. i remember finding this somewhat onedown building and -- rundown building and walking up the dark flight of stairs to his office. there was nobody there and the office was dimly lit and the doctor himself appeared unprofessional. he sat too close to me and put his hand on my knee and said, we don't have to use the word abortion, dear. i knew immediately i did not want this man to touch me, let alone perform an abortion. so i did what many women in my situation weren't able to do. i walked back down the flight of stairs and out into the light of

the street. i felt and still feel it was a narrow escape. so we found a second doctor and in fact it was my sister who had a guitar teacher who knew someone because that's how it worked back then and this time my mother came with me. we had to go at night to the backdoor and though there was no nurse or assistant, this office was clean and it looked like a real medical office and the doctor looked like a real doctor, but he was not a compassionate man. as i lay there on the exam table with my another in the -- mother in the next room, the doctor lectured me. told me i was a sinner and the abortion was the wage of and said threatened if i made noise, he would stop the procedure, i would have to have the baby and everyone would, quote, know my shame. although my experience was scary and humiliating, my story is not

as horrific as many from that time. i survived without injury as many women did not, but that's because i was lucky. i was lucky to have supportive parents. i was lucky they could afford to pay. i was lucky to have aper koashus sister and that she knew someone who had contacts but no one should have to depend on luck to get a safe abortion. although that doctor tried to shame me, i am not ashamed. i don't think abortion is shameful and i've never had a moment's regret. my abortion allowed me to become a parent when i was ready to raise a child properly and responsibly. it is also a social and public health good. abortion is a necessary part of family planning and women's

health care and denying or restricting access to it means that women cannot safely control their preproduction and therefore can't really control their lives which means they can't participate fully and equally in society. it is bad social policy to hobble half of the population. women of my generation already know what pain and hardship results from abortion bans, but younger women have grown-up taking abortion access for granted as a right. and i urge them to speak out and tell their stories and not only women, but men, other family members, friends who have been involved and who have been affected. bring up your experiences in conversation, contact your legislators and tell them. they will be the ones in

immediate danger whose lives and whose families lives will be affected. senator peters story, kate's story, wendy's story is about how gut wrenching these decisions are. these are decisions that women should make for themselves. the senate has no business taking up a vote on a supreme court justice who has already committed to take away health care for millions of people and to take away roe v. wade and its protection for millions of women. we may not have the votes to stop them, but that does not change the fact that what the senate republicans are doing is wrong. we will continue to fight it. we will fight it now in the senate and we will fight it come election day november 3.

i yield the floor.