Vote on Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, there are a lot of inscriptions--famous words, inspirational sayings--that are detailed into and painted onto the walls of the Capitol. One of my favorites, which I think also happens to be one of the shortest, adorns a wall, I believe, on the way into the House Chamber. The saying is attributed to Alexander Hamilton, and it reads, simply: Here, Sir, People Govern.

Here, Sir, People Govern. It is purposeful that that quote finds its way onto the walls of the Capitol Building because this is the branch of government that is given primacy by our Founders. It is no coincidence that we are the article I branch. Governing--the process of setting the rules by which the country lives--is supposed to happen here, in the article I branch, the elected wing of American democracy.

But as all of my colleagues know, there has been very little governing here happening of late. This Congress--this Senate--has been effectively dead. Here in the Senate, half the normal bills have been passed during this Congress, compared to normal years, and nearly one- third of that legislation that we have finished has just been renaming postal buildings or authorizing commemorative coins. In fact, over the last 2 years, the Senate has spent floor time on a grand total of 20-- 20--pieces of legislation that weren't routine or emergency spending measures. That is less than one bill a month. We are getting paid $170,000 a year to work on one substantive piece of legislation every 30 days.

Now, perhaps you could intellectually reconcile this legislative desert if there were no problems to solve in America, if not a single major change in law was necessary. That, of course, is not the case. A pandemic disease has killed over 200,000 Americans. An opioid crisis that rages largely unchecked took another 70,000 lives last year, just in drug overdoses alone. One out of 10 Americans are out of work today. Wildfires and hurricanes and droughts, caused by a man-made warming of the planet, ravage our landscape. No, there are really big problems that need to be solved--deadly problems, existential problems.

I keep searching for the reason that no legislation is happening here, especially since the Senate does actually seem to be doing something. I mean, I am here voting most weekdays. So we must not be totally out of business. No, in fact, the Senate has been doing something, and that something is confirming judges to a record number of vacancies in the Federal court system.

Those record vacancies were created by Senator McConnell, who refused--refused--to confirm any judicial nominees, including to the Supreme Court, during President Obama's final 2 years in office. And the primary reason that Senator McConnell has stopped passing legislation and has turned this institution into a judge-confirming simple machine is because the modern Republican Party currently owns a policy agenda that is about as popular as a pair of wet socks.

More people without health insurance and higher rates? Nobody wants that. Easier access for dark money to influence Congress? Not very popular. Less regulation of financial companies and polluters? No, few people out there are clamoring for that. The criminalization of abortion? Not a big groundswell in America. The elimination of the firearms background check system? Yes, pretty much everybody hates that idea too.

You see, no parts of that agenda can actually pass Congress. Certainly not now, with Democrats in charge of the House. But they couldn't even get it done when they had control of the Senate, the House, and the White House. They spent months trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, for instance, but because Republicans figured out that they would all lose their seats if they repealed the law, they gave up and walked away.

Frankly, they gave up on it all, not just because they feared the electoral backlash--no, also because they found another way to get their agenda done. You see, Republicans found another place for that Alexander Hamilton quote. It turns out that they can't--or they don't want to--govern here. But they found a way to get another branch of government, insulated almost completely from popular opinion, to implement their world view. They want that inscription--Here, Sir, People Govern--to move to a building a block away, on the other side of First Street--the U.S. Supreme Court.

With the elevation of Amy Coney Barrett to that Court, Republicans will have completed their methodical, careful surgical procedure--the transplant of American rule setting from the abdominal cavity of this building to that of the building across the street.

I want to explain what I mean by this, but, first, let's just lay down an obvious predicate about the process that brought us to this moment. It is important. Senate Republicans were not telling the truth, as it turned out, when they said in 2016 that they believed the Senate shouldn't confirm a Supreme Court Justice in the final year of a President's term. Shocker--they didn't actually mean what they said. They said it, in 2016, to try to put some lazy, razor-thin veneer of intellectual legitimacy on their refusal to let President Obama fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, as was his duty and right under the Constitution. But we know now that their obstruction of Merrick Garland was, of course, just a simple, naked, anti-democratic, anti- constitutional power grab.

They should have just admitted it then because at least it would have avoided the mind-blowing hypocrisy of this sudden, stunning reversal of position. Now, suddenly, all of a sudden it is OK to confirm a Justice in the last year of a President's term--in the last few months of an election, while people are actually voting, as it turns out. Of course, it is, because all that matters here now is power. We get that. We will remember. The rules have changed. The Republicans changed them. You went back on your word. And it makes this whole process lack legitimacy.

It is important to stipulate that, but it is an insufficient explanation, admittedly, of my opposition to Amy Coney Barrett, because the consequences of this nomination go far beyond the downward spiral upon which Republicans have placed this institution. No, the real travesty here is that transplant of lawmaking from here to the Supreme Court and what it is going to mean for regular people out there when 5 of 300 million Americans--5 people who are unelected and totally unaccountable to popular opinion--start changing the rules under which we all live because the rule changes they support and their political movements support are so wildly unpopular that they couldn't be passed in Congress. So they had to be enacted over in the Supreme Court.

Seventy times since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have tried to gut all or part of the law. Thirty-one times the Republicans tried to repeal it in its entirety. They shut down the entire Federal Government for 2 weeks, trying to strong-arm Democrats to acquiesce to their demands to end health insurance for 20 million Americans. But all 31 times, they failed--most spectacularly, of course, in the summer of 2017.

So, having failed here at this political imperative, Republicans turned to the courts. Senator Cornyn kind of explained what they did for you in his remarks just before mine. He said, Republicans put into the 2017 tax bill a relatively small change to the Affordable Care Act that opened it up to judicial assault. Then, not coincidentally, Republican attorneys general, joined by President Trump, sued to invalidate the entire law because of that one small change. Senator Cornyn talked about severability. That is not what the plaintiffs in the case, including President Trump, are asking for. They are asking for that change in law to bring down the entirety of the ACA, and President Trump confirmed that, once again, today in an interview on ``60 Minutes.''

A Republican-appointed judge ruled for Trump at the district court, and then a Trump-appointed, McConnell-confirmed judge provided the decisive vote at the appeals court in favor of striking down the law. Now that entire law is up for legal challenge at the Supreme Court, and--surprise--the hearing to invalidate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act is in 3 weeks.

You wonder why we are rushing through this nomination in record time. Amy Coney Barrett, who has already stated on the record that she thinks the law, even before the changes in the tax bill were made, is unconstitutional, has been selected specifically in order to be the fifth vote to invalidate the Affordable Care Act.

That is not conspiratorial thinking. That is the President's word. He has said he is not going to put people on the Supreme Court unless they do the opposite of what John Roberts did.

The same goes for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. They have all been picked for the Court because of their willingness to bend the law and the Constitution, through this riotously flexible doctrine called originalism, to comply with Republican requests of the Court. This new crowd of jurists that are trained, midwifed, and championed by Republican political associations like the Federalist Society are brought up through the farm system and up to the majors to do one thing, to win games for the franchise--the pro-corporate, anti-worker, modern Republican Party.

Really, Coney Barrett's confirmation is just the final act of this plan to make the Supreme Court do what the Republican Congress couldn't--in this case, end the Affordable Care Act and the insurance it provides for 23 million Americans and the protections that it gives to 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions.

I love this argument that Republicans use that all of a sudden we shouldn't worry about what is about to happen on the Supreme Court, that it is all a construction of our imagination that there is some effort under way to invalidate the Affordable Care Act.

I didn't just wake up yesterday. I have been in Congress since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. I have watched the methodical, daily, unending campaign of Republicans to strike down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. I watched them make the change to the tax law when they couldn't repeal it through Congress. I then watched mainstream Republican attorneys general all together, en masse, bring a case to invalidate the entire law. I watched the Trump administration break with precedent and join that suit, arguing against his own government's position.

Now I have watched this Senate elevate three people to the Supreme Court who have been brought up through that same political movement and will vote to end those protections in the Affordable Care Act. My eyes have been opened these last 10 years. I know what is going on, and so do the American people.

Joe is a constituent of mine from East Haven. He says:

After working for decades, I was one of millions laid-off due to the covid-19 economic disaster. Not only was my livelihood destroyed, but my health insurance disappeared along with it. I am not old enough for Medicare nor young enough to feel secure without health insurance. Private insurance and COBRA are simply too expensive for the average middle class individual who now has no income. The ACA is my only option for healthcare coverage.

Margaret from Enfield, CT, says:

My husband had a near fatal heart attack 2 years ago. He has recovered but requires on-going monitoring. He now has a ``preexisting condition.'' He was laid off from his job . . . six weeks ago [a job he had for 28 years]. We have no income, and [we have] to pay . . . to have his health care continued. Without the ACA, we would not only have no income, but also no health insurance. We would be destitute trying to pay his health care bills.

Imagine 23 million people losing health insurance in the middle of a pandemic. But that is why we are rushing through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination--because there is this chance, finally, to grab the brass ring, to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. If you don't get Amy Coney Barrett on the Court by the time that hearing happens in 3 weeks, it makes that effort a lot harder.

Healthcare isn't the only area of our daily lives that will be changed if Amy Coney Barrett turns the Supreme Court into a new legislative body. Let me take you down another rabbit hole: the use of the Supreme Court to rewrite the Nation's firearm laws.

The National Rifle Association's vice grip over Congress is nearly over. Evidence of that comes from the 2017-2018 legislative session, when the NRA controlled both Houses of Congress, had their man sitting in the Oval Office, and they had priorities, but they couldn't get any of them called up for a vote. Then, in 2018, 30-plus NRA A-rated House Members were removed from office by their voters and replaced by supporters of measures like universal background checks and bans on AR- 15s. NRA-sponsored measures can't even get a vote in a Republican Congress anymore because they are so unpopular.

But just like ACA repeal, the window, though it is closed here to weaken our Nation's gun laws, remains open on the Supreme Court. Once again, it is time to abandon legislative action and for Republicans to turn to the Court.

Amy Coney Barrett represents the vanguard of the new, radical, out- of-the-box pro-gun industry thinking on the definition of the Second Amendment. It is the kind of radical, new thinking that is necessary if one wants the courts, rather than the legislature, to invalidate background checks laws, something an elected body could never, ever, ever do, what with 90 percent of the Americans supporting universal background checks.

Amy Coney Barrett's opinion in Kanter v. Barr is a sight to behold, really. In it, she argues it is unconstitutional for a legislature to prohibit felons from owning a gun. She says the Second Amendment guarantees certain felons the right to own firearms, even though 90 percent of Americans think otherwise.

What she writes to back up her view is even more radical, even more dangerous. She says that courts, not the legislature, should be the finder of fact on whether a person is too dangerous to own a gun. And she says that the courts can overturn any gun restriction if they find evidence that refutes the efficacy of the law.

Basically, she is saying the courts are now going to micromanage our gun laws. She believes the Second Amendment puts the courts, not the legislature, in charge of choosing who can own a weapon and who can't. That is, of course, a curiously convenient view for a Republican Party that would love to weaken our gun laws but can't do it through Congress. Now--surprise again--the Supreme Court rides to the rescue.

This, of course, would be devastating for the safety of Americans if criminals could once again buy guns. Last week, I was spending time with Janet Rice, whose son Shane was killed just a few blocks from my house in Hartford. An argument over a girl turned deadly when one angry young man went to the front seat of his car and grabbed an illegal weapon, likely bought through a loophole in the background checks system, and used it to shoot Shane in the back.

Weaker background checks systems mean more illegal weapons, more suicides, more domestic violence murders, but they probably mean higher profits for the NRA's members.

Let's move on to one last priority of Republicans that is stuck, that can't move, in the legislative branch: more power and influence for dark money political groups.

No Member of the Senate who wants to run for reelection in this body would ever introduce a piece of legislation allowing anonymous billionaire donors to gain more influence over the political process. That would be career suicide. No one in America supports that. But these dark money groups are a boon for Republicans because most of the billion-dollar interests that want to influence elections--like the oil and gas industry, for instance--support Republican candidates.

Once again, the Supreme Court becomes that back door to get rules put in place that advance a Republican political interest that could never get enacted by Congress. Amy Coney Barrett will join five other Justices who will all likely rule that most regulations of campaign finance laws, like our Federal and State laws restricting the size of donations to campaigns, are constitutionally invalid.

The Court has already ruled that the Constitution protects a corporation's right to spend limitless amounts of political money. That is just the beginning. Billionaires want all of our campaign finance laws eviscerated, and that new radical, out-of-the-box thinking on the First Amendment suggests that day is coming if Amy Coney Barrett does what is expected of her and joins other ultraconservatives on the Court to strike down our remaining campaign finance laws.

Here, Sir, People Govern. That is what the inscription says on the walls of the U.S. Capitol. It used to be true. Now the inscription should probably read ``Here, Sir, People Confirm'' because now, with an activist, rule-setting, norm-busting Supreme Court, there is really no need for Republicans to pass laws anymore. The Coney Barrett Court will do all the lawmaking Republican interests require. And, frankly, if Democrats win this November, that same Coney Barrett Court will just invalidate any attempts that Congress tries to make to expand the Affordable Care Act or pass universal background checks or protect voters' access to the polls.

I get it. I know it feels weird to hear somebody like me describing Amy Coney Barrett as extreme because she doesn't look extreme; she doesn't talk in extreme tones. But, really, look at what she stands for: the elimination of the Affordable Care Act, the right of felons to own guns, the interpretation of a Constitution to allow for the flood of billionaire money into politics. Those are extreme views. Do you know why I know that? Because none of that--the repeal of the ACA, the invalidation of our background checks system, the erosion of campaign finance laws--none of that could pass Congress even when the most partisan Republicans were in charge of all of the relevant lawmaking institutions here. That agenda was so unpopular, so marginal, that even a Republican Congress and a Republican President wouldn't touch it in the end.

But over there at the Supreme Court, that is now the place where people will govern after Amy Coney Barrett is rammed through in the quickest confirmation process in modern history, an abomination of a process that makes a mockery of the Senate and the Constitution. Over there, that will become the new power in American democracy, and we are all worse off for it.

I will oppose Amy Coney Barrett's nomination.

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