ability to treat everyone as an equal, deserving of complete respect. as a beneficiary of oath of these qualities, i urge you to confirm judge amy coney barrett to the supreme c >> the senate judiciary committee business commission is where decisions are made. members held a meeting on thursday and talked about their views of judge barrett. senators discussed the state of politics today advising political tensions, reflected in the nomination. hearing. >> mr. chairman? i would like to make a motion. i seek recognition to make a motion. postponeo indefinitely the nomination of amy coney barrett. to be an associate justice of the united states supreme court. sham processs rush

is that his service to our committee. rushed in a way that is historically unprecedented. there has never been a nomination and election year after the month of july. the purpose of doing it is simply to have a justice on the supreme court, as the president said, to decide the election and a strike on the affordable care act. we have had inadequate time to review this nomination has indicated most recently yesterday. a cnn report that there are seven more speeches or talks she has given that have not been disclosed to this committee. the consequence of this rushed process is that we have given inadequate scrutiny to this nominee. i move to delay the proceedings so we can do our jobs and ask

again for all the documents. the 2006 open letter. documentsr among the previously undisclosed. we now have apparently -- reportedly seven more. i moved to delay the proceedings. sen. graham: thank you very much, senator blumenthal. those letters will be made available. i think everyone understands the issue about judge barrett and the position she takes as an individual. as to the process, they will be seven days from the time of the hearing to the vote. times last 50 years, 676 we have done exactly what we are doing today. over half -- about half of the nominees nominated by president have a hearing within 16 days.

we have had two supreme court justices confirmed totally from the time they were nominated to being on the -- voting by the senate 17 to 19 days. justice ginsburg was 33 days. there is nothing out of the norm in terms of the time we have given this matter. we have had two days of hearings. each member had 50 minutes. with all the respect, we will call the roll >> mr. chairman? i wanted to join in with senator blumenthal. this is a sham. i heard you talk about presidence. what you said mr. chairman and what senator mcconnell said where he set the precedent. he said the american people should have a voice in the selection of the neck supreme court justice. when he was looking back at the

mary garland time, this vacancy should not be filled until we had a new president. this is closer in time than that. is best president we have when abraham lincoln was president. it was the closest in time we have had in history to this when it justice died close to the election he waited until after the election to make a selection. i look at the words of my colleagues in this committee, people i work with very well all the time. i look at that historical example and i think it leads us to one and. -- one end. we should allow the winner of the election to pick. we should do this after the election and we should remember we have literally millions and millions of people voting as we speak. you all know that. the final thing that concerns me is the president himself has been making it very clear why he

wants this justice on the court. he said he wants nine people after the election. he said he wants the court that will overturn obamacare. he has made all of this clear. to me, not only do you have your own precedent, not a the example of abraham lincoln, but you have the fact that because of what this president has been saying, it undermines the process, undermines the court. that is why we should delay. the final word is we are not working on a covert relief packets in the middle of a pandemic. that is what we should be doing. that is what the american people want. 74% say we should be doing that instead of working on this. i think the time has come to be honest about what is going on here. you are just trying to ram through this justice against your own words in light of everything this president has said. he won't even commit to a

peaceful transition of power. that is the world we are in right now. it is not some ivory tower where people talk about the dormant commerce clause. this is about peaceful transition of power and the effect this has on people's lives, the effect on their lives with the affordable care act hanging in the balance and whether or not people will be kicked off their health insurance for pre-existing conditions. that is what we should be focused on and i joined senator blumenthal in this motion. sen. graham: i will recognize senator feinstein a moment. as chairman i want to hear anybody that wants to speak on this motion. we will vote. we have a panel from the american bar association. we have an eight-person panel chosen by the minority and the majority. i will do whatever my colleagues

want in terms of motions and being heard. panel -- hatethe it for the panel but i will let you decide what we do today. we will vote for the judge on october 22. i would prefer if possible we could hear from the panel. i will leave it up to my colleagues. senator feinstein? know, this is being done without any precedent in the time i've been on this committee, which is about 25 years. it is being done i guess to show power and push someone through. really abrogates the value of hearings that this committee should treasure and respect. somebody that has been on this committee for a while, i have come to value the hearings. the search for information.

the desire to do justice to individuals. i really don't understand why it makes a difference whether it is two weeks or three weeks or four weeks. it allows us to complete a process which we have put in place that has worked i think very well for a long time. when we do this we breach -- i was going to say the etiquette of the committee. i'm not sure etiquette is the right word but it breaches everything we have held dear and the processes we have moved forward with. i very much hope this does not happen. there is no need for it. it will create a lot of bad will that does not need to be created. thank you, mr. chairman. sen. graham: i will recognize senator cruz. in october -- a camper member when it was in 2013.

i got a call from senator schumer saying we will change the rules regarding court nominations. it was relatively late in the evening. i said please don't do that. there will be no going back. you will live to regret it. my view is that set in motion a lot of things that have taken the senate in the wrong direction. no longer do you require 60 votes. that started with circuit courts. the belief in 2013 was we will pack the d.c. circuit court with people firmly to our cause. all litigation regarding the government goes there. nobody thought you would lose in 2016 including me. i have gotten to know the president that he voted for somebody i wouldn't know if they walked in the door. 2016 gave an outcome different than anybody in the country thought except the people who voted for the president and the

right states. isn't that ironic? the american people actually get essay -- get a say. day forward there has been an effort to say that election was not legitimate. as much as i was disappointed that barack obama be john mccain, i excepted the outcome of voting for his nominees. there is no way you will convince me that amy coney barrett is not qualified using any reasonable standard of qualification. if i applied to justice sotomayor and kagan the standards being imposed upon every republican nominee since i have been here, i would not have voted for them. senator lakey voted for justice laheys --senator voted for justice roberts. i have to reevaluate where i am. it is to be fair but

silly to play a no one else is playing. in august of this year, i said -- i will noth sit on the sidelines and watch one of our nominees be destroyed after showing respect for two democratic nominees. that is not right and i am not going to do that. the timege barrett, periods we have talked about extensively, the same party as the president, the same party as the senate. senator cruz is very smart on all this stuff. major had a chance to test her. you did and i want to complement each member of the democratic side for being firm but not kavanaughn the ca road. senator cruz? >> mr. chairman?

sen. graham: after senator cruz will go to senator durbin. heard atd like to be some point. sen. graham: i promise you everybody will be able to talk. uz: it's important for the record to reflect moving forward on this nomination is consistent with two centuries of precedent and tradition in the senate. numerous democratic members of this committee have given speeches. they have charts prepared to give more speeches. all attacking the legitimacy of these proceedings. factsn adams observed, are seven things. -- stubborn things. the scenario of a supreme court vacancy occurring during a presidential election year is not a new thing. it has occurred 29 times in our history.

nominationsave made all 29 times. the president is unequivocal and uniform when a vacancy occurs in a presidential election year, the president makes a nomination. that includes republicans and democrats. a total of 44 people have served as president of the united states. 22 made a supreme court nomination doing a presidential election year. what has the senate done? the precedent is clear. of those 29, 19 of those occurred when the president and the senate were of the same party. of those 19, the senate confirmed 17 of them. -- president is clear from the precedent is clear that if the president and senate are of the same party, the senate and all but extort new circumstances confirms that nominee.

have about in the senate and president are of different parties? that has happened 10 times. the senate has confirmed the nominee only twice. 2016, which are friends on the democratic side invoke and i understand why the invoke it, they were frustrated. 2016 was an instance in which president obama was a democrat in the senate was controlled by republicans. they had differing views on the kind of justice is that should serve on the court. the election resolved those views. one example that has been pointed to -- senator klobuchar just pointed to it. senator harris pointed to it. abraham lincoln. we are told that honest dave, founder of the -- honest abe, founder of the republican party show the example on why we should not proceed. it is worth noting that example

misses a lot of the story. 1864, 27incoln, in days before the election, chief justice roger tani passes away. he had been the author of the infamous dred scott decision, and abominable decision of the supreme court. suddenly there was a vacancy 27 days before the election. senator klobuchar and senator harris pointed out the fact abraham lincoln did not make a nomination in those 27 days. what both of them omitted was the senate was not here. the senate had left. they had gone home. this was not the age of jet travel over the age of community every weekend -- commuting every weekend on a united flight. the senate would not return until december. there was no senate physically present to confirm that nominee.

when the senate did return in december, abraham lincoln nominated in december a justice to fill that seat. simon chase, which the senate confirmed the next day. 24 hours later they confirmed him. i would note also abraham lincoln was in the midst of a presidential reelection. as doris kearns goodwin writes atutifully, he was very good assembling the political coalition he needed to win. he had multiple factions of the republican party that were splintered. some things have not changed since 1864. playershad multiple that wanted that chief justiceship. they were working hard to reelect him. salmon chase had been treasury secretary. he had been a pain in the rear to lincoln.

as a result of this vacancy, salmon chase campaigned like crazy for lincoln to get him reelected because he wanted the nomination. none of that should be shocking as a matter of history. there are many members of this committee that enjoy being students of history. but to suggest that is somehow a precedent and requires us not to -- ithis vacancy now is can't put it better than the washington post who fact-check senator harris on this claim. conclusionton post was that senator harris's argument wasn't exactly true. so i recognize our democratic friends wish a different president had been elected in 2016. i am sympathetic to those arguments. i recognize our democratic

friends wish there was a democratic majority in the senate. but the voters decided otherwise. this committee moving forward is consistent with over 200 years of history and precedent. sen. graham: i wonder in our times it was the salmon chase of the republican party. so many to choose from. senator durbin? durbin: i want to thank the senator from texas for his sympathy. [laughter] what we are witnessing this morning and this week is different than anything we have seen. some of us have robert bork stuck in our craw. others have merit garland stuck in our craw in terms of what is happening here. we all need to concede we are not in a place where we should be when it comes to the operations of this committee and the senate, the relationship

with the supreme court. the chairman started this hearing reminding us about votes 8-0 for antonen 9 scalia. 3 for ruth bader ginsburg. how did we manage to put together five partisan coalitions or people on such opposite ends of the political inctrum who we knew going were very clear in what they believed? now today we struggle vote to vote, day-to-day when it comes to filling a vacancy on the supreme court. i think there are a lot of explanations for it. one of the things we have witnessed here in the time i have served on this committee is a denigration of the process to the point where it is almost useless. we have reached a point now where gifted, experienced jurists, legal scholars take

that seat behind the table and then deny everything. refuse to answer anything. consider that. asked then where we nominee, can president unilaterally delay a presidential election? she could not answer it. too political. too political? that is the standard for the united states of america. she can certainly have alluded to that. i asked cap president unilaterally deny a woman the right to vote? sorry, can't answer. the case could come before me someday. it reached the point where senator kennedy asked this learned attorney, professor and jurist if she had any opinion on the issue of climate change. basically she said i've never

thought about it. don't have any views. what are we dealing with here? we are not dealing with the reality of who this person is and what she believes but some kind of artifice we have constructed between the nominee and our questions. i would be afraid to ask her about the presence of gravity on earth. she may decline to answer because it might come up any case in a court someday. i look back in history at other nominees, both conservative and liberal, who have answered questions along these lines. what was the purpose of this hearing if we don't know what she thinks about any issues? any major issues? she hides behind originalism. many do but won't go to their original words of the transition when it comes to the trent -- were to the constitution when it comes to the transition of power. we are measuring a person who will spend the rest of my

natural life and many other committee will serve on the court if nominated and approved and confirmed. we know this process is really stacked. the president told us so repeatedly. we can't get a direct answer from the nominee. we get direct answers every day from the tweets of the president. we know what his motives were in nominating this person for the supreme court. he does not cover it up. it was to make sure there was someone on the court to eliminate the affordable care act. you have been respectful of the fact that we brought these photographs before you. thankful. they are meaningful to each and every one of us and they should be for you as well. these are people genuinely concerned about the future of health care in the midst of a pandemic. they are worried it's being stacked to limit the only protection they have at a time when they are facing a life-and-death scenario everyday over masks and their conduct as

citizens. to think with this president has said. one never said i will not put for anyone until i am certain she will overturn roe v. wade. getting the are deck stacked again as to what we can expect. the president said as much. the gracenote. the president said we should have nine justices in case the risen election contest. be?obvious can this we do with the president had in mind when he came up with his name. she may deny it but she has denied she even has a view on climate change. i met a point now where i have to say we have to believe that the president says. he picked the nominee he thought would achieve his political goals. we are breaking the rules of the senate, the rules of this committee. we are defying our own tradition and common sense and the mutual to 98-0 and led 96-3. i don't how we get this train

back on the track. this nomination at this moment is not usual, not normal, and it is beneath the dignity of this committee. the rules would have told us to wait, as senator mcconnell told us four years ago, until after the presidential election. when we discarded the mcconnell rule it was clear that all bets are off. we are going for this nominee at any cost. one of them is the integrity of this committee. sen. graham: i recognize -- let me give you my take on what i saw. how did we get here? we are talking about things unrelated to qualifications. she taught extensively about whether or not zero becomes a tax. she would apply the law. the holdings of fnib. did the change by congress change that holding for you went from a dollar or whatever it was to zero?

if you cross the threshold, it would be unconstitutional and still have to ask the question, can you say the statute, the analysis with a presumption we try? an climate change. anybody who has doubts about climate change is weird in your world. you are trying to make her something she is not. you are asking her questions about what happens if the president pardons himself. what is she supposed to all i can say is donald trump is the nominee, not her. it is pretty obvious to me what you are trying to do to this nominee. every time you talk to her about the law, she gave you rational, common sense answers. she talked extensively about originalismin --

and how people can come out with different conclusions using the same process. i personally reject the idea she was not forthcoming. i thought she was incredibly forthcoming about who she is and the way she would judge. now, the game has been since she has been nominated to get back at trump. i understand this. that is probably what i would do if i were you all. if anybody in america is ready to go to the supreme court, it is amy bryant. if anybody has done the homework to be ready for this moment, it is judge barrett. if anybody has the character and disposition to handle the job, it is her, in my view. sen. lee: thank you. covered the first point i was going to raise, which leads essentially to the observation that there is no indication from the historical

record that abraham lincoln would have deferred to george mcclellan on the issue of filling that seat that went to sam chase, had the election of the fall of 1864 gone differently. none whatsoever. just not what happened. secondly, the dormant clause has been brought up. it is an issue that is deeply personal to me and should be to every american. look, -- sen. graham: we believe you. it is not entirely uncontroversial. it has been the subject of some controversy. it impacts the way a political subdivision of a state can treat an article of commerce and whether or not it can be discriminated against based on its origin outside or inside the united states. it is controversial, including the fact that it affects revenue how theyor states and

can access them, and it is based on an interpretation of the commerce clause of the u.s. constitution, one that is often understood as providing congress with an affirmative grant of authority to your late interstate commercial transactions and interstate commerce. it has also been interpreted by the courts as creating a cause ,f action against states municipalities, and other subdivisions of states, where discrimination against interstate commerce has occurred. this is a significant thing. to call it insignificant only highlights the fact that there are some issues, and not others, that my colleagues want to focus on. they have wanted to focus almost exclusively on those issues. why? i don't know. perhaps in some ways to convert this nominee and other nominees into somebody who can be measured against the backdrop of a democratic politician. if you are looking at a democratic policymaker, amy

coney barrett is not a policymaker. as far as i'm aware, she is not a democrat. you are upset with the fact that she will not uncritically commit as some other nominees have to upholding certain sacred cow presidents, but it is not as though your observation is that she lacks commitment to presidents generally, just that she will not commit to presidents who may be subject to additional litigation in the future. it is important to remember that elections still have consequences. in the election of 2014, the american people voted, and the elected -- and they elected republicans to the senate. in 2016, the american people elected republicans to the senate and republican to the white house. which ilection of 2018, would note here, followed on the

heels of abominable treatment by members of this committee on the other side of the aisle of brett kavanaugh. the american people in the immediate wake of that missed treatment of brett kavanaugh and your manipulation of the committee hearings, elected a republican majority to the senate. those terms for each of those senators the last six years, not two years, not four years, not five and three-quarter years, six years. those terms matter. just as ruth bader ginsburg noted in 2016, there is nothing in the constitution that indicates the president is no longer the president in the final term of his office, so, too, here. so, there is nothing that makes us less senators depending