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Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the basic purpose and function of the U.S. Constitution is to protect the American people from the dangerous accumulation of power at the hands of the few. You see, that kind of protection is necessary to make us free. In that respect, it is the structure of our government, set forth in the Constitution, that truly makes us free. It is the bulwark against what would rob us of our freedom.

The Framers spent those hot summer days of 1787 in Philadelphia principally debating the structure and role of the Federal Government. Through the centuries of this great American experiment, it has been the structure of our government, not simply the Bill of Rights or other substantive provisions--it has been the structure that has been the most effective protection from waves of oppression and the whims of dictatorship.

Tragically, under the auspices of CRT, unrestrained progressivism, and a false sense of national destiny, the modern left has embarked on a campaign of sorts to condemn the Founders, to tarnish the Constitution itself, and deface the structure and institutions that protect our liberty. Progressives have been astoundingly, shockingly, effective.

Unfortunately, this effort to seize power to enact a radical agenda, no matter the cost, is not a new tactic of the Democratic Party. President Franklin D. Roosevelt engaged in an institution-shaking campaign to pressure the Supreme Court to consent to and accept with constitutional infirmities his radical New Deal agenda.

He wanted to pack the Supreme Court by increasing the number of Justices to appoint his own political loyalists who would then do his bidding. His threats to the structural Constitution of the United States led to the infamous ``switch in time that saved nine.''

Now, Roosevelt's plan to pack the Supreme Court failed as a legislative matter. When it got to this body, when it reached the Senate floor, it didn't go anywhere, but it left a lasting mark, and it has not been a favorable one.

Legal scholars, historians, politicians, and people of every stripe and political persuasion have since then condemned this. For example, this Court-packing campaign has been called a ``bad idea'' just in the last few years by the late Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. It was likewise called ``a bonehead idea'' by then-Senator Joe Biden. And yet today many Democrats are returning to that rejected notion and, like a dog to its vomit, going back to a bad idea that was bad then and remains bad now.

The Supreme Court has consisted of nine Justices since 1869, over 150 years. It is a settled number that most Americans agree should stay. Not one person has argued that we need to increase the number of Justices because of a human resources problem or a workforce problem. No, it is not that; it is rather that they want to influence the outcome of decisions. They want to politicize the Court.

Tragically, the independence of the judiciary is thus being threatened, and it is being threatened, I would add, on several fronts. You have got misguided groups like Ruth Sent Us, along with others, that have attempted to pressure conservative Justices by protesting at those Justices' homes and places of worship.

When you show up to someone's home, the home of a public official, especially if that person is a judge or Justice, it is unlawful; 18 U.S.C. section 1507 plainly prohibits that because you are trying to influence them. You can't do that. It is unlawful. In fact, that is a Federal felony, a serious one in fact.

It is a serious offense because when you show up at the home of a public official like that, regardless of whatever else you might say or what the signs you are carrying might have printed on them, the lasting message, whether these words are spoken or not, is, ``We know where you sleep.'' That is an implicit threat of physical violence.

On other fronts, you have got certain Members of Congress, including some Members of this body, who are willing to place the Court's independence at risk. You have got some Members of this body, including the senior Senator from Massachusetts, who went out and screamed with some of the same protesters in front of the Supreme Court and has written an op-ed for a local paper stating her intent and her desire to pack the Supreme Court, while pioneering the hashtag ``ExpandTheCourt.'' I would venture that the Court is much more popular nationally than is her agenda.

But popular acclaim and the support of the constitutional structure of the United States is, of course, not the goal of the modern left. Their goal is power. Fittingly enough, the ambition of individuals is precisely what the Constitution is designed to restrain.

It is working as intended. James Madison wrote of the Constitution in Federalist 51:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and [then] in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

I pray that my colleagues supporting this dangerous effort will exercise the self-control of our constitutional form that our constitutional form of government requires. We have all sworn an oath to that, and that oath requires us to take into account the form and the role that it plays in protecting our freedom.

The current efforts to undermine and delegitimize the Court are multifaceted and have included the unprecedented treatment of Republican-nominated nominees to the Court, including the public high- tech condemnation of Clarence Thomas and the similarly unfounded attacks on Brett Kavanaugh, on Sam Alito, and on other Republican nominees to the Court; Senator Schumer's very public attempt to intimidate the Court by standing in front of the Supreme Court Building during oral arguments in a Louisiana abortion case, June Medical, shouting: ``I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.''

The Constitution is a structure. It is a process and an organization. When Democrats threaten another branch of government for political ends, they threaten that structure itself. It is dangerous. It is wrong. And I pray for the sake of our Nation that it never succeeds.

To that end, every Member of this body should be condemning these efforts and condemning the efforts of those described in the Axios article that ran today explaining that the Department of Homeland Security is now having to investigate serious credible threats of people wanting to burn down the Supreme Court of the United States, people wanting to assassinate Supreme Court Justices and law clerks.

We must all condemn them. And I hereby do so in the strongest terms I am capable of communicating.

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