Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the United States surpassed 11 million COVID-19 cases this past week. This comes just 6 days after our Nation recorded 10 million cases--1 million added to the 10 million in 6 days--making it the fastest transmission of 1 million new cases since the pandemic began. Nearly a quarter of a million Americans have died. This runaway crisis is alarming, it is deadly, and it demands action. The city of Chicago began a stay-at-home advisory to help encourage people to contain the virus in our communities. Across Illinois, more than 5,000 patients have been hospitalized with COVID-19 each night for the past week. We have shattered new infection records nearly every day this month. Illinois has now experienced more than 597,000 cases, and we have sadly lost 10,875. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost a loved one. In addition to trying to keep ourselves and our loved ones healthy and safe from the virus, Americans have also been struggling to deal with economic uncertainty, job loss, food insecurity, childcare--the list goes on and on and on. Here we are just days before Thanksgiving, and many of our neighbors are trying to pick the right day to go to the food bank so they can feed their families on this day of thanks. Where is the sense of urgency on Capitol Hill when it comes to providing another round of economic impact payments, enhanced unemployment benefits, funding for the food stamps--the SNAP program? Our country is in desperate need of help, and they are counting on us. You would think a crisis of this scale would be the first order of business for the Republican-controlled Senate this week. Yet, while this pandemic continues to rage, too many Republicans in Congress refuse to even come to the table to negotiate a comprehensive, bipartisan relief bill. There are those who will, and I commend them. It takes real courage. Instead, their leader, Senator McConnell, has scheduled votes this week on six barely qualified judicial nominees. The average age of this week's judicial nominees is 38. You see, these are lifetime appointments. If you get somebody with the right answers to their political questions, then they will give you 20, 30, or more years while you have control of that court, and control of the court is more important, obviously, than coronavirus. The youngest one of these nominees is Kathryn Mizelle. She is 33 years old. The American Bar Association took a look at her record and judged her ``not qualified.'' This is the 10th Trump nominee for a lifetime appointment to the Federal court who has been judged ``not qualified'' by the American Bar Association. You might say: I am sure that happens. Well, it didn't happen at all in the 8 years of the Obama Presidency. Not a single nominee who was judged ``unqualified'' was sent to Congress. Another nominee, Stephen Vaden, who has been nominated for a lifetime position at the Court of International Trade, has never appeared before the Court of International Trade. He has never tried a case in any court. He will be a great judge once he figures it out. We voted on Dr. Judy Shelton's nomination to the Federal Reserve Board. She is uniquely unqualified. Her economic views are almost humorous, they are so out of touch with reality. We are experiencing the worst recession in 75 years, and Dr. Shelton, by her stated views, is unprepared to contribute to dealing with this economic crisis. It is the story of the 116th Congress. The Republican-controlled Senate spends month after month after month ignoring a raging pandemic and refusing to even consider the House-passed relief legislation. Here is a good question for Members of the Senate: How many amendments has the Senate voted on this calendar year of 2020? Not counting impeachment--set that aside. But how many amendments to legislation have we considered in this calendar year? The answer is 27--27 amendments in this calendar year. That is an improvement, incidentally. In 2019, we considered exactly 22 amendments. Six of them were forced on us by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who basically said: I won't let you go home until you vote on this amendment. And, as Senator Paul has said, of course he lost every one of those amendments. Twenty-seven amendments in 1 year; 22 the previous year. Do you know why? We don't legislate. We don't debate. We don't offer amendments. We don't pass bills. We come here with a new set of nominations every week from the Republican majority. We don't have any legislation on the pandemic. We have no legislation on economic recovery. We just have to get these lifetime appointees, some who have been found categorically unqualified. That is what this Senate is all about. In this last week before the Thanksgiving recess, is this really all we are going to do? How about the 28 rural hospitals in Kentucky that are facing the risk of closure? How about the $1.3 billion of uncompensated losses for these hospitals across Kentucky? The Republican proposal a few weeks ago didn't provide any economic relief for hospitals, clinics, or healthcare providers like those. Americans need leadership. They need for the Senate to step up and say: For goodness' sake, whatever the political agenda is here, how can it be more important than this pandemic? Isn't there enough talent or will on the floor of the Senate--on the Republican side and on the Democratic side--to find a way to help Americans who are struggling, to provide unemployment assistance, to provide help to small businesses, these restaurants and small businesses that are facing closure, to give some money to local units of government that through no fault of their own lost revenue to this COVID-19 crisis? These are not wild ideas; these address the very basics that face families, businesses, and governments across this country. For some reason, that particular issue can't make the agenda.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Carper), the Senator from California (Mrs. Feinstein), and the Senator from California (Ms. Harris) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Blumenthal), the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for roll call vote No. 227, motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Aileen Mercedes Cannon to be a Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for roll call vote No. 228, confirmation of the nomination of Aileen Mercedes Cannon to be a Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay. (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, more, perhaps, than any event in our lifetimes, the COVID-19 pandemic has focused our minds on the life-and- death value of scientific research and discovery. As the entire world waits anxiously for safe, effective, affordable vaccines and medical treatments that can protect us against this deadly virus, the recent announcements of the 2020 Nobel Prizes in science gives us reasons for hope. While the new Nobel science laureates are not themselves involved in COVID-19 research, collectively, they have found answers to some of the most fundamental questions in science, they have made medical discoveries that have already saved millions of lives worldwide and may one day soon enable us to cure cancer and other deadly diseases. There is another reason to be hopeful about the 2020 Nobel science laureates. For only the second time in history, women scientists received two of the three Nobel science prizes, for physics and for chemistry. And for the first time ever, two women won a Nobel science award for research they pioneered on their own, without the help of male colleagues. Their achievements underscore why we need to continue clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. We can't afford to ignore the scientific potential of half of our society. We need all hands on deck. Let me tell you about these new Nobel science laureates. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for their work on CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary advancement in biomedical science that enables scientists to edit and change DNA with high precision. Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier is a French microchemist and director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. They are the sixth and seventh women in history to receive the chemistry prize and the first all-women team to receive a Nobel in any science. In less than a decade since the pair wrote a paper demonstrating the power of CRISPR-Cas9, the technique has transformed how basic science is done. Scientists are using CRISPR to ask fundamental questions about life, such as which genes are essential to a cell's survival. Doctors are testing it as a cure for genetic conditions such as sickle cell disease and hereditary blindness, and plant scientists are using it to create new crops. People in my home State of Illinois are especially proud of Andrea Ghez, a 2020 Nobel physics laureate who grew up in Chicago and was encouraged to pursue a career in science by a gifted teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. Dr. Ghez, director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, received the Nobel for her pioneering research on the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. She describes her research as ``extreme astrophysics.'' Her discoveries have enabled scientists to explore black holes and their fundamental role in the evolution of the universe. Dr. Ghez and her team conduct their research at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. She is only the fourth woman to receive the physics prize. She shares half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel of UC Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Berlin. The other half of the prize was awarded to Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford. Dr. Ghez has earned numerous honors for her research, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University. When she was a girl, she wanted to be the first woman to walk on the moon. She attributes her love of science partly to a woman who taught her nearly 40 years ago at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. Judith Keane was the only woman in the Lab School's physical sciences department. Dr. Ghez has said how important it was for her to see a woman in that role. For much of history, women's involvement in science has been discouraged and their achievements have been ignored. Nevertheless, they have persisted. A few examples: In 1903, Marie Curie became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, for her discovery of radioactivity. She won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 8 years later for her work in isolating pure radium. She remains the only woman in history to ever win the Nobel twice and the only human to ever win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and environmentalist whose groundbreaking book, ``Silent Spring,'' helped launch the modern environmental movement. Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist and molecular biologist, was one of the key figures behind unlocking the structure of human DNA, although her contributions went largely unrecognized. Barbara McClintock was an American geneticist and the only woman ever to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine by herself. In 1993 she won the the Nobel Prize for her discovery of the ``jumping gene'' or the ability of genes to change position on the chromosome. Ruth Rogan Benerito was a chemist and pioneer in bioproducts who spent most of her career at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is credited with saving the cotton industry in post-WWII America through her discovery of a process to produce wrinkle-free, stain-free, and flame-resistant cotton fabrics. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper first developed computer languages and a compiler to translate them into machine code. She developed computer languages written in English, rather than mathematical notation, including COBOL, which is still in use today. Katherine Johnson was an African-American mathematician and NASA space scientist who made enormous contributions to America's space programs by her incorporation of computing tools. She calculated key trajectories for America's first manned space flight and for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon. Mae Jemison is a physician, chemist, biologist, and a former NASA astronaut. As a girl growing up on the South Side of Chicago, she was inspired to become an astronaut after watching Star Trek's Lt. Uhuru, the only Black woman aboard the Starship Enterprise. In 1992, she became the first Black woman to travel into space. Despite the achievements of these and other women, the tradition in science of excluding women and other underrepresented groups at prestigious scientific meetings and conferences is so pervasive that some scientists sometimes refer wryly to such panels as ``manels.'' Dr. Francis Collins is director of the National Institutes of Health and a brilliant scientist. In June 2019, he announced that he would no longer speak at any science conference where women and other minority scientists were not included. He challenged other leaders in bioscience to do the same. Fortunately, some are. More should. As I said, we need all hands on deck. I will close with this. About a week after the 2020 Nobel Prizes announcements, the winner of the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge was announced. That is the Nation's top science prize for middle schoolers. It carries a $25,000 award. The winner this year is a 14-year-old Indian-American girl from Frisco, TX, Anika Chebrolu. Two years ago, she began studying the Spanish Influenza of 1918 that killed at least 50 million people worldwide. Last year, she came with a bad case of the seasonal flu herself and threw herself into finding a cure. She discovered a molecule that may lead to the development of a new antiviral drug to treat COVID. The molecule binds to the spiky protein of the novel coronavirus and inhibits the spread of the virus into human cells. Supporting the achievements of girls and women in STEM fields can help solve some of the greatest afflictions of our time and solve some of the deepest mysteries of our universe. It is a profoundly wise investment. Congratulations to the new women Nobel science laureates of 2020. May there be many more who follow in their footsteps. (At the request of Mr. Durbin, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, before I make my remarks, I want to take a moment on the floor of the Senate to formally and officially thank the people of the State of Illinois for electing me to another term in the U.S. Senate. On election night, when the results were apparent, I went and stared into an iPad to announce my victory speech. It was unlike anything I had ever been through in a campaign, and I said so. It was an extraordinary campaign experience, made even more difficult and challenging because of the pandemic crisis. I want to thank the people of the State for standing by me and giving me this chance to serve again. I am honored to serve my State in this body, especially during this time of transition in America and transition around the world. Together, with a trust in science with the Biden-Harris administration, we will return to our national agenda. I am eager to continue working to help the families, small businesses, schools, hospitals, and constituents in my State and to help all of us in this country endure this pandemic together.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell), the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the Senator from Nevada (Ms. Cortez Masto), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are faced with three basic questions, and the first question couldn't be more basic: Why are we here? If you told the American people that the U.S. Senate was in session 5 days in a row and meeting through the weekend and asked them what they think the order of business was before the Senate, they would say: Silly question. It is obvious. It has to be the pandemic facing America. It has to be the fact that 225,150 Americans have died from the coronavirus, 8.7 million infected, and most certainly because the United States has recorded more than 85,000 COVID-19 cases just this last Friday, the highest number of cases recorded within a 24-hour period since the beginning of the pandemic and Saturday was the same. So they would guess that the Senate was in session to do something about this deadly epidemic that is affecting the United States of America in a more serious way than any country in the world. They would wonder what we are doing to try to provide more testing, more protection for people. They certainly would question the statement by the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States, Mark Meadows, who said just yesterday that the Trump administration ``is not going to control the pandemic.'' It would trouble them, I am sure. They would expect this Congress representing them--up for reelection, many of us--to be responsive to their needs to protect their families or they might ask us: Are you doing anything to help the people, the 23 million unemployed in America? Certainly, you must be working on that, too, because these families were cut off from their Federal unemployment supplemental on July 31. So for the months of August and September and now into October, the amount of money coming in to keep their homes together, their families together has been dramatically diminished. If they assumed that, they are wrong, because for the last 5 days here in the U.S. Senate we have not been consumed with those life-and- death issues of this pandemic at all. Instead we are consumed with a political mission. How did we reach this point where we are taking up this Supreme Court nomination in the midst of a Presidential election for the first time in the history of the United States, in the midst of an election we are taking this up? Well, because of the determination of the Republican majority leader of the Senate, Senator McConnell of Kentucky. Four years ago, you will remember the Antonin Scalia vacancy. President Obama decided that he was still President of the United States in the 8th year of his Presidency, but Senator McConnell said: No, you are not. You do not have the Presidential authority to fill a Supreme Court vacancy because it is the last year of your Presidency. You are a lameduck. There is an election coming. Let the American people decide who will fill this vacancy. That was the McConnell rule 4 years ago, and the Republican Senators marched in lockstep behind him with his logic. Fast forward 4 years, the vacancy with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Senator McConnell has changed his story completely and his troops are still marching obediently behind him. Now, under President Trump, he can fill a vacancy even in the midst of a Presidential election, and that is why we are here today. This determination by Senator McConnell that this political errand that he is running for President Trump is more important than the COVID-19 pandemic, more important than the runaway infection rates in 20 States across the United States, more important than trying to deal with the unemployment and the dysfunctions of this economy under this President. Yes, we asked basic questions to be answered by the Judiciary Committee--questions that were posed to Amy Coney Barrett, once a law school professor at Notre Dame Law School, now on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals People say: Is she qualified? Well, if you are asking whether she is studied in the law and has a head full of law, there is no question about it. It has been many years since I faced a law school professor, and I will give it to you that she certainly knows a lot about the law. There is no doubt about it. But the questions that I asked of her really went beyond that basic question. I really wanted to know what was not just in her head when it came to the law but I want to know what she has in her heart when it comes to the law. One of the Senators who spoke to us a few minutes ago chided us because we kept bringing color photographs to the floor and to the committee hearings of people whose lives depended on the Affordable Care Act. He characterized it as ``theater'' and likened these images, these photographs, to cutouts at sporting events. Well, let me tell you the ones that I presented from Illinois represent real-life stories of real-life families who depend on the Affordable Care Act. Why do we raise the Affordable Care Act in the midst of this hearing for filling this Supreme Court vacancy? For one simple reason--that is what the President did. It was the President who told us far in advance: I am going to fill Supreme Court vacancies to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. So is this a leap of faith on our part to take the President at his word? Would the President even consider lying to the American people? If you take him at his word, then Amy Coney Barrett is part of an agenda--a political agenda to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. And in the past the President has said Roe v. Wade while you are at it and also to move forward when it comes to protecting him if there is an election contest after the November 3 election. He said as much. As I mentioned earlier, he doesn't have an unuttered thought. He tweets it 25 times a day, whatever crosses his fertile mind, and that is his agenda when it comes to filling the Supreme Court vacancy. When we asked Judge Barrett, she denies any promises have been made. But there is some evidence, obviously, along the way that convinced the President and the people in the White House that she would fulfill his mission if she came to the Supreme Court. When you look at the issues involved, it is not just her compassion when it comes to the Affordable Care Act and 23 million Americans covered by insurance under that law, 600,000 of them in Illinois. It is not just a question of her courage to stand up to this President if there is an election-year contest that comes before the Supreme Court. It is really whether she is committed to preserving the pillars of modern law--the rights of women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death created this vacancy. There is hardly a person in our modern history who spent more of her life dedicated to the rights of women. Is Amy Coney Barrett going to follow in that tradition? I think it is a legitimate question. When it came to racism, are we going to deal with racism in an honest way? And I will get to that in a moment when I speak to her originalism motivation. Marriage equality, privacy, voting--all these issues are on the table. And I do have to disagree with my colleague from Texas who preceded me. I just don't believe the law is robotic, nor do I believe that there is a simple formula to use that can guarantee an outcome of a case. As I said to Judge Barrett in our private conversation before the hearing, there wouldn't be 5-to-4 cases if we could count on people to always look at the facts and the law and come to the same conclusion. People reach different conclusions. That takes me to the third point here. We asked Amy Coney Barrett during the course of this hearing so many questions about basic, basic law that went right to the heart of this Constitution. These weren't trick questions. They weren't the subject of pending litigation or litigation. Questions like, Can this President or any President unilaterally decide to change the date of a Presidential election? That is pretty basic. I think it is covered by three different sections in this Constitution. She refused to answer because of the possibility that there would be litigation before the Court on that subject. Well, what about intimidation against voters, trying to cast their votes in an election? Couldn't answer that one either--same reason. This was asked by Senator Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana: What about climate change? Well, it turns out Judge Barrett told us she really hadn't developed any thoughts on climate change. Really? Forty- eight years old, lawyer, law school professor, mother of seven--no thoughts on climate change? When it was all over, you had to ask yourself, what was the purpose of that hearing if those were the kinds of answers we faced? Certainly, we wouldn't ask her about pending litigation. But the one thing that she was very proud of and stated over and over again is that she was an originalist when it came to her thinking on the law and the Constitution. As I said, originalism is not some foreign language you pick up on Babbel. It is a mindset. It is a mission statement. It is the belief that the original text in our Constitution reveals all the answers. I doubt that very much. That is kind of MAGA jurisprudence--``take us back to the good old days'' jurisprudence because, you see, what really launched originalism occurred in the 1950s in a case called Brown v. Board of Education. The Southern States were not ready for integration, and many of the Northern States weren't either, for that matter. The critics of that Supreme Court decision said it was judicial activism to integrate the public schools of America. They were critical of a Court that they thought went too far under Earl Warren. They called for his impeachment and more and started saying: You should have stuck with the original Constitution. Well, the original Constitution didn't give African Americans the right to vote; in fact, considered them under the law to be three-fifths of an American citizen. So those so-called originalists criticized that activist Court, and it didn't end with Brown v. Board of Education. The same criticism was launched when it came to Griswold v. Connecticut, a case that really argued that we have a right of privacy in our married lives that can't be overcome by the State; Loving v. Virginia, that interracial marriage was permissible; and then, of course, the case of Roe v. Wade, the ultimate case when it came to privacy and liberty. So those who come before us and tell us that what is really at stake here is restraint on the Court, self-discipline on the Court--we have heard all those words--and making sure that Justices don't pursue policy, think about all of those things in terms of what happened in Brown v. Board of Education and when they overruled Plessy v. Ferguson decades before, and said: Moving forward, we believe this Constitution guarantees to every child the right to an education, regardless of their race. Dr. Chemerinsky is with the University of California School of Law in Berkeley. He wrote a recent article in the New York Times on this originalism theory. And he noted the fact that it was Antonin Scalia who gave it great popularity, and a lot of people followed Scalia because he was cerebral, jocular, and fun to be with. He spoke to a luncheon of Democratic Senators that I was able to attend. But when it came down to it, his views on the law were pretty strict and pretty rigid pursuing this idea that, for example, under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791; the Fourteenth Amendment means the same thing as it was ratified in 1868. It turns out that the circumstances in all those cases have changed so dramatically in America. Judge Amy Coney Barrett argued she is an originalist. She would be joining that other originalist on the Court, Clarence Thomas, with her legal thinking, and that gives me pause and concern when it comes to what she is bringing to the Court--a head full of law, for sure, but an approach to it that I think is a pose. It is a way to argue against change and evolution in America that is inevitable and, in fact, necessary. The professor says under the original public meaning of the Constitution, it would be unconstitutional to elect a woman as President or Vice President until the Constitution is amended because article II refers to the pronoun ``he.'' When you get stuck with the language in the original Constitution in the extreme, you find yourself reaching conclusions that are not in the best interest or consistent with American mores or values today. So this is more than just another nomination to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. It comes at a moment in time when we should be focusing on the deadly pandemic facing America. We should have spent 5 straight days coming up with a COVID relief bill for the millions of Americans desperate for help today and desperate for peace of mind when it comes to this public health tragedy which we are facing. It is a nomination which comes before us when the rules of Senate and the rules of the Senate Judiciary Committee are being twisted and turned to create a political opportunity for Senator McConnell and his side of the aisle. Sadly, it is a moment in time when a nominee for the Supreme Court wants to bring to us a legal way of thinking which I believe is inconsistent with progress in this country when it comes to human rights and civil rights. Under originalist theory, we may never have had Brown v. Board of Education and the other cases I mentioned. What a loss for this great Nation. That is not what we need on the Court. We need people on the Court who are realists and who will look at the law and the Constitution in real terms and not ideological terms. The notion that this Justice is being hurried before us in the hopes that she will eliminate the Affordable Care Act in the midst of a pandemic certainly is worth noting. It is one of the reasons--one of many of reasons--that I will be voting no on Amy Coney Barrett with her nomination to the Supreme Court. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if you went across America and just picked a random person and said ``Did you know the Senate is in session this weekend?'' they, of course, wouldn't know. You would say to them ``Well, why do you think the Senate is in this rare 5-day session?'' and they would say, I am sure, ``Well, of course they are in a rare 5- day session. We are in the midst of a deadly pandemic.'' You would guess that would be the answer of most Americans. Why would they say that? Well, I know why they would say it in Illinois--because the coronavirus in Illinois has spiked to a newly confirmed daily COVID-19 State record as of yesterday, and 63 more deaths have been reported. Our positivity rate is over 6 percent now, and the Governor and mayor are taking steps that they didn't want to take but have no choice. They are closing restaurants and bars and imposing a curfew on the city of Chicago. You can imagine how they feel as more and more infections come rolling in and more and more people are dying. We have had almost 9,600 deaths so far in Illinois and, as we know, nationwide, over 225,000 deaths. But don't believe for a second that this is a big-city problem because the New York Times reports this morning in its edition the names of the 50 counties across America with the worst per capita outbreaks of COVID virus with fewer than 10,000 people in the county. Senator Thune was here earlier. His State of South Dakota has really been devastated when it comes to small counties, these counties--Bon Homme, Faulk, Harding, Miner, Buffalo, Oglala Lakota, Sully, Campbell, Brule, Turner, Jackson, Todd. Small counties. Rural areas. Smalltown America that used to say: It is a big-city problem. But now, sadly, it is a smalltown problem too. I am sure the Presiding Officer knows that on this list of 50 is Izard County--I hope I am pronouncing it correctly--in Arkansas and Lincoln County as well. Following me speaking will be a Senator from Colorado, and unfortunately Sedgwick County is included on this list. The point I am trying to make is this: This is a pandemic that is the worst we have seen in a century. More people are getting sick and more people are dying than we ever imagined. We face this not just in big cities like Chicago but in small towns and small counties in my State of Illinois and everywhere. I pointed out the Senators who have been recently on the floor, but, trust me, this list includes a lot of other States even with Democratic Senators. It makes no difference. The virus could care less. With facing this at this moment in time, the American people would rightly think that we would be doing everything imaginable, everything within our power to address this pandemic in this rare 5-day session leading up to a national election, but they would be wrong. They would be wrong because that is not our priority in the Senate. The priority in the Republican-controlled Senate is the filling of a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and the nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, comes before us for a vote on confirmation tomorrow after 5 days. The reason it is controversial, the reason it has to be rushed from the Republican point of view, the reason they are hell-bent to get this done before the election is directly related to the pandemic. It seems like an odd coupling. How did that happen? Well, it came down to this: The filling of this vacancy in an extraordinary way, since we have never--underline the word ``never''--in the history of the United States filled a Supreme Court vacancy this close to an election-- actually, in the midst of an election--it has never been done--the reason they are breaking all the rules, including the sacred McConnell rule, which was announced 4 years ago, that lameduck Presidents--by his definition, Presidents in their last year--should have no authority to fill a Supreme Court vacancy--the reason they have decided to ignore that sacred McConnell rule and go forward with this is because of one day that is coming up: November 10. You see, on November 10, the Supreme Court of the United States considers the case of California v. Texas. It is a big deal on the Republican side. The purpose of that case is for attorneys general in Republican States and the Attorney General of the United States to strike down the Affordable Care Act. They want to make sure that Amy Coney Barrett has black robes on and is sitting in the Supreme Court when it is argued so she can be there when the critical vote to eliminate the Affordable Care Act occurs just a few weeks from now. If they don't get this done by November 3, they are afraid of what might happen. Something might get complicated and they couldn't get her on the Bench on time. If you think I am making this up, we have as a source for that information none other than the President of the United States of America--a President who never suffered an unuttered thought; a President who generates dozens of tweets every day and tells us exactly what is on his mind every waking moment. He made it clear to us that when it came to Amy Coney Barrett, she was a priority. He promised long ago: I won't put a Supreme Court Justice on the Court unless they will join me in eliminating the Affordable Care Act. So we knew that as a starter, and then he added as a grace note: And I want to make sure this Justice is on the Court so if there are any election contests, I will have nine Justices there. Not subtle, is it? That is why I said in the hearing and since that there is an orange cloud over this nomination--an orange cloud that emanates from the White House. And that is why we come here today, just hours before the final vote, understanding what is at stake if the President has his way, if the Republicans have their way. If Amy Coney Barrett is on the Bench by November 10, then she will be in a position to strike down a law which provides health insurance for 23 million Americans. There is the linkage I mentioned earlier. In the midst of a pandemic, with 8 million Americans having been infected; in the midst of a pandemic with over 225,000 American lives lost; in the midst of a pandemic setting new records as this COVID-19 virus invades our towns and cities and counties and States again; in the midst of this, the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, says we have no time to discuss COVID-19--no, but we have all the time we need to make sure we have our Supreme Court Justice on the Bench when the future of the Affordable Care Act is decided. There have been a lot of questions as to whether Amy Coney Barrett is qualified. She is impressive in her answers to questions, if she gets around to answering them. I am sure that she has a head full of law. You can tell it when she answers, which is rare. You can tell why she was a law school professor and now a circuit judge. But the purpose of our hearing was not just to figure out if she was smart, properly educated, licensed to practice law. All of that aside, the purpose of the hearing, from my point of view, was to try to determine not what was in her head but what is in her heart when it comes down to basic questions, because, you see, at the bottom of all this is the Affordable Care Act and its fate and the fact that she has published on more than one occasion her opinion of that law, and, not surprisingly, it is negative. I want to tell you in a moment--I want to get personal for a moment about this Affordable Care Act before I talk about Amy Coney Barrett and her philosophy. I want to introduce you to a young man from the State of Illinois. His name is Alex Echols. He is from Chicago. I met with him recently. Big smile, right? Well, when he was 9 years old, two of his mother's best friends were diagnosed with breast cancer and passed away before they reached the age of 50. As Alex moved into high school, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, she got treatment, and today, 20 years later, she is still in remission. Later, in high school, Alex lost his young cousin to leukemia. Shortly after that, his aunt passed away from lung cancer. Alex emphasized that all of these Black relatives and friends had their cancer discovered at a late stage, demonstrating a discrepancy in early screening for communities of color. The Affordable Care Act helped to address this disparity by ensuring free preventive screenings, including in private insurance. Hear that. Ten years ago, when we passed this law, we ensured that people could get private screenings--early private screenings for the detection of a cancer in its earliest stage when it could still be treated. As fate would have it, when Alex turned 29, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was uninsured at the time, but thanks to the Affordable Care Act, he was able to get enrolled and access the care he needed. He received treatment at several hospitals in Chicago and ultimately chemotherapy and a lifesaving bone-marrow transplant at the University of Chicago Hospital. Today he is in complete remission. How about that. He lives in Chicago with his wife and is active in leadership training programs and advocacy. He wrote me a note and he said: Senator, ``if it were not for the Affordable Care Act and being able to gain access to healthcare at that time, then I am not sure I would be alive right now to share my story.'' Why do I tell you that story? Because the future of his healthcare depends on filling this nomination to the Supreme Court and whether the person who fills it is going to eliminate this law and protection or protect it. Here is another fellow I met. His name is Paul Marshilonus. I remember meeting Paul because, like me, he has Lithuanian heritage. We talked about it. I met him during an immigration event. Due to complications of a knee condition, Paul Marshilonus was no longer able to work at the Sears store, and he lost his employer-based insurance when he was in his early sixties Paul's wife used to worry about relatives who had cancer, and she said to him: ``I hope that doesn't happen to me, because we can't get insurance and we have nowhere to go.'' Then Paul received a prostate cancer diagnosis when he was 63-- unfortunately, 2 years too young for Medicaid. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, he got enrolled in the Cook County CountyCare Medicaid expansion coverage. I am happy to say that because I joined with Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Cook County Board, to ask then-President Obama to give us a waiver so we could extend Medicare coverage early on under the Affordable Care Act. He gave us the waiver. We covered 120,000 people with Medicaid protection, and one of them was Paul. He was able to access the care he needed, including 45 radiation treatments, totaling an insurance cost of $175,000. Today, Paul is cancer-free. He still depends on the Affordable Care Act for preventive screenings under Medicare. He currently takes seven medications--blood thinners, allergies, blood pressure, metformin. If the ACA were to be eliminated, he would be charged more for those prescription drugs. That is another thing we did with the Affordable Care Act. We reduced the cost of prescription drugs for people under Medicare. When it is eliminated, that reduction will disappear. If Republicans succeed in terminating the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court, Americans like Paul will pay the price. So you wonder why we are coming to the floor with these speeches late on a Sunday afternoon. Because these people asked us to. They asked us to come up and stand up for them and say what they can't say on the floor of the Senate. That is why we are here in the midst of a pandemic. That is why we are here--a nation that values healthcare as much as anything else we have as American citizens. That is why, when we asked Amy Coney Barrett some basic questions, we expected to at least get some indication of an answer. She wouldn't answer basic questions. Senator Leahy was there; he was following it. What we saw was practiced avoidance of ever telling us the basics. You know, she styles herself as an originalist, and I will talk about that in a moment. An originalist supposedly values the Constitution--in fact, depends on it; finds guidance in it that other people can't see in the words, they find in the words; really delves into the Constitution; honors it; swears by it. Yet when we asked about basic constitutional principles--basics, written in the words of the document itself--time and again, she would say: I really wish I could answer, but, you know, a case may come before the Supreme Court someday on that, and I am just going to have to duck that question. She wouldn't tell us whether the President of the United States could unilaterally-- unilaterally--delay the Presidential election. How about that? There are only three separate references in the Constitution to that deadline and date for a Presidential election, and she couldn't answer that question: Can the President unilaterally delay an election? She couldn't tell us whether there should be a peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next. Please, Professor, Judge, you know in your heart of hearts that without a peaceful transfer of power, you don't have democracy. When it came to the issue of voter intimidation--why did we raise that? Because there was a call to arms from some of the militia groups and others in this country to harass voters. She wouldn't tell us whether she thought voter intimidation was unlawful. She wouldn't even answer a question I asked her in writing as to whether President Trump was legally accurate in saying: ``I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.'' ``Whatever I want as president.'' Three separate branches, balance of power--I thought that was in the Constitution the originalists venerate. It was not enough for Amy Coney Barrett to answer the question. She just said: It wouldn't be appropriate. You know, a case may come before us someday--you never know. That is troubling. It is not a question of respecting her prerogatives as a future Justice; it is a question of dodging a question over and over and over again. At one point, Senator Kennedy, who will be speaking here shortly, asked her about climate change. She said: I really don't have a view on that. You know, I hadn't really thought about climate change. She is 48 years old, a lawyer, a law school professor, a circuit judge, a mother of seven, and it never crossed her mind about climate change, as to even whether it exists? Judge Barrett refused to comment on the landmark Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut. That is the case in which the Supreme Court confirmed that there is a right to marital privacy and that criminalizing contraception violated that right. It was a fundamental decision that led ultimately to Roe v. Wade. She wouldn't even opine as to whether or not that was properly decided. She wouldn't commit herself--to recuse herself from election disputes involving President Trump even though his comments at a minimum have created an appearance of partiality that warrants her recusal under the judicial recusal statute. I asked her in the 30 minutes initially that we were given to explain a 37-page dissent in Kanter v. Barr. This was a case where a fellow named Rickey Kanter ended up defrauding the Federal Government of millions of dollars. He was convicted of mail fraud. He ended up advertising that the cushions he had for shoes had been approved by Medicare. They had not. He then started selling them in volume across the United States, and he was caught at it red-handed. He ended up with a massive, multimillion-dollar civil settlement, with a substantial fine and penalty and 1 year in Federal prison. He came out after his year in Federal prison and said: I will tell you what is unfair. After all I have been through, I can't buy an AK- 47. What is wrong with my Second Amendment rights? That was the case--Rickey Kanter's Second Amendment rights to buy a gun. So he brought this case before a three-judge panel on the Seventh Circuit, where Amy Coney Barrett was presiding with two other judges, and said: I want to assert my Second Amendment rights. It is just not fair, after what I have been convicted of, to say that I should be denied the right to buy a gun. Amy Coney Barrett spent 37 pages explaining why he was right, and the other two judges on the case went the other way in a hurry--both Republican appointees, I might add. But she stuck to her guns, so to speak, and said that as far as Rickey Kanter was concerned, it was just fundamentally unfair, you see, because he was just convicted of a felony, not a violent felony. Really? Then she went a step further in the issue of voting rights. She really got down to the basic question: Could you be denied to buy a gun if you ``just committed a felony,'' or could you be denied the right to vote if you just committed a felony--not a violent felony in either case. Well, she reached the conclusion that the right to bear arms and the right to vote were two different kinds of rights; that the right to bear arms was individual, so Rickey Kanter, even if he committed a felony, could not be denied a gun. But she went on to say that when it came to the right to vote, that was a ``civic'' right and that as a consequence of it, if you committed a felony--not even a violent felony--you could lose your right to vote. What an amazing conclusion. That is the originalist's mind at work I had to remind her that she lives in the State of Indiana. Guns flow across the border from Indiana into Illinois and the city of Chicago. We have a violence problem in that city that is serious and deadly every single darn weekend. Many of those guns--they trace them, incidentally, the Federal agencies do--20 percent of those guns come from her State of Indiana and why many of them--criminals go to Indiana, and many come from gun shows where there are no background checks. So you know what happens. The gang bangers and thugs drive over to Indiana to a gun show, fill up the trunk of a car with guns, and head to the streets of Chicago. I said to her, she had to know this, living in South Bend, IN, with her kids growing up there. If she knew that, how could she be on the side of making it easier for anybody to buy a gun who has been convicted of a felony? But she did. Her originalism was at work. I want to say a word about originalism. Originalism is not just some foreign language you pick up on Babbel. It is a mindset. It is a mission statement. It is the belief that original text in the Constitution reveals all the answers to today's challenges. Now, all of us here have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution. I don't take an oath lightly, and I am sure none of my colleagues do either. But the question is about that document itself. Does it have in its entirety what we need to know about our rights today in dealing with the constitutional issues that come before us? Let me mention to you what the mayor of Chicago said a week ago when she was asked about originalism. Lori Lightfoot said: ``Since the Constitution didn't consider me a person in any way, shape or form because I'm a woman, because I'm Black, because I'm gay, I am not an originalist.'' Lightfoot said, ``I believe in the Constitution. I believe that it's a document that the founders intended to evolve, and what they did was set the framework for how our country was going to be different than any other, and whatever was there in the original language. But originalists say that, `Let's go back to 1776 and whatever was there in the original language, that's it.' That language excluded, now, over 50 percent of the country. So, no I'm not an originalist.'' So let's be very honest about that Constitution. Women could not vote in that original Constitution. African-Americans were not even counted as whole people; they were three-fifths of a citizen. And the list goes on. I still venerate it for creating the democracy we enjoy today, but I don't believe that the Founding Fathers could possibly intuit where we are in America at this moment. What is at stake with originalism is this battle with judicial activism. What is behind this battle with judicial activism goes back to this moment. Here are the words of historian Heather Cox Richardson: ``After World War II, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, a Republican appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower, and Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Republican appointed by Richard Nixon, the Supreme Court set out to make all Americans equal before the law. 1950s, they tried to end segregation through Brown v. Board of Education, prohibiting racial segregation in public schools. In 1965, they protected the rights of married couples to use contraception. In 1967, they legalized interracial marriage. In 1973, with the Roe v. Wade decision, they tried to give women control over their own reproduction by legalizing abortion. ``The Justices based their decisions on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868 in the wake of the Civil War. Congress developed this after the legislatures in former Confederate States passed `Black Codes' severely limiting the rights and protections for formerly enslaved people. Congress intended for the 14th Amendment to enable the Federal Government to guarantee that African Americans had the same rights as White Americans, even in States where legislatures want to keep them in some form of quasi- slavery. Justices in the Warren and Burger Courts used that same amendment to protect civil rights a century later. They argued that the 14th Amendment required that the bill of rights apply to state governments as well as the federal government. This is known as the incorporation doctrine, but the name matters less than the concept: states cannot abridge the individual rights any more than the federal government. This doctrine dramatically expanded civil rights. ``But from the beginning, there was a backlash against New Deal government by businesses who objected to the idea of federal regulation and the bureaucracy it would require. As early as 1937, they were demanding to end the active government--active government--and return to the world of the 1920s where businessmen could do as they wished, family and churches managed social welfare and private interests profited from infrastructure projects. They gained little traction; the vast majority of Americans liked the new system. But the expansion of civil rights under the Warren and Burger Courts was a whole new kettle of fish.'' What I am sharing with you here is an amazing summary of Heather Cox Richardson. ``Opponents of the new decisions insisted the court was engaging in''--hold on tight--``'judicial activism''' in trying to strike down discrimination and bigotry--``taking away from voters the right to make the decisions about how society should work.'' They said Justices were ``legislating from the bench.'' Heard that before? ``They insisted the Constitution is limited by the views of its framers, that the government can do nothing not explicitly written in that 1787 document. Faced with confusion over the exact meaning of the Constitution, some revised their position in a few ways. One was to rely on textualism or originalism, the idea that a law says exactly what it says and nothing else. This is the foundation for today's `originalists' like [Amy Coney] Barrett.'' When you hear this debate, ``I am just following the Constitution. I am just following the text. I want to go to the original document. I don't want to see judges who are activists,'' it had its origin in the 1950s when two Justices on the Supreme Court appointed by Republicans stepped up and said: It is time for us to be serious about civil rights in America. Some politicians and those who support them have never gotten over it, and we are still debating it today. Let me conclude. I see my colleagues waiting patiently. I am sorry it took a long time, but this is as serious as it gets, as far as I am concerned. Let me conclude by saying this: There are so many issues of critical importance at risk in what we are about to do. The 6-to-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court will challenge not only the future of the Affordable Care Act but voting rights and the outcome of an election, the right of privacy and choice, civil rights, environmental protections, marriage equality, worker protections, the fate of Dreamers, gun safety laws, and so much more. We asked Amy Coney Barrett repeatedly, many of us did: Because the President has said he put you on the Court with a mission, and you are denying that took place, will you at least promise us that you will recuse yourself from cases directly relating to these issues? And she said she might, she might not; there was a process she might follow. There is something else she could do. You see, if this Senate goes forward and approves the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, she has one last decision before she becomes a Supreme Court Justice. She gets to choose the day when she is sworn in. I would like to suggest to her, for the integrity of the Court and to remove any possible cloud over her nomination created by the President's tweets and promises, I would like to ask her to pledge to the American people that whatever the Senate does, she will not take the oath of office until a new President is sworn in. If it is a reelection of President Trump, so be it. If it is Joe Biden, so be it. But if she will wait and absent herself from any election contest or debate on the Affordable Care Act, it will start to remove this cloud of doubt, this orange cloud of doubt which is over her nomination. I am going to stand up for the constituents I have talked about today and so many others whose futures hang in the balance, and I will vote no on Judge Amy Coney Barrett. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to the Senator from Kentucky in his statement on the floor this morning. It was a lengthy defense of the procedure that is being followed in terms of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. It is not the first time he has made this historic defense, and clearly he is going to continue. He obviously feels that he is on the defense when it comes to explaining. I think he is. I think everyone remembers Merrick Garland and the pronouncement by Senator McConnell and all of the Republican Senators that Barack Obama did not have the authority in the last year in office to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. We sent the name ``Merrick Garland'' to the Hill. Senator McConnell let the word go out that he would not even meet with the man in his office. He would not show him the respect of meeting with him. Two or three Republican Senators broke with that command from Senator McConnell. Most went right along. It was a very low moment. It is one we haven't forgotten and I don't believe the American people have forgotten, because we have rewritten the rules. Now when it comes to a Republican President, Senator McConnell says, why, of course he can fill the vacancy. He can even fill it while votes are being cast in his reelection campaign. It is an enormous departure from 4 years ago, and Senator McConnell comes to the floor regularly to try to explain it away, and it just doesn't work. He will keep trying. He has no alternative. But if most Americans tuned in to this session this morning and afternoon, I am not sure they would dwell on the rules of the Senate or the rules of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They would probably be asking themselves and members of their family a very basic question: What is wrong with the Senate? Doesn't the U.S. Senate know what is going on across America? This morning's New York Times front page: ``New Peak for US Cases: Over 82,000 in a Single Day. 13 States Endure Their Worst Week Yet-- Warnings of a Cold-Weather Surge.'' The article--of course referring to COVID-19--says: The United States is in the midst of one of the most severe surges of the coronavirus to date, with more new cases reported across the country on Friday than on any other single day since the pandemic began.'' We sit here arguing about the rules of the committee and the rules of the Senate and who came first and who shot whom. The American people would like us to focus on something that has real relevance to their lives. Listen to some of the things that were reported this morning in this newspaper about what is going on across America when it comes to this coronavirus: On Thursday, the same day that President Trump said the coronavirus was ``going away'' and Joseph Biden warned of a ``dark winter ahead,'' the United States recorded one of its highest daily totals of new cases--75,064. By Friday evening, a new peak in the pandemic had been reached when more than 82,000 cases in a single day were reported nationwide, breaking the daily record set on July 16 by more than 3,000 cases. Thirteen States have had more new infections in the past week than in any other 7-day stretch. Hotspots are emerging across the country. Officials in Kentucky--Kentucky--announced more than 1,470 cases on Thursday, the biggest 1-day jump in that State. More than 1,300 cases reported in Colorado--another single day record. In the State of Washington, Governor Jay Inslee tweeted that the State had passed the 100,000-case mark, adding that ``we all need to commit to having fewer, shorter, safer interactions, especially as the weather keeps us inside more often. Mr. President, that is what is happening in America. It is not what is happening on the floor of the Senate. We are embroiled in a political controversy over a Supreme Court nominee instead of focusing on the deadly situation that is going on across our Nation. I have spoken to Governor Pritzker, the Governor of Illinois, regularly about his battle to try to find equipment and treatment for the people in our State. It is a lonely, unpopular battle that he fights. This Governor in Illinois and Governors across the Nation have to stand up--if they are responsible--have to stand up and say to the people, the residents of their States, some things they don't want to hear. I don't like wearing these masks--most people don't--but it is a simple, effective way to dramatically decrease the spread of this virus. I don't like the notion of social distancing, and I certainly don't like the idea of being away from my grandkids and the rest of my family, but if it means keeping them alive, I will do it, as painful as it may be. These are the simple, basic things that we are now debating from one end of America to the other. This coronavirus situation has reached such a terrible state that yesterday, when the director of public health for the State of Illinois gave her daily briefing--Dr. Ezike is her name. She is a wonderful African-American doctor who has just been steadfast through this whole battle against the pandemic. In the middle of her presentation about what was facing our State, she broke down crying. I would have too. She turned her back for a moment and tried to compose herself. She could barely finish her press conference. She begged the people of my State of Illinois: Please, if for no other reason, for the sake of the healthcare professionals who risk their lives to treat these people, please help us put an end to this virus. Last Saturday, a week ago today, one of my dear friends for years and years was feeling sick. She called her daughter and said: I think I need to go to the hospital. Her daughter took her to the major hospital not far from their home for admission because of lung problems. The hospital would not accept her. All the rooms were full. She then went to the second largest hospital in the area, asking if she could be admitted and treated. They would not accept her. All the rooms were full. She finally made it into the third hospital. She survived until Tuesday morning, when she passed away. In the United States of America, that someone who had health insurance, was prepared to pay, could not even be admitted to major hospitals because of this coronavirus pandemic--and we are sitting here on the floor arguing about who was appointed by which President 100 years ago? Do you wonder why people look at the Senate and say: You are irrelevant. You are not even addressing the issues we care about. And the procedural play here means nothing. Oh, I offered an amendment, and you voted no. People, at the bottom line, say: Grow up and do something to help America. We know what it takes to reach an agreement, as we found on March 26 when we passed the CARES Act. It passed in the Senate by a vote of 96 to nothing--a bipartisan, strong vote, not a single dissenting vote-- $3.3 trillion to address this pandemic and our economy. We rose to the occasion. I went home, and people were amazed. You mean you actually did something in the Senate? Yes, we did. How did we reach that point? It wasn't through the regular order; it was through honest, serious negotiation that took place between the White House and the leaders in Congress. But since then--since then--we have not seen that. There has been one group who has stayed away from all of the negotiations around the table. The White House is there. Secretary Mnuchin is there. Speaker Pelosi is there. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, is there. The Republicans have refused to sit down and negotiate at the table. That is how it gets done around here. People sit down and work out their differences and put a bill on the floor and pass it 96 to nothing. But Senator McConnell has steadfastly refused to attend these negotiating sessions. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, joins him. So they boycott the sessions and come to the floor with a take-it-or-leave-it, partisan amendment in order to cover some political concerns back home. What a shame. What a waste. When Senator McConnell announced just a few days ago to the White House, stop negotiating; there will be no bill before the election; there will be no COVID relief before the election, people back in Illinois said to me: What is he thinking? Doesn't he understand the reality of what is going on in States like Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and across the Nation, the infection rate, the death rate, hospitals being pushed to the limit? No. Clearly that is not a priority for Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans. The priority is not the millions who are at risk. The priority is not the hundreds who are dying. The priority is one Supreme Court nominee. So we are bound to spend 5 straight days on that issue and not a minute of that time dealing with COVID-19. How do you explain that to the American people? I don't believe you can. I could go through the lengthy history--I will put it in the record-- of this Barrett nomination, but I will just state that when it comes right down to it, we cannot explain how we are going to leave here Monday night voting on one nominee but empty-handed when it comes to COVID-19. There is no excuse--no excuse for that. That is where we find ourselves. I want to tell a story on why the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett directly links up with my concern about this pandemic. Having lost 220,000 American lives, my concern and the concern of everyone is to keep our families safe. The first question we ask one another is, You do have health insurance, don't you? It is the obvious question. I remember a time in my own life, newly married, law student, my wife and I blessed with a little girl who came pretty quickly, and she was pretty sick, and we had no health insurance--no health insurance. She was treated by local hospitals here in Washington, where I was going to law school, and they called me in one day and said: Well, since you don't have any health insurance, you have three options: You can declare bankruptcy with all these medical bills. I said: That doesn't sound right to me. I haven't even taken the bankruptcy course in law school. What else? Well, you could file--we think you qualify for welfare, Medicaid. That doesn't sound right either. I am training to be a lawyer. I am supposed to end up with a good paying job at some point in my life. Going on welfare in law school? What is the other option? Well, the only other option is, we will total up all your bills, and you can pay them back to us over a period of years. It took us 10 years--10 years to pay those bills because I had no health insurance. Did I remember that moment? I remembered it for the rest of my life, to be a father and a husband without health insurance and a sick baby, thinking, my goodness, is this going to keep the good doctors away? Will she get the treatment she needs to survive? That is what we are up against now, because the Affordable Care Act, which I voted for 10 years ago on this floor, extended health insurance to 23 million Americans--600,000 in the State of Illinois--and it changed health insurance for everybody because now the health insurance companies have lost some of their tricks of the trade. They can no longer put a lifetime limit on how much they pay out. They can no longer discriminate against a person because they happen to be a woman. They can no longer discriminate based on preexisting conditions. They have to provide family health insurance, the option to keep kids on the policy until they reach the age of 26. That affects all policies. So what has been the approach of the Republicans, particularly this President? He wants to eliminate that. What I have just described, he wants to eliminate. Don't take my word for it; it has been filed in a case across the street, Texas v. California. A group of Republican attorneys general came forward and said: We want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. And the President said: I am going to join you. Let's get rid of it. They tried to, on the Senate floor, in 2017. It is one of those moments etched in my memory, sitting down there at that desk. I looked at that door over there, and it opened at 1:30 a.m., and John McCain, Republican Senator from Arizona, walked through that door, stood in the well. He could barely lift that right arm, which had been shattered when he was a prisoner of war. He lifted it just enough to say ``no.'' That ``no'' saved the Affordable Care Act from being eliminated by the Senate. So where do they turn if they can't get it done in Congress? Off to the courts. And why is that important in terms of this nomination of Amy Coney Barrett? Because they are bound and determined to fill that vacancy on the Court before November 10. Why November 10? Because that is the day the Court takes up the oral arguments on the future of the Affordable Care Act. And if she is not in her black robe listening to that argument, by tradition she can't vote on whether to eliminate it or not. She sent plenty of signals in the past about what she feels about the Affordable Care Act. To my friend from South Dakota who says, ``You don't know how she is going to rule,'' there is some truth to that. She could change her mind. But I will tell you, if you were a betting person, you would say the statements that she made criticizing Chief Justice Roberts for saving the Affordable Care Act and other statements that she has made about the law itself suggest that she will not be a friend when she has the opportunity to vote. Do we take that seriously on behalf of 600,000 people in Illinois? You bet we do. It directly relates to this pandemic and the opportunity for people across this country to have the coverage they need. I am going to tell a quick story about one of them. I have a photo of her here that I want to share with people. It is a situation that she faces. I am sorry that I don't have that in front of me, but I am going to tell the story anyway, as I remember it. Her last name is Danenberger. She is from New Berlin, IL. She is an amazing young woman. She is battling breast cancer. Here it is. Thank you. When we cut corners when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, Susan Danenberger is one of the victims. She is a fifth-generation farmer and wine maker. She has a great little vineyard and a great little restaurant, and I have been out there with my family. She is also a two-time cancer fighter with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. She has been through the gauntlet of medical procedures, treatments, and complications of recent years--a double mastectomy, radiation, IV, chemo, pulmonary embolisms, lung infections, and more. Her oral chemo medications alone have cost her thousands of dollars every single month, even with insurance. As a business owner, Susan offers insurance to her employees. She was relieved to learn, when opening her new health policy, that the ACA guarantees that she gets coverage even with that medical history. It also allows her 23-year-old son to stay on the family plan. Here is what she says to me: Most of the time I feel driven. Making wine and running a winery is more than just a job. It's my purpose. I am more scared than I pretend to be, and that is how I make it through. I pretend that everything is OK. But this year, it is harder to pretend that everything is going to be OK. I am worried about the future. I am worried about money. I am worried that I won't be able to afford to fight cancer. I am worried about taxes, health insurance changes, and being at the mercy of insurance companies. For Americans like Susan, with a family, a business, and preexisting conditions, there is so much at stake with this case pending before the Supreme Court and the judges and Justices who will vote on it. Susan, bless you--she just can't afford for this Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Where will she turn? Oh, but you must conclude it. Durbin, you are not telling us the whole story. Tell us about the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Tell us about their substitute, the one that is going to save everybody so much money and provide all the same coverage--tell us about that. Well, I sure would like to, but I can't because it has never been written down on paper, ever. There is no Republican alternative. They are bound and determined to kill ObamaCare with no substitute. That is why John McCain voted no. He said: We owe it to the American people to give them an alternative. Sadly, sadly, unfortunately, there is still no alternative. Senator Schumer, earlier today, noted that there are a lot of other things we should be taking up at this moment in time. I am going to mention a few here this morning. These are measures which passed the House of Representatives sometimes months ago, sometimes over a year ago, and sent to the desk of Senator McConnell. They were never taken up. They have been sitting there while we have done little or nothing on the floor of the Senate except entertain his judicial nominations. The first one is personal to me--not that it affects me personally or legally, but it is related to a bill that I introduced a long time ago. On June 4, 2019, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act, with a strong bipartisan vote, giving a path to citizenship to Dreamers. I introduced the first DREAM Act 19 years ago. I have been reintroducing on this ever since. These are young immigrants brought to the United States as toddlers, infants, and children. The Dream and Promise Act has now been sitting on Senator McConnell's desk for more than a year--more than a year. On June 22, I sent a letter signed by all the Democratic Senators calling on Senator McConnell to finally bring it up for a vote, and, 4 months later, Senator McConnell has not even responded. We sent our letter after the Supreme Court rejected President Trump's effort to end deportation protections for Dreamers. In the opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, here is what he said about the actions of the Trump administration on DACA. Here is what he said: arbitrary and capricious. That was the description. I joined with Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican, years ago, asking for the President to create DACA. President Obama responded by creating it by Executive order. Sadly, President Trump eliminated it, and, literally, hundreds of thousands of young people have their fate in doubt because of it. The same thing is true when it comes to temporary protected status for people in the United States. This administration has been a scourge when it comes to the issue of immigration, particularly inspired by Stephen Miller, a person I could never, ever understand. They have decided to be as mean as possible and cruel when it comes to people who are in this country having left horrible circumstances at home. Now is the time for us to take up this measure and to start the debate. It isn't as if we have so much else to do. What we should be doing is to make sure that we do this. So, in order to proceed in consideration of H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to legislative session.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I will say to the Senator from Indiana, I recognize that he is new to this body, and what he has seen in the Senate is not the Senate that I was elected to. There was a time--the Senator may find it hard to believe--when we actually brought bills to the floor. We allowed amendments. Before that, of course, the committee had done its work. We allowed amendments on the floor up or down, and we ended up deliberating and voting on measures. If they passed here, we then had a conference, and, miraculously, at some point, they became law. That has not happened here for a long, long time, and I don't think you have seen it. Maybe the Defense authorization bill is as close as it gets, though we don't have active amendments there. In this circumstance, on this bill which I brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee 18 years ago--18 years ago--it has passed the House of Representatives and is sitting on Senator McConnell's desk for a year. It has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I cochair the Immigration Subcommittee with your colleague, who is standing to your right, from Texas. We have met once in the last 2 years--once--and have never taken this up. So for the sake of the people affected by it, asking that it come to the floor is not an unreasonable request. Their lives are tied up in it. So I would love to see regular order. We haven't seen it in so long. Most people wouldn't recognize it. But I understand your objection. I have a series, but I am only going to make one more unanimous consent request because I see Members waiting to speak. This one is very relevant and very timely.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, H.R. 4995 is one that passed the House from Representative Engel to help address maternal health gaps and disparities in rural communities. The bill would provide grants at HHS to networks of healthcare providers and academic partners to expand obstetric capacity and improve trainings in underserved rural areas. The trainings would help to address implicit bias, which--more so than economic status, health status, or education level--can contribute to health negative outcomes for moms and their babies. Due to lack of specialists and geographic gaps, maternal health outcomes in rural Illinois are worse than in urban areas. So when it comes to responding to and tackling the urgent health challenges of the moment, alongside addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, these bills can help close the disparities and gaps that exist in health care in America. H.R. 4996, sponsored by Congresswoman Robin Kelly from Illinois, passed the House in September. It closely mirrors a provision in legislation I have introduced in the Senate, the MOMMA Act. This critical legislation addresses our Nation's unconscionable disparities in maternal and infant mortality by ensuring mothers can maintain access to care and prevent pregnancy-related complications. The U.S. is 1 of only 13 countries in the world where the maternal mortality rate is worse now than it was 25 years ago. Nationwide more than 700 women die every year as a result of their pregnancy, and more than 70,000 others suffer severe, near-fatal complications. Across the country, women of color are four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified these racial and ethnic health disparities that already existed. These gaps in our health system are unacceptable. Medicaid covers half of the births in Illinois. This policy would help thousands of mothers in Illinois and nationwide by enabling Medicaid to provide coverage for low-income mothers for up to 1 year, compared to the current limit of 60 days. It is time we turn the page on this unacceptable inequity in our healthcare system and address a real need across America. H.R. 1585, the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law 26 years ago, and it must be reauthorized. This law has been a lifeline for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in my State of Illinois and across the country. Over a year ago, the House voted to reauthorize and strengthen VAWA. But the Republican-controlled Senate has refused to bring this bill to the floor for a vote. For many Americans, home is not always a safe place, and the COVID-19 pandemic has presented particular challenges for people facing abusive situations and domestic violence. It is shameful that Leader McConnell has refused to call this critical reauthorization to the Senate floor for a vote. It is long past time for the Senate to renew and strengthen VAWA. In order to proceed to the consideration H.R. 4995, the Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act of 2020; H.R. 4996, the Helping MOMS Act of 2020; and H.R. 1585, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session.

Mr. DURBIN. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I second the motion.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Arizona (Mrs. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Jones), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.