McConnell: Senate Confirming More Impressive Judges Despite Historic Democratic Obstruction
‘Democrats filibustered police reform. Democrats filibustered pandemic relief for working families. Some years back, the Democratic Leader told a newspaper, quote, ‘I am the leader of the filibuster movement [and] proud of it.’ But now, now, they’re saying that if they ever get power, they intend to tear up the rule book to force radicalism on the country.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the war on institutions, the filibuster, and judicial confirmations:
“Republican Senators, like working families across the country, had hoped the Senate would be spending this week completing more bipartisan pandemic relief.
“We proposed another package with hundreds of billions of dollars to make schools safer for kids, to help American workers keep or regain their jobs, and to invest more in testing, treatments, and finding and distributing a vaccine.
“But Senate Democrats filibustered it all, apparently intent that working families cannot receive any more relief until Election Day.
“Across the Capitol, Speaker Pelosi’s excuses and Goldilocks games are even wearing thin on her fellow Democrats.
“A few weeks ago, more than 100 House Democrats publicly asked Speaker Pelosi to stop blocking action on any coronavirus legislation besides her multi-trillion-dollar far-left wish list. She ignored them.
“Yesterday, a number of House Democrats tried again. They released a new proposal they’d written with some Republicans and pleaded with the Speaker to allow a vote on it. Again, she shot down any notion of compromise.
“Bear in mind, the Speaker has explained she will block any compromise for kids, jobs, and healthcare because passing anything short of multiple trillions of dollars would make her look like, quote, ‘a cheap date.’
The money that K-12 schools need; that unemployed workers need; that we need for the race toward vaccines — Speaker Pelosi is blocking all of it. Because apparently, to the San Francisco far-left, anything short of multiple trillions of dollars would make her, quote, ‘a cheap date.’
“So, apparently for the sake of the Speaker’s personal ego, working families continue to suffer with no bipartisan help from Congress.
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“Now, since Democrats are stonewalling pandemic relief, the Senate is using our time to confirm more well-qualified judicial nominees to lifetime positions on the federal bench.
“Renewing the federal judiciary has been a major success over the past four years.
“Since January 2017, President Trump has nominated, and this Republican Senate has confirmed, 211 Article III judges, including 53 circuit judges. That is the second-most appellate confirmations for any president in American history at this point in his term.
“This isn’t a partisan victory. The President has sent us impressive, qualified men and women who understand the radical notion that the job of a judge is to actually follow the law. So it’s a victory for our Constitution itself.
“But this progress has not come easy.
“Throughout the last four years, our Senate Democratic colleagues have visited an historic degree of obstruction upon this President and his efforts to stand up the administration the American people elected.
“Senate Democrats have forced us to break more filibusters on nominations since 2017 than had occurred cumulatively in all of Senate history before President Trump was sworn in.
“Let me say that again: Democrats have attempted to filibuster more nominations in the last three years and change... than the sum total from all prior Senates, from 1789 through 2016, added together.
“What was once a rare roadblock for the most controversial people has now become our daily norm.
“Before 2017, before this Senate Democratic minority got to work, only 5% of all nominations to district courts and circuit courts had been subjected to filibusters. Under President Trump, that number has been about 80%.
“Our Democratic colleagues even obstruct nominees whom they do not even oppose! We’ve taken more than 100 cloture votes on district judges, even though district court nominees from any state with a Democratic Senator could not have even gotten out of committee without Democratic support.
“So to summarize, here’s what we’re doing this week:
“We are breaking Democrat filibusters on nominations because Democrats filibustered coronavirus relief.
“And let us not forget the cherry on top. Because self-awareness apparently no longer exists, our Democratic colleagues have chosen this very moment to argue that they shouldn’t have to play by any of these rules if they ever get power themselves.
“President Obama calls the filibuster ‘a relic of Jim Crow,’ even as Senate Democrats use it over and over again.
“Democrats filibustered police reform. Democrats filibustered pandemic relief for working families. Some years back, the Democratic Leader told a newspaper, quote, ‘I am the leader of the filibuster movement [and] proud of it.’
“But now, now, they’re saying that if they ever get power, they intend to tear up the rule book to force radicalism on the country.
“They want to break the rules to pass the kinds of radical far-left policies that former Vice President Biden has rushed to embrace, from abortion to socialism to cracking down on the Second Amendment.
“And that’s not all. It’s not just about bad policies. They want to go even deeper and hot-wire our democracy itself.
“The far left is salivating over the prospect of killing the filibuster in order to pack the Supreme Court; pack the Senate with new states; tilt the playing field permanently so they can never lose power again.
“This is not some right-wing conspiracy theory. These are the signals they’re sending publicly. This is what the left is saying out loud.
“Maybe this hard-left hypocrisy plays well in a few big coastal cities. Maybe the angry crowds that are pulling down statues of our Founding Fathers want Senators who will pull down our governing institutions as well.
“Most Americans see things differently.”
Related Issues: Judicial Nominations, COVID-19, Senate Democrats
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