Floor Statements

Madam President, I, along with others, had the opportunity to say goodbye to Madeleine Albright this morning--a truly remarkable life: first woman Secretary of State, a remarkable diplomat, and a friend. We had an opportunity to bond over an issue I am about to discuss: the people of Burma and the plight that they have had to endure over the years. Regretfully, as her life came to an end, things did not go in the right direction in Burma--at least not yet. I know she would not have given up hope; nor have I.

Madam President, with regard to the current situation in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi was handed yet another outrageous, sham sentence by the military junta in Burma.

For the past year, the leader of Burma's democracy movement and thousands of her fellow citizens have been detained while the Tatmadaw, which is the army, drags their country violently backward.

The generals responsible for last year's coup have met a groundswell of popular protests with brutality. As Burma's diverse ethnic minorities have found historic unity in the cause of democracy, the junta has stoked violence and division.

The Tatmadaw is holding countless citizens of Burma in prolonged detention, along with foreign nationals like the Australian economist Sean Turnell. Its political prisoners reportedly include dozens-- dozens--of children under the age of 15. And its baseless prosecution of Daw Suu Kyi illustrates how long the road ahead is for Burma's democracy advocates.

The military's latest ruling against my friend is just one in an absurd list that could carry a total sentence of up to 190 years.

With every passing day, the junta's ruling generals are showing the world exactly what they are afraid of. They fear the people of Burma-- their unity, their resolve, and their devotion to a democratic future. I have been proud to stand with Burma's democracy movement throughout my career. I have been paying close attention to their plight this past year. And I am looking forward to hearing soon from the Biden administration about their efforts to help. What sanctions will the administration apply to ratchet up the pressure? What additional support will they try to provide to the true representatives of the people of Burma? What will they do to ensure that restoration of democracy in Burma is a top priority for the upcoming ASEAN Summit?

The leaders and supporters of this brutal coup must be held accountable.

Madam President, on another matter, last week in my hometown of Louisville, I sat down with law enforcement officials and local leaders to discuss our skyrocketing rate of violent crime.

The participants came from a wide variety of backgrounds, but everybody agreed murders, shootings, robberies, carjackings, and overdoses are simply out of control. Louisville recorded 188 homicides in 2021, an alltime record. Twenty-four of the victims were children.

Just recently an anti-gun, anti-police activist made national headlines when he tried to assassinate a Jewish Democratic Louisville mayoral candidate.

Jefferson County saw more than 500 drug overdose deaths last year, hundreds more than in years before the pandemic. These problems are literally overwhelming the city's coroners.

One expert I met with said that violent crime has stolen more years of potential life from Louisville than the pandemic. Carjackings are up over 200 percent in the last 2 years. We now average more than one carjacking every 48 hours. Folks on the ground say they are also seeing nonfatal shootings and gang activity increasing.

This crime spree is coming from the tiny minority of Louisville residents. One half of 1 percent of the population manages to commit an outright majority of all the city's violent crime. That is possible in large part because many are let out back on the street within days of their arrests.

Of course, this isn't just a Louisville problem. We have seen violent crime soar nationwide since the far left's national anti-police and anti-law enforcement campaign that began back in 2020. Cities everywhere are under siege. Here in Washington, in broad daylight just yesterday, there was literally an armed robbery right outside the headquarters of the FBI.

Polls show 69 percent of Louisville residents oppose--oppose--the ``defund the police'' movement and 66 percent want more police in their neighborhoods. But many Democrats are still unwilling to openly call for law and order in our streets. As a result, police officials say their officers feel under siege. They are worried politicians will not have their back.

Another huge factor is President Biden's failure to secure our borders. I was told at last week's roundtable that every bit of deadly heroin and fentanyl in our city streets now comes across our southern border. As long as this administration neglects to enforce our laws, every State becomes a border State.

We need to secure the border and stop narcotics flooding our neighborhoods. We need officials at all levels to back the blue, crack down on crime, and re-establish law and order.

But the Biden administration gives us just the opposite. They nominated and confirmed a Supreme Court Justice who argued that COVID justified early release for every single prisoner in Washington, DC. Just yesterday, the President issued a giant catalog of pardons and commutations, cutting sentences after sentence after sentence, particularly for convicted drug criminals. They never miss an opportunity to send the wrong signal. And until Federal, State, and local Democrats get with the program, innocent people in Louisville and across the country will continue to suffer.

Mr. President, Louisville, KY, makes its mark on American life as the host of the Kentucky Derby, the producer of the iconic Louisville Slugger baseball bat, and a place to sample America's signature spirit, bourbon. Many Americans may not know that my hometown leaves its fingerprints on their lives in another way: as the home of the world's largest automated package handling facility, the UPS Worldport.

This massive warehouse--at 5.2 million square feet, it is larger than the Mall of America--sorts millions of packages every day, speedily shipping them to consumers across the globe. It serves as the keystone of the vast UPS supply chain, linking consumers to businesses all over the country. Today, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the retirement of one of the key figures in the Worldport's development, UPS Airlines president Brendan Canavan.

To many, the UPS Worldport might seem like something out of a science fiction movie. Standing in the facility, you would be struck by the sheer scale of thousands of packages whirring about on a complicated system of conveyor belts, scanners, and lifts. This enormous warehouse sorts the average package in just 13 minutes. Human hands only touch packages twice. It is an amazing feat of modern technology and supply chain efficiency.

It would take an extraordinarily visionary business leader to have planned and executed such a facility. Its scale and complexity are almost too vast to fathom. But Brendan Canavan moved to Louisville in 2004 and did just that. In only a few years, he helped turn Louisville into a global supply chain hub and brought new levels of speed to the process.

Brendan knows so much about UPS's operations because he has performed many of them himself. While in college in his hometown of Philadelphia, he worked as a UPS loader and driver. He later stepped into management roles around the country, coming into leadership positions just as computer technology began to take a greater role in the supply chain logistics industry.

As a rising star in the company, Brendan was tasked with the development of Louisville's Worldport facility in 2004. He came to our city and quickly got to work developing the warehouse, which now processes roughly 300 flights of UPS shipments every single day. For his outstanding work developing the Worldport, he was rewarded with greater and greater roles in UPS's leadership structure.

By 2014, Brendan had ascended to the presidency of UPS Airlines. In that role, he oversaw nearly 300 individual airplanes and thousands of pilots, operating all over the world at all hours of the day. As the coordinator of such a vast organization, he ensured his company maintained its technological prowess, allowing UPS to keep up with the ever-changing demands of its global consumers.

Two years ago, Brendan faced a challenge unlike any UPS had ever seen: the coronavirus pandemic. Across the world, airports shut down and supply chains became hopelessly gnarled. Still, Brendan wielded his decades of on-the-ground experience to hold UPS's systems together, continuing to perform vital services even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Now, after what must have been some of the most difficult years of his career, Brendan is taking a step back to spend more time with his family and devote extra energy to volunteering. His desire to aid others has not diminished one bit, and he continues to make a mark on Louisville.

I want to thank Brendan for his decades of service to our country, his outstanding leadership at UPS, and his hard work to make Louisville a capital of global supply chain logistics. On behalf of the Senate, I share my congratulations with Brendan on his extraordinary career and wish him the best in his retirement.

Mr. President, the Biden administration's bad decisions have brought many crises upon our country. One of the worst is the collapse of law and order on our southern border.

Last month, Customs and Border Protection reported over 221,000 apprehensions. That is up 33 percent just since February. It is the highest monthly total in 22 years. We have already hit more than 1 million encounters in just the first half of this fiscal year. But, alas, this could still be just the beginning. The Department of Homeland Security is bracing for an even bigger surge in the weeks and months to come. Authorities are steeling for the possibility that we could see 18,000 new people showing up every single day.

In 2020, President-elect Biden said that ``end[ing] up with two million people on our border'' would be ``the last thing we need,'' but his own policies went on to produce exactly that outcome.

In 2021, on President Biden's watch, 2 million people from at least-- listen to this--160 different countries were stopped along our southern border, and now immigration officials are anticipating totals that could more than triple--triple--last year's record.

Against this backdrop, with illegal immigrants and deadly fentanyl pouring into our country, any administration living in reality would be working overtime to actually secure the border. Instead, even now, President Biden is trying to throw away what little security still exists.

For 2 years, since the start of the pandemic, a legal authority called title 42 has empowered the government to simply turn around a large share of the people they catch and send them right back where they came from. Every

month, CBP uses this tool to keep tens of thousands of illegal immigrants out of the catch-and-release pipeline and send them back to their home countries, but now, unbelievably, President Biden has announced he is going to cancel these legal authorities. He wants to rip off the one remaining bandaid that has preserved at least some shred of law and order.

The Biden administration is claiming the pandemic is over and finished on our southern border. Now, they don't believe the pandemic is over, however, for American citizens--oh, no. Democrats actually want Congress to approve more funding specifically because COVID is not finished. The Biden administration's official position is that the pandemic is over for illegal immigrants but not for the American people.

Every day brings more confusing spin from President Biden and his staff. Their latest claim is that Congress needs to fix their problem for them--that if these title 42 authorities end after President Biden has announced he will end them, it will somehow be Congress's fault. That is absurd. The administration has the discretion. The legislative branch has already given them the tool. It is the same tool they have been using this whole time. They just need to have the courage to tell the radical left to take a hike and keep sending these folks back to their home countries. Apparently, that is asking too much.

The Biden administration is stumbling through this core governing responsibility with no vision, no plan, and backward priorities. Democrats would rather appease their radical base with functional open borders than conduct the bare minimum--bare minimum--in enforcement.

The administration's decision is so obviously crazy that even a number of our Senate Democratic colleagues who have been marching in lockstep with the President for more than a year are now scrambling to make it look like they are breaking ranks.

Well, I welcome our colleagues who are finally making angry noises about this border crisis. The problem is that their lockstep, Democratic votes for over a year have helped, actually, to produce it. For over a year, Senate Democrats have rubberstamped every single aspect of the Biden administration's failed border policy. Not a single Senate Democrat opposed the confirmations of the heads of DHS and HHS, who have presided over this crisis. Not a single Senate Democrat voted for commonsense Republican amendments to do things like preserve the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy and defund sanctuary cities, and the cost of their bad decisions gets worse every day.

Last week, a heroic American servicemember paid the ultimate price. Specialist Bishop E. Evans of the Texas National Guard had been assigned to help contend with the flow of immigrants across the Rio Grande. He lost his own life in trying to save people who had gotten into deadly trouble. And the White House's response? Their spokeswoman was asked yesterday about this tragic loss. She brushed it off. She said he was there on behalf of Texas, not the Federal Government. That unbelievably tone-deaf response perfectly captures the administration's failure to take responsibility.

Democrats have built this border crisis by letting the radical left run the show for more than a year. If my friends across the aisle really have experienced a conversion of heart and now believe in border security, they will have to do a lot more than issue indignant press releases and call it a day.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, as the Senate convenes today, we are mourning the loss of our dear friend and legendary former colleague, Orrin Hatch.

When Senator Hatch retired 3 years ago, this body lost its longest serving Republican and its President pro tem. We also lost one of the kindest and best humored colleagues any of us had ever served with and, for that matter, the Senate's only former band manager of a Mormon folk music group.

Orrin Hatch led an incredibly full, interesting, and accomplished life. By the end of his tenure, our very funny colleague liked to poke fun at his own longevity. I remember when Orrin, a former Judiciary Committee chairman, would pretend to wistfully recall his work on Justice Joseph Story's confirmation back in 1811.

Humor aside, the reality was impressive enough. Orrin's dogged service for Utah and our Nation was a constant in this Chamber for 42 years. He was an accomplished, influential chairman of three major committees: HELP, Judiciary, and Finance. He was an essential legislator behind a long list of landmark laws--from the Hatch-Waxman law on generic drugs in the 1980s to the Americans with Disabilities Act, to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program--all back in the 1990s--all the way through to the historic 2017 tax reform that Orrin shepherded as Finance chairman. That helped engineer the best economic moment for American workers and families in modern history. There were also countless specific achievements for the great State of Utah that Orrin loved so much.

Amid all that legislative heavy lifting, Orrin was also a pivotal player concerning the Senate's part in the personnel business. Amazingly, at the time of Orrin's retirement, he had personally participated in the confirmations for more than half--half--of all the article III judges who had ever served in American history.

Orrin came into the Senate as a young, conservative firebrand. His first campaign for any public office of any kind was the 1976 campaign that landed him here. He left the Senate as a widely admired and universally liked elder statesman. His legacy is peppered with both big, principled victories, bipartisan collaborations, and a roster of friends that spanned the entire political spectrum and sometimes transcended politics altogether.

But there was never any confusing what Orrin viewed as his proudest accomplishment of all. That would be his remarkable marriage to Elaine and their loving family. Alphabetical order has perhaps never served any man better than when ``Hatch, Orrin'' was assigned the chair next to ``Hansen, Elaine'' in a Brigham Young University classroom. Decades later, Orrin said, ``I can't remember a doggone thing from that astronomy class,'' but the two of them got 65 inspiring years of marriage and a big, happy brood of kids and grandkids out of the bargain.

So, today, the entire Senate stands with Elaine, the Hatch family, and the huge, huge network of friends, former staffers, and admirers whom Orrin leaves behind across Utah and across our country. We mourn this great loss, and we honor this great life.

Madam President, here is a quote from Candidate Biden's campaign website in 2020:

The U.S. has a right and a duty to secure our borders and

protect our people against threats.

Well, that was then; this is now.

The Biden administration's weak border policies set a new record in 2021. Customs and Border Protection had to make--listen to this--2 million--2 million--arrests, and it doesn't appear that that new record will last long; 2022 is already trending even worse.

CBP is currently seeing about 7,000 encounters every single day, and they fear they could see as many as 18,000 per day--a truly staggering figure.

To put this in perspective, President Obama's former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has reflected that a daily count above 1,000--above 1,000-- was ``a relatively bad number, and I was gonna be in a bad mood the whole day,'' reflecting back on his experience.

Now we are at seven times that figure and still climbing. It is a President's responsibility to fix this crisis, but this President is taking major steps to make it even worse.

The Biden administration has announced they will cancel legal authorities that have helped CBP contend with these massive surges. A group of States led by Arizona have explained in court that title 42 is ``the only safety valve preventing this Administration's disastrous border policies from devolving into an unmitigated catastrophe.''

The administration's attempts to explain why they are caving to the far left and throwing our borders open make no sense whatsoever. The White House keeps claiming this is a public health decision; they cannot keep title 42--leading you to ask, why?

Democrats don't act like they think COVID is finished. They give speeches daily about the need for more funding. They say we should be sending health assistance around the rest of the world. The only place on the planet where Democrats say COVID is over apparently is at our southern border.

A growing number of House and Senate Democrats have expressed concern and anger over President Biden's awful decision. But press releases are one thing. What matters is how people vote.

Senate Democrats have taken every meaningful opportunity to back the administration's border policies and vote down Republican efforts to improve security. Their votes have helped create this mess. We will see if they finally change course and begin voting to help Republicans end the crisis instead.

Madam President, now on another matter, last week, President Biden released his budget request for next year. The President got to take a blank canvas and sketch his policy vision for the country. But in the critical area of defending our Nation, the President's vision came up way, way short.

Even amidst a hot war in Europe, bipartisan recognition of threats from China, North Korean nuclear and missile proliferation, and Iran's nuclear, missile, and terrorism trifecta, President Biden proposes to underfund our Armed Forces.

Even if Democrats manage to magically get their runaway inflation under control faster than anyone predicts, their proposal would only flat-fund defense. While China keeps ramping their military spending way up, the Biden budget would have America treading water, at best. More likely, if Democrats' high inflation sticks around, the President's proposal would actually cut the military's purchasing power.

As we speak, Secretary Austin, General Milley, and DOD Comptroller Michael McCord are testifying before the Armed Services Committee to provide some answers about their boss's baffling budget request. These senior leaders have a responsibility to be strong advocates within the administration for the resources that our servicemembers actually need.

When the far-left wanted President Obama to slash military spending, Secretary Leon Panetta waged an impassioned public and private campaign to stick up for our national defense. But if Secretary Austin is advocating for the military's bottom line, he is not doing it very effectively. The administration's proposed defense increase of 4 percent before inflation doesn't come anywhere near meeting our military's requirements to compete with China and preserve peace well into the future.

Yet the same budget lavishes a gigantic--gigantic--14-percent increase on domestic discretionary spending. If our colleague Chairman Sanders wrote a budget and gave the Pentagon zero input or influence, it might not look much different than the administration's actual product.

So, the world is a dangerous place. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other adversaries remind us of this basic fact every single day. Our Commander in Chief needs to get with the program.

Madam President, now, on one final matter. The last few weeks have confirmed a pattern that has played out repeatedly in recent decades. When Republican Presidents make Supreme Court nominations, the far-left and the media melt down. Absurd allegations, conspiracy theories, cheap gimmicks, and apocalyptic rhetoric are all guaranteed. But when Democratic Presidents make nominations, Senate Republicans inquire about past rulings and judicial philosophies, and the country gets the serious process it deserves.

On Tuesday, I explained how 30 years of escalation by Democrats ushered in this assertive period for the Senate regarding judicial nominations. Now and for the foreseeable future, the Senate views itself as a co-partner in the process.

On Wednesday, I walked through Judge Jackson's long and disturbing record of using judicial activism to go soft on crime. Today, I need to discuss how these disagreements affect the very bedrock of our Republic.

For multiple years now, the Democratic Party has waged an aggressive campaign to bully our independent justice system and attack the legitimacy of their institution. When the plain text of our laws and Constitution disappoint liberals' policy preferences, they mount radical campaigns to wreck the Court itself. This civic cancer began on the fringe, but it has quickly metastasized throughout their party.

Three years ago, sitting Senate Democrats sent the Court an absurd amicus brief, threatening retribution for a certain ruling. Two years ago, the Democratic leader rallied with radicals on the Court's steps and threatened multiple Justices by name if they didn't produce the policy result he preferred.

Last year, when fringe activists wanted to dig up the discredited concept of partisan court packing, President Biden lent it legitimacy with a Presidential commission. Now, just recently, the Senate Democratic whip said that his side's court-packing proposals don't matter because they lack 60 votes to pass the Senate. Well, that was cold comfort considering the Senator just voted to destroy the 60-vote threshold a few months back.

So this nomination has occurred against a strange, strange backdrop. The Senate Democrats, who spent weeks--weeks--fulsomely praising Judge Jackson, have spent years attacking her soon-to-be workplace.

This is why I needed to hear Judge Jackson denounce court packing. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer had no trouble--none--condemning these schemes loudly as sitting Justices. Surely President Biden could find himself an institutionalist in their mold.

But, alas, Judge Jackson was the court packers' favorite pick for the vacancy, and she refused to follow the Ginsburg-Breyer model. She signaled the opposite. She said she would be ``thrilled to be one of however many''--``one of however many.''

The left's escalating war against the judiciary is a symptom of a profound misunderstanding. Judicial activism sees the Court as a third legislature. The left wants one policymaking body with 435 Members, one with 100, and one that consists of nine lawyers.

Let me say that again.

The left wants one policymaking body with 435 Members, one with 100, and one that consists of nine lawyers. That isn't what the Founders created, and it is not what the American people signed up for.

We have seen over and over that when judicial activism triumphs over fidelity to the rule of law, our courts mutate--mutate--into clumsy proxy battlefields for arguments that belong in this Chamber and out in 50 State legislatures. This is unfair to the American people, and it damages our institutions, not the least the courts themselves.

So there is only one way to lower the temperature, depoliticize the courts, and protect the rule of law: confirming only judges who will honor the Constitution and not supplant it.

The road to a healthy Court and a healthy country is not striking some balance where some Justices stick to the text and some Justices try to make policy. The solution is for all the Justices to stay in their lane.

There is one right number of Justices who seek to follow the law. The number is nine. Ginsburg said it. Breyer said it. There is one right number of Justices who seek to make policy: zero.

There are jurists and scholars with personal views across the political spectrum who understand that all judges should be textualists and constitutionalists in their day jobs. And that must be the Senate's standard.

I see hallmarks of judicial activism in Judge Jackson's record; and, therefore, I will vote no. Nevertheless, our Democratic colleagues are on track to confirm our next Supreme Court Justice.

And do you know what won't happen? Top Republicans will not imply she is illegitimate. We will not call for court packing. I won't be joining any mobs outside her new workplace and threatening her by name.

Democrats must stop their political siege of the institution that Judge Jackson is about to join. They must stop their assault on judicial independence.

We are about to have a new Justice whose fan club has openly attacked the rule of law. So Judge Jackson will quickly face a fork in the road. One approach to her new job would delight the far left. A different approach would honor the separation of powers and the Constitution. The soon-to-be Justice can either satisfy her radical fan club or help preserve the judiciary that Americans need--but not both.

I am afraid the nominee's record tells us which is likely. But I hope Judge Jackson proves me wrong.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, President Biden was elected on the promise that he would govern as a moderate and unite the country. He insisted the radical left would not be calling the shots on his watch. But when it came to one of the most consequential decisions a President can make--a lifetime appointment to our highest Court--the Biden administration let the radicals run the show.

With Washington Democrats in power, the far left got the reckless inflationary spending they wanted; the far left has gotten the insecure border they wanted; and today, the far left will get the Supreme Court Justice they wanted.

The fringe activists who demand partisan Court packing, attack the Justices, and describe our Constitution as ``trash'' made up their minds from the start of this administration that if a Supreme Court vacancy should arise, they wanted one nominee and one nominee only: Judge Jackson. They spent dark money to promote this person specifically. They pushed her for the D.C. Circuit. Then they badgered

Justice Breyer to quit. In February, one of these groups announced Judge Jackson would be the nominee before President Biden actually did make the announcement. So think about that for a moment.

The Senate has examined Judge Jackson's qualifications with the seriousness and vigor that a lifetime appointment deserves. Unlike when the parties' positions are reversed, the country was not subjected to uncorroborated smear campaigns, committee boycotts, stunts with cardboard cutouts, or mobs chasing Senators around the Capitol.

Now a few of our Democratic colleagues seem to have decided in advance they would claim that Judge Jackson was treated shabbily. I have heard that script recited, even though it didn't happen. It didn't happen.

Let's be clear. No nominee before the Senate for any position deserves a cakewalk or a coronation. Tough questions about a Federal judge's own rulings and statements are the definition of ``fair game.'' My Republican colleagues' vigorous inquiry shed important new light on a frequently disturbing judicial record. So I applaud my colleagues for focusing on substance and not following the Democrats' recent precedents into the gutter.

Unfortunately, what the Senate's process turned up was disturbing.

First, the nominee would not follow the Ginsburg-Breyer precedent and denounce the insane concept of partisan Court packing.

Second, her judicial record is full of cases where Judge Jackson ruled like a policymaker implementing personal biases instead of a judge following the text wherever it led.

Third, her aggressive judicial activism frequently focused on treating convicted criminals as gently as possible. In literally case after case, from deadly fentanyl to open borders, to child exploitation, Judge Jackson tilted the scales of justice away from public safety and innocent victims in favor of her career-long passion for softening up criminal sentencing. In Judge Jackson's courtroom, plain legal text and clear congressional intent were no match for what the judge admits are her personal ``policy disagreements.''

Even as a violent crimewave sweeps America, Democrats are pursuing a nationwide campaign to make the justice system softer on crime. They are stacking the deck with far-left prosecutors, woke warriors at the Department of Justice, and Federal judges who believe criminals deserve lighter treatment. This project is terrible for innocent American families. And every piece of evidence suggests Democrats' view Judge Jackson as its crown jewel.

I will close with this: These debates about judicial philosophy are not just academic. The charged political atmosphere around confirmations, the outsized role that unelected judges play in our national life--these are direct consequences of liberal judicial activism. They are direct results of the effort to misuse Federal courts as a progressive legislature that voters can't kick out.

A republic of self-serving citizens should not spend every June watching with bated breath to see if five or six lawyers will hand down sweeping policy changes with zero basis in the written Constitution.

The solution is not to make the Court even more of a superlegislature, like liberals want--a delegitimizing death spiral that would destroy the rule of law. There is only one solution. The Senate should only confirm Justices who will follow the text of our laws and our Constitution wherever it leads, who will leave subjective policy judgments on this side of the street, where they belong. That is how we lower the temperature. That is how we shore up the courts. That is how we protect the rule of law. Staff the judiciary with brilliant men and women who understand and embrace this limited role. No other road leads anywhere good for our great Nation.

Mr. President, yesterday, I explained how Democrats created the current norms around judicial appointments.

These days, the Senate takes an assertive role. In particular, most Senators do not merely check resumes and basic legal qualifications but also look into judicial philosophy.

This is a discussion Republicans welcomed because judicial philosophy is not a routine policy disagreement, like debates over spending or tax rates or energy. These are the sorts of normal policy differences that our system of government is built to handle.

But if judges misunderstand the judicial role, that damages the system itself.

Our genius Founding Fathers set up three branches of government. Two of them get to make policy. Congress writes and passes laws, Presidents sign or veto them, and they are both accountable through frequent elections.

The third branch responsibilities are completely and totally different. The courts exist not to rewrite laws but to apply them as written; to protect every American's right to the consistent, impartial rule of law. So the judiciary is insulated and independent.

Republicans want to uphold the separation of powers the Framers left us. We want judges to honor their limited role in our Republic, stick to the text, rule impartially, and leave policymaking to policymakers. And then we want those judges to have total freedom from political threats and bullying.

The political left has long held exactly the opposite. They believe the Framers got the judicial role wrong. They want the Supreme Court to be another forum where progressives can pursue policy outcomes and social changes.

When liberals fail to convince 218 House Members and 60 Senators of a position, they want to cross the street and try to persuade five lawyers instead. They want judges going beyond the text, roaming through policy questions and moral judgements.

So this is a huge difference. It has consequences for American families on issues from crime to border security, to religious liberty, and to the health of our institutions.

So the key question for the Senate is this: Where does Judge Jackson come down? Where does her record land along this spectrum?

Well, before the nominee was announced, President Biden gave a troubling hint. He said whomever he nominated to the Court would have to ``have an expansive view of the Constitution,'' acknowledge rights that our founding documents leave unsaid, and guarantee specific outcomes in certain categories of cases. The President promised he would only nominate a judicial activist for the job.

So I could only support Judge Jackson if her record and testimony suggested President Biden actually made a mistake; that he had accidentally chosen a nominee who was not the kind of liberal activist that he promised.

But, unfortunately, Judge Jackson's record and testimony suggests she is exactly the kind of liberal activist that the President promised. In case after case, when statutory text, standards, or guidelines pointed in one direction, Judge Jackson set them aside and charted a course for a different outcome.

As a district court judge, the nominee heard the case of a liberal activist group challenging the Federal Government's authority to deport illegal immigrants. The statute in question plainly gave the Department of Homeland Security ``sole and unreviewable discretion'' to enforce the policy.

But, apparently, it didn't lead to the policy outcome Judge Jackson wanted. So she ignored the statute, sided with the activists, and used a nationwide injunction--a nationwide injunction--to impose her new policymaking on the entire country.

This was such a blatant act of judicial activism that even the liberal DC Circuit overturned her ruling.

Or take another case involving a fentanyl trafficker. If you read the initial trial transcripts, Judge Jackson editorialized and expressed regret that the law forced her to punish him somewhat harshly. She literally apologized to this self-described ``kingpin'' that she wasn't allowed to go softer.

But the next time she saw this criminal at a compassionate release hearing, Judge Jackson was ready to legislate from the bench to give him the sentence she wished that she could have given him before.

Even after the judge explicitly acknowledged the First Step Act was not retroactive, she tortured its compassionate release provisions to make it retroactive anyway.

The fentanyl kingpin will be coming soon to a neighborhood near you, thanks to Judge Jackson. Congressional intent was no match for Judge Jackson's intent.

And then there is Judge Jackson's troubling record in a variety of cases involving child exploitation. On average, where these awful crimes are concerned, Judge Jackson's peers on the Federal bench fall within the stiff sentences Congress prefers a third of the time. But in 11 cases, Judge Jackson didn't fall within the guidelines even once.

At her confirmation hearing last month, the Judiciary Committee gave Judge Jackson a chance to clear up the activist track record. The nominee did not reassure.

She repeatedly declined to answer why her discretion slanted so dramatically and consistently in the direction of going soft on crime. She just kept repeating that she had the discretion. Clearly, what Senators wanted to know is why she used the discretion the way she did.

Judge Jackson did tip her hand on a few occasions. She acknowledged that her ignoring the guidelines amounted to ``making policy determinations.'' Another time she referenced her personal ``policy disagreements'' to explain her jurisprudence.

So if you look at her sentencing transcripts, that is exactly right. Not only did the judge herself make frequent reference to her ``policy disagreement'' with the guidelines, but you can see the prosecutors in her courtroom knew they had to acknowledge her bias as well before arguing that she should finally get tough in their particular case. But always in vain, of course, because she never got tough once--not once-- in this area. But prosecutors knew what policy bias they were going to get when they showed up in Judge Jackson's courtroom.

Of course, this is exactly, precisely what we do not want judges doing.

Senate Republicans gave the judge many opportunities to reassure, but in many cases, the nominee just dug deeper. At one point, the judge even echoed an infamous quotation from one of the most famous judicial activists in American history, the archliberal Justice Brennan used to say the most important rule in constitutional law was the ``Rule of Five''--the ``Rule of Five.''

And Judge Jackson told the Senate ``any time the Supreme Court has five votes, then they have a majority for whatever opinion they determine.''

That is judicial activism summarized in one sentence.

So to summarize, Judge Jackson's nomination started off on the wrong foot because President Biden had promised he would only nominate a judicial activist. I hoped that maybe the judge's record and testimony would persuade us otherwise. Maybe she would persuade the Senate that she understands the proper judicial role. Unfortunately, what happened was just the opposite.

I opposed Judge Jackson's confirmation to her current post last year over these very same concerns, and this process has only made those concerns stronger.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the American people are seriously worried about the direction our economy is headed. Just between January and March, the share of people reporting high living costs as the most important

problem facing our country actually doubled and so did the share of those most worried about the price of gas.

Consumer price hikes have now set new 40-year records multiple months in a row. More and more American families are feeling the pinch. And 7 in 10 say they do not like how President Biden is handling it.

It was clear from the start that the Biden administration's war on affordable energy would punish American consumers, and even liberal economists warned that flooding our economy with partisan spending could trigger broad inflation.

Sure enough, American families have now endured 9 straight months of inflation above a 5-percent annual pace, and the worst effects are being felt in the most vulnerable pockets of our society.

One analysis of spending on household staples found that cost cutting ``is most pronounced among lower-income Americans.''

As the Washington Post reported, ``lower-income workers like [Jacqueline] Rodriguez have seen some of the fastest wage growth of the pandemic era. But those gains are being eroded by the highest inflation in 40 years. . . . `It's outrageous how much everything has gone up,' Rodriguez said. `I go to the supermarket to buy chicken, and I have to make a decision on what meal I'm going to cook based on the prices. . . . Everything is more expensive.' ''

Another group who especially remain vulnerable are seniors on fixed incomes. One retired teacher in North Carolina recently said it like this:

Just surviving day to day has become a big concern of

mine--because, how in the world? . . . I'm starting to panic.

I'm starting to think, ``How am I going to keep paying for

everything?''

Many retirees already face health challenges or other hardships so there is simply no wiggle room in their budgets.

One California man explained that cancer was the reason he had to retire in the first place. Now he is ``scraping the bottom of the barrel. . . . I do most of my food shopping in markdown bins and don't buy much else.''

One White House official has seemed to endorse the sentiment that inflation is ``a high-class problem.'' A whole lot of low-income Americans and retired Americans could very readily set them straight on that.

Last autumn, the administration's top spokeswoman scoffed at what she called ``the tragedy of the treadmill that's delayed.''

Well, that may be the extent of the pain that inflation and supply chain problems are causing certain affluent people--people like those inside the beltway having to wait a little extra on luxury purchases-- but I can assure the President's team that many Americans are hurting a lot worse than they are.

The very least the administration must do is stop digging; no more reckless spending, no gigantic tax increases that would damage the economy even further.

Yet Senate Democrats won't give up on yet another reckless spending spree, and just last week, the Biden administration proposed to smack the country with the largest tax hike in American history.

The last thing American families can afford is more of the same recklessness that got us where we are.

Mr. President, now on a different matter, the Constitution makes the President and the Senate partners in selecting Supreme Court Justices. And as a practical matter, each Senator gets to define what ``advice and consent'' means to them.

For much of the 20th century, Senates typically took a different approach. Senators tended to give Presidents a lot of leeway as long as nominees checked basic professional and ethical boxes.

But then the political left and Senate Democrats initiated a series of major changes. In the late 1980s, Democrats thrust the Senate into a more aggressive posture toward nominations with an unprecedented, scorched-earth smear campaign that took aim at a nominee's judicial philosophy.

The Washington Post editorial board said back at the time that the formerly ``conventional view'' that Presidents would get great deference had now ``fallen into . . . disrepute.'' They worried that a ``highly politicized future'' for ``confirmation proceedings'' might lie ahead following Democrats' actions.

Well, just a few years later, personal attacks on then-Judge Thomas made the previous hysteria over Judge Bork seem like lofty debate by comparison.

And 1 year after that, in 1992, then-Senator Biden proclaimed that if another vacancy occurred toward the end of President Bush 41's term, the Judiciary Committee should not hold any hearings before the Presidential election.

Well, that situation didn't arise that year, and once President Clinton took office, Republicans did not try to match Democrats' behavior simply out of spite. We tried actually to deescalate. Justices Ginsburg and Breyer both won lopsided votes with opposition in single digits. That was during a time when Republicans were in the majority.

But the very next time that Democrats lost the White House, the precedent-breaking tactics came roaring back.

During the Bush 43 administration, Senate Democrats, and especially the current Democratic leader, took the incredibly rare tactic of filibustering judicial nominations and made it routine.

The press at the time described the sea change:

They said it was important for the Senate to change the

ground rules and there was no obligation to confirm someone

just because they are scholarly or erudite.

Democrats decided that pure legal qualifications were no longer enough. They wanted judicial philosophy on the table.

So, 20 years ago, several of the same Senate Democrats who are now trumpeting the historic nature of Judge Jackson's nomination used these tactics to delay or block nominees, including an African-American woman and a Hispanic man--both, of course, nominated by a Republican President.

In one case, Democrats suggested their opposition was specifically-- listen to this--specifically because the nominee's Hispanic heritage would actually make him a rising star.

Half--half--of Senate Democrats voted against Chief Justice Roberts, the best appellate advocate of his generation. All but four Democrats voted against Justice Alito, who had the most judicial experience of any nominee in almost a century.

There was no question about the basic legal qualifications of either, but Democrats opposed both. And in mid-2007, more than a year before the next Presidential election, Senator Schumer expanded upon the Biden standard from 15 years prior. He said that if another Supreme Court vacancy arose, Democrats should not let President Bush fill it.

Our colleague from New York proposed to keep a hypothetical vacancy open until an election that was more than a year away. During President Obama's terms, Republicans took up the same hardball tactics that Democrats had just pioneered.

But our colleagues recoiled at the taste of their own medicine and broke the rules to escape it. They preferred to detonate the ``nuclear option'' for the first time ever rather than let President Obama's nominees face the same treatment they had just invented--invented--for President Bush's.

Democrats did not then change the rule for the Supreme Court because there was no vacancy. But the late Democratic leader Harry Reid said publicly he would do the same thing for the Supreme Court with no hesitation.

By 2016, Democrats had spent 30 years radically changing the confirmation process, and now they had nuked the Senate's rules. Obviously, this pushed Republicans into a more assertive posture ourselves.

So when an election-year vacancy did arise, we applied the Biden- Schumer standard and did not fill it. And then, when Democrats filibustered a stellar nominee for the next year, we extended the Reid standard to the Supreme Court.

In 2016 and 2017, Republicans only took steps that Democrats had publicly declared they would take themselves. Yet our colleagues spent the next 4 years--4 years--trying to escalate even further.

Justice Gorsuch, impeccably qualified, received the first successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court

nominee in American history; Justice Kavanaugh got an astonishing and disgraceful spectacle; and Justice Barrett received baseless, delegitimizing attacks on her integrity.

Now, this history is not the reason why I oppose Judge Jackson. This is not about finger-pointing or partisan spite. I voted for a number of President Biden's nominees when I could support them, and just yesterday, moments after the Judiciary Committee deadlocked on Judge Jackson, they approved another judicial nominee by a unanimous vote.

My point is simply this: Senate Democrats could not have less standing to pretend--pretend--that a vigorous examination of a nominee's judicial philosophy is somehow off limits.

My Democratic friends across the aisle have no standing whatsoever to argue that Senators should simply glance--just glance--at Judge Jackson's resume and wave her on through.

Our colleagues intentionally brought the Senate to a more assertive place. They intentionally began a vigorous debate about what sort of jurisprudence actually honors the rule of law. This is the debate Democrats wanted. Now it is the debate Democrats have. And that is what I will discuss tomorrow--why Judge Jackson's apparent judicial philosophy is not well suited to our highest Court.