EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I am here joining my colleagues on the floor to sound the alarm because right now, this Senate is being steered down a very dangerous path. I spoke last night about this and laid out my case, and I am here again to make it one more time.

Republican leaders are now barreling toward a confirmation vote on a Ninth Circuit nominee--a flashpoint that, if it succeeds, will mark a massive departure from the longstanding bipartisan process that has been in place for generations. It is a bipartisan process that has helped this Senate put consensus nominees on the bench for as long as we have all been here. This is wrong, and it is the American people who we represent who will be hurt.

Let's recap the facts. Neither I nor my colleague Senator Cantwell returned a blue slip on the nomination of Eric Miller to serve on the Ninth Circuit court. I have deep concerns about Mr. Miller's work fighting against Tribes. Despite our objections, Republicans went ahead with Mr. Miller's confirmation hearing during a Senate recess when just two Senators--both Republicans--were able to attend, and the hearing included less than 5 minutes of questioning. It was a sham hearing. It was simply done to check the box.

For this Senate to go ahead and confirm this Ninth Circuit court nominee without the consent of or true input from both home State Senators and after a sham hearing--that would be a dangerous first for this Senate.

This is not a partisan issue; this is a question of this Senate's ability and commitment to properly review nominees.

The only logical conclusion I can draw as to why we are here at these crossroads is that Republican leaders are hoping that most Americans won't notice, that they are doing everything in their power to pander to President Trump and in doing that are trampling all over Senate norms in order to move our courts to the far right.

We are standing here today because this is too important and because the short- and long-term consequences of letting any President steamroll the Senate on something as critical as our judicial nominees are far too important.

Abandoning the blue-slip process and instead bending to the will of a President, by the way, who has demonstrated time and again his ignorance and disdain for the Constitution and rule of law is a mistake. At a time when we have a President whose policies keep testing the limits of the law--from a ban on Muslims entering the United States, to a family separation policy at our southern border, to declaring a national emergency without a real emergency--it is now more important than ever that we have well-qualified, consensus judges on the bench.

This new precedent of my Republican colleagues turning a blind eye to the blue slip and shunning longstanding bipartisan processes should stop every one of my colleagues, Republican or Democratic, in their tracks because today the two home State Senators left holding their blue slips are me and my colleague Senator Cantwell, but in the future, it could be any Member of this body. Today it is Washington State families who are getting cut out from an important process. It is their concerns about Eric Miller's long history of fighting against Tribal rights that will be cast aside. But tomorrow it could be the concerns of any of your constituents and any of your home States that get tossed aside for a President's crusade to reshape our courts and satisfy their political base, and it could be your constituents and your home States hurt by Senate leaders unwilling to stand up for norms and precedents and our constitutional duty.

Again, I am here today to urge my colleagues to truly think about what moving ahead with this nomination means and to ask themselves, are we still able to work together in a bipartisan way and find common ground for the good of the country and the people we serve? Can we still even engage in a bipartisan process to find consensus candidates to serve on our courts, or will our work in the Senate be reduced to partisan extremes and political gamesmanship? Will Republicans accept simply being a rubberstamp for their leader in the White House? Will my colleagues be complicit in allowing our courts to be taken over by ideology alone, abandoning pragmatism and a commitment to justice for all? That is a choice every Senator faces now and, I sincerely hope, a choice for which every Senator will be held accountable.

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