Floor Statements

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.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, it hardly seemed possible that the reports and images from Ukraine could grow even more horrifying, but they actually have.

In recent days, Ukrainian troops have reclaimed the town of Bucha from the illegal and illegitimate Russian invasion. And in the wake of the retreating Russians, the Ukrainians and the press have reported evidence of evil, wanton torture, rape, and murder of civilians. There are reports of mass graves, of people executed with their hands bound behind their backs. The photographs and reports are sickening and appalling.

Since before Putin even began his escalation, I have spent months pushing the Biden administration and our allies and partners to get as much lethal assistance possible to the Ukrainians as quickly as possible. I have supported

many of the steps our President has gotten around to taking, but in almost every case, I wish he had acted sooner and more boldly.

We know of the horrors committed by Russian forces in Bucha because the Ukrainian military reclaimed the town after pushing back the Russians. These latest revelations must only strengthen and intensify our resolve to get the Ukrainians what they need, on the timeframe they need, to liberate more towns currently under Russian control, to prevent Russia from committing new atrocities, to fight and to actually win this war.

This also further reinforces what I wish more of our European friends realize: This is a time for choosing. This is not a time for business as usual, and there can be no return to business as usual whenever and however the dust settles.

Europe must move more urgently to decouple from Russia. Yes, this will entail some short-term economic pain. Yes, their own shortsighted energy policies have left their countries entirely too dependent. But there are times when geopolitical realities and moral imperatives must outweigh short-term financial costs. Our partners should recognize that such a time is staring them right in the face, so should our own American private sector.

Internationally, I am sure there will be much virtue-signaling rhetoric over the atrocities committed on Ukrainian soil by Russia. Let us be honest that referrals to the International Criminal Court or invocations of the U.N. Human Rights Council may make people's consciences feel better but will not curtail the atrocities or stop the violence. Only victory in Ukraine can do that.

Finally, the outpouring of outrage at these atrocities should prompt a second look at other terrible actions that the world has come to simply shrug and accept.

The Biden administration is right to ask the U.N. to expel Russia from the Human Rights Council, but they shouldn't stop there. The world that rightly recoils in horror at the photographs from Ukraine should not look the other way past Xi's concentration camps for the Uighur people. The modern totalitarianism of the People's Republic of China is no less abhorrent because it is sanitized and it is organized. The world's worst abusers of human rights do not deserve to sit on such a Council.

Border Security

Madam President, now on another matter, our southern border is already in crisis on Democrats' watch. And on Friday, the Biden administration announced they are going to throw open the floodgates even wider.

In December 2020, right before President Biden took office, he said it would be ``the last thing we need'' if we were to ``end up with two million people on our border.'' But in 2021, on his watch, under his policies, that is exactly what America got.

Last year saw a record-shattering 2 million arrests on our southern border; 2 million people--more than the population of 13 whole States-- from at least 160 different countries. And those are just the people who actually got caught. And 2022 is already on track to be even worse. As we speak, border officials are encountering roughly 7,000 persons each day, and the Department of Homeland Security predicts this pace could more than double.

The Biden administration's own officials say they are contingency planning for 18,000 encounters every single day. For perspective, that pace would be equivalent to 6.6 million--6.6 million--per year, a population larger than all but 17 of our States.

Now, thus far, the Biden administration kept using a legal tool called title 42, which they inherited from the prior administration because of the COVID pandemic.

Title 42 provides a shortcut for swift border enforcement. It has given the administration a fast track to turn people around as they arrive.

In February, more than 91,000 people were immediately turned around under title 42. Another 73,000 were allowed to stay and navigate our system.

So, without title 42, instead of adding 73,000 illegal immigrants to our system alone, we would have added more than double that--160,000-- in just 1 month. But, on Friday, the Biden administration announced an unbelievably bad decision. They are going to further cave to the far left that wants open borders. They are going to cancel title 42 this spring with no real border security plan to replace it.

This is such an absurd decision, such an unforced gaffe, that even some of our Senate Democratic colleagues have come out swinging. Our colleague from West Virginia correctly described this as ``a frightening decision'' to abandon ``an essential tool'' when ``we are already facing an unprecedented increase in migrants.'' Another Senate Democrat said, ``This is the wrong decision.'' A third said it ``shows a lack of understanding about the crisis at our border.'' A fourth said the move ``will likely lead to a migrant surge that the administration does not appear to be ready for.''

The problem is that these same Senate Democrats have backed this far- left administration over and over again on immigration. Every single Democratic Senator supported both Secretaries Mayorkas and Becerra. Every single Democrat Senator voted against preserving ``Remain in Mexico,'' voted against defunding sanctuary cities, and voted against an amendment that would have funded the full enforcement of all immigration laws.

Later this week, we expect every Democratic Senator to vote to confirm a Supreme Court nominee who is a proven judicial activist on this very issue. Judge Jackson has gone beyond the judicial role to rewrite immigration policy from the bench and make it even more liberal. In one case, she ignored the plain text of the law to reach a more liberal outcome. She even tried to force a nationwide injunction on the entire country. Judge Jackson went so far beyond the law to remake immigration policy that even the liberal DC Circuit had to overturn her mistaken ruling. An Obama appointee wrote the decision that overturned Judge Jackson.

So I am glad to see our Democratic colleagues belatedly waking up to the border crisis and beginning to pressure the administration. Fourteen months late is better than never. But votes speak louder than press releases. The measure of a Senator's position isn't our rhetoric; it is actually our votes.

If our colleagues who have stood in lockstep with President Biden's border crisis thus far are serious about turning over a new leaf, they can start with the Supreme Court vote later this week.

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

Madam President, well, the Biden administration is on track for another record-shattering year on our southern border--in all the wrong ways.

The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly preparing for up to 18,000 attempted border crossings per day--18,000 per day.

President Biden's border crisis is a symptom of the modern Democratic Party's inability to support any remotely reasonable policy of border enforcement.

Now, thus far, the Biden administration has kept the chaos at least somewhat in check by leaning on emergency authorities that are specific to the COVID pandemic. To be clear, even with these title 42 authorities in place, our border has still been in crisis. Last month was the worst February in more than 20 years. We just saw the worst 12- month period for illegal crossings since at least--listen to this-- 1960. This is with title 42 in place. Just imagine if President Biden kills it.

But the open-borders far left doesn't like title 42. So now, according to public reports, the Biden administration is preparing to cave to the radicals, end title 42, and effectively throw our borders completely wide open.

Ending title 42 without any real border security plan in place would spark a humanitarian and security crisis like we have never seen before. But it is pretty obvious the far left doesn't care. Open borders are their objective.

So at the same time Washington Democrats are pushing for more Federal spending on the pandemic, they

want to declare the pandemic is finished at our southern border. This doesn't add up.

Throwing the floodgates open for an historic spring and summer of illegal immigration would be an unforced error of historic proportions. It would be right up there with the administration's $2 trillion in inflationary spending and their botched retreat from Afghanistan.

But this goes deeper than just title 42 and COVID. The fundamental point is this: Today's Democrats need the pretext of the pandemic to justify having national borders at all. The left feels they need the pretext of COVID to have any--any--border enforcement whatsoever.

This is absolutely mind-boggling.

Republicans and the American people reject this false choice between permanent COVID versus open borders. We can't only be a sovereign nation during pandemics. Americans deserve secure borders all the time.

Functional open borders have pervaded the Biden agenda at literally every level. The President chose a Supreme Court nominee, Judge Jackson, who has displayed a major streak of judicial activism on this very subject, illegal immigration.

In 2019, the judge sided with the leftwing activists and overlooked plain statutory language that gave DHS ``sole and unreviewable discretion'' over the speedy removal of illegal immigrants. Judge Jackson literally just brushed aside the plain text of the law to reach the policy outcome she wanted, and she went even further. She issued a nationwide injunction--a nationwide injunction--to impose her radical policy view on our entire country.

This was a blatant case of judicial activism. The ruling read like it belonged on the opinion pages of the Washington Post. Even the very liberal DC Circuit completely disagreed and overturned Judge Jackson, with an Obama appointee writing the opinion.

It should not be this hard for an administration to understand that a nation actually needs borders.

I strongly urge the President to keep title 42 in place and quickly produce an actual strategy to do his job and secure our border.

The Economy

Madam President, on another matter, the American people know our country is hurting. One national survey just found that only 22 percent say our country is headed in the right direction. Seven in ten Americans just told another poll that our Nation's economy is ``in poor shape.''

The worst inflation in 40 years is fleecing American consumers from the gas pump to the grocery store. American workers are earning raises, but prices are climbing faster than their pay.

The Biden administration has tried to pass the buck for this mess. They have tried to blame everything but their own radical policies. They have claimed that a year of runaway inflation was actually--listen to this--``Putin's price hike,'' because of a war in Europe that is barely a month old. They have claimed the problem is evil profiteering CEOs, because, apparently, the private sector was not seeking profits back when the Republicans had the economy humming with low inflation just a few years ago.

American families aren't buying the spin for one second. When asked by another poll what they think is the main reason for rising gas prices--listen to this--Americans' top answer was ``the Biden administration's economic policies.''

An outright majority of the country agrees the President has made inflation worse, but the administration isn't changing course. They are actually doubling down.

The Biden administration began the week by proposing a budget that would skyrocket domestic discretionary spending on liberal wish-list items and smack the country with the biggest tax hike in American history.

Just last night, Democrats tried to ram through another radical nominee who would only have compounded the economic pain. President Biden's choice of David Weil for a senior post at the Department of Labor was a naked attempt to achieve through bureaucracy what the far- left cannot achieve through legislation. This nominee is famous in Washington for hostility to small business. He has received tens of thousands of dollars from Big Labor to do their bidding. He openly sought to end both the franchise system and the gig economy as we know them.

Fortunately--fortunately--last night, a bipartisan majority of Senators rallied together. We saved the President and the Democratic leader from digging themselves into an even deeper hole with this nominee.

Also overnight, we learned President Biden is going to try to slap another bandaid on gas prices by draining more oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The reserve is supposed to exist for giant unforeseen crises, such as a war between great powers. It is not there so that anti-energy politicians whose policies have raised gas prices can try to hide that from the public.

It is also worth remembering that back in 2020, as oil prices were cratering, Republicans tried to seize the opportunity to rebuild the Strategic Reserve. It would have been a win-win-win to help stabilize our energy industry in the early days of the crisis, gotten American taxpayers an incredible deal with oil at bargain-basement prices, and enhanced our readiness going forward.

But you know what happened. Senate Democrats blocked it. They said buying oil at rock-bottom prices and building up our reserve would have been--listen to this--``a bailout for Big Oil.'' So the Democratic leader bragged about killing that proposal.

You can't make this stuff up.

Our colleagues misunderstand basic economics and basic national security every chance they get. Taxing, spending, radical nominations, and gimmicky half-measures--the American people already blame the Democrats for the fix we are in, and, every week, our colleagues seek new ways to prove them right.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, now on an entirely different matter, I oppose Judge Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation for three main reasons. First, Judge Jackson has refused to follow the Ginsburg-Breyer model and denounce partisan Court-packing. She testified she would be ``thrilled to be one of however many.''

Second, Judge Jackson was not sufficiently forthcoming on judicial philosophy to dispel President Biden's public litmus test that he would only nominate a judicial activist.

And, third, Judge Jackson's personal policy views on criminal sentencing have clearly slanted her jurisprudence. The average violent criminal who was convicted in Judge Jackson's courtroom got a sentence nearly 2 years lower than the Federal guidelines. The average drug criminal, gun criminal, sex criminal, and financial criminal before Judge Jackson all came in underneath the guidelines as well.

In the specific area of child exploitation crimes, the nominee was lenient to the extreme. The average Federal judge sentences one out of every three child pornography possessors to a sentence within the stiff guidelines.

Judge Jackson never did it once. The national average is 1 out of 3, and Judge Jackson went 0 for 11. As she told Senators repeatedly, this was not some case-by-case coincidence but rather her consistent policy bias.

I was making policy determinations.

I have policy disagreements with certain aspects of the

operation of the guidelines.

The Washington Post just interviewed a convicted possessor of child pornography who was supposed to get 8 to 10 years under the guidelines. The prosecutor wanted 2 years; Judge Jackson gave him 3 months--her ``policy disagreements'' in action.

This criminal realizes he was lucky to end up in Judge Jackson's courtroom. Here is what he told the Post:

I wasn't very happy that she gave me three months, though,

after reflection when I was in jail, I was hearing from other

people who said it was their first time arrested and they got

five years, six years.

This is not a few cherry-picked cases. This is a consistent thread that runs through Judge Jackson's accomplished legal career.

In 2011, as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Judge Jackson reportedly made the jaw-dropping argument that if criminals were going to recidivate no matter what, it doesn't matter whether we lock them up for a long time or let them out early.

If we keep them in jail for the extra 36 months, or

whatever, they're going to recidivate at the same rate.

A U.S. attorney replied with the obvious point that criminals can only reoffend if they are back on the streets.

In 2020, Judge Jackson rewrote the FIRST STEP Act on the bench to let a fentanyl trafficker out of jail early. In 2018, while initially sentencing this defendant, she apologized to him and voiced frustration that the law forced her to apply a tough sentence. Two years later, she twisted the law to let him out.

Last year, Judge Jackson granted compassionate release to someone who shot and killed a U.S. marshal. The Parole Commission had repeatedly denied this release, but Judge Jackson let him out.

These are not personal criticisms of Judge Jackson. They are what the nominee herself calls these decisions ``policy differences.'' And policymaking is supposed to happen here in this Chamber, not in the courthouse across the street.

This isn't just about this nomination. The Biden administration has a sweeping project to make the whole Federal judiciary softer on crime.

Even as this violent crimewave we are experiencing sweeps across America, the Biden administration is pursuing an ideological mission to make the Federal bench kinder and gentler to criminals.

Judge Jackson's record suggests she stretches the judicial role to advance that project.

Last night, five people were killed by a Palestinian gunman outside Tel Aviv. It was the fifth time in just 2 weeks that unprovoked violence has shattered lives on Israel's streets. Eleven innocent victims are now dead. They include people of different faiths. Several were Arab Israelis.

As Jews, Christians, and Muslims prepare for some of the holiest days of the year, families in Israel are in mourning. I know I speak for all of our colleagues in offering them the Senate's deepest sympathies.

America, like our Arab and Israeli friends, must remain clear-eyed. The war against terrorism will not fight itself. We cannot afford to be complacent; we must continue to invest in the common mission of security and peace; and we must always stand firmly with our ally Israel.

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

Mr. President, Democrats' massive inflation is an inescapable, painful, daily reality for working families. These policy failures have hammered my home State of Kentucky. Last year, even as many Kentuckians earned raises, prices skyrocketed faster. Used car prices shot up 40 percent in the Commonwealth last year. In Louisville, the gas to drive those cars costs more than a dollar more per gallon today than a year ago.

In typical Bluegrass fashion, neighbors are helping one another as best they can. According to the owner of Parkette Drive-In in Lexington, even as prices for ingredients like chicken have nearly doubled, he has chosen to cut back as much as possible on his end to avoid raising prices for customers.

But as hard as Kentuckians try, Democrats' reckless policies are coming home to roost. As one father of four who lost his job following the devastating Mayfield tornado in December put it, ``there's no stretching money at this point.''

An outright majority of Americans say inflation is not at all under control. Seven in 10 say our economy is in bad shape, and by all accounts, they know exactly whom to blame for a year of painful challenges.

Sixty-three percent of Americans, nearly two-thirds, say they disapprove of how President Biden is handling the economy, and that number just keeps rising.

But Washington Democrats do not appear to have gotten the message. The Biden administration's new budget proposal leans even further into the policies that got us here in the first place.

Even as President Biden has already presided over soaring prices for gas and home heating fuels, he wants massive new tax hikes on American- made fossil fuels. He wants to skyrocket discretionary domestic spending on a whole catalog of liberal wish-list items, and he wants to compound the pain on our economy by slapping the biggest tax hikes in American history right on top of all of it.

So the past year has taught us how painful Washington Democrats' policies can be for hard-working Americans. The administration needs to stop trying to dig this hole any deeper.

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

President Biden likes to say, and has said again today, that budgets are statements of values. Indeed, they can be, and the White House budget request that President Biden published today offers the clearest possible reminder that the Biden administration's far-left values are fundamentally disconnected from what American families actually need.

I mentioned around President Biden's State of the Union that the speech gave the President a chance to pivot. He has had a chance to assess the poll numbers, read the tea leaves, and make a dramatic course correction back toward where Americans would like for him to be. But he chose not to, and this budget proposal is just the mathematical version of that failure to pivot.

The White House is desperately spinning to call this budget centrist, but there is nothing remotely moderate about what is in it.

First and foremost, at a dangerous time, the President's budget falls woefully short on defense spending. Our Commander in Chief has again failed to budget for the resources that our Armed Forces actually need. The Biden administration proposes a nominal 4-percent increase for defense over the bipartisan bill Congress just passed for this year.

That is a nominal 4-percent increase before any of the Democrats' historic inflation is taken into account, and inflation right now is about twice that. So even if you accept the White House's rosiest predictions about where inflation is headed, this would amount to flat- funding defense, with none of the robust growth we need to keep pace with Russia and China. Even in the best case scenario for their budget, it

would leave our Armed Forces simply treading water.

And what if Democrats' historic inflation does not plummet downward as quickly as they would like? What if the inflation they have caused keeps sticking around? Then, President Biden's budget would actually cut funding for our Armed Forces in real dollars.

Look, the world is a dangerous place and growing more dangerous by the day. Putin's escalation in Europe has created significant new requirements for the Pentagon and our defense industrial base. We have growing threats from Iran. China is pouring money into high-tech weapons systems. Beijing announced that they are increasing defense spending again this year by more than 7 percent.

So, amid all this, the White House has proposed no meaningful increase in resources for protecting innocent Americans, promoting our interests, supporting our partners, assisting Ukraine, or replenishing our stockpiles. President Biden likes to give speeches about the need for American leadership in the world, but when the rubber meets the road, when it is time to invest so we can rise and meet challenges like Russia and China, this President has, again, decided to do exactly the opposite. Putin and Xi will sleep more soundly at night if the Biden administration gets its way on defense funding than if Republicans get ours.

Now, let's look at the places where President Biden does want to pull out all the stops and hand out massive funding increases. Our Armed Forces may get the short end of the stick from this White House, but plenty, plenty of far-left domestic priorities will be literally swimming in cash.

While they limit defense to 4 percent growth before inflation, nondefense spending would get a significantly larger increase--not all of domestic spending however. Border security and the Department of Homeland Security barely tread water, just like our troops. But other Agencies and Departments that are more useful for the far-left agenda, like the IRS, the EPA, Commerce, HUD, and Labor make out like bandits with gigantic--gigantic--increases of 20 and 30 percent since 2021.

They want to pour money into absurdities like the U.N. Green Climate Fund--borrow from China to fund a global bureaucracy that will hand free money back to China. There is plenty of money for things like antigun regulations, free lawyers for illegal immigrants, and something called ``environmental justice.''

This whole far-left feast leaves out the reckless taxing-and-spending spree that Democrats failed to pass last year and are now trying to revive. The Biden administration still wants all that spending, too, but they couldn't even budget for it honestly.

And all of the bloated liberal nonsense comes paired with the biggest tax hike in American history--a 2.5-plus-trillion-dollar bomb of tax hikes dropped on top of an economy that the Democrats' policies have already hurt badly, literally--literally--the largest tax hike in history.

Among those increases, President Biden wants to use colossal tax hikes to punish domestic producers of American energy. World events are reminding us every day how important American oil and natural gas production is for our national security and for our partners, but President Biden would rather grind his ideological ax and escalate his holy war on ``Made in America'' fossil fuels.

This--this--is the budget request of an administration that is completely disconnected from reality, of a President who has decided not to pivot, of a Democratic Party that has chosen not to correct course on its own.

Every data point suggests that the American people want and need a major course correction. It appears that in about 7 months, they may have to provide it themselves.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, yesterday, I said I hoped the second day of Judge Jackson's responses would provide more clarity on some vital questions. Unfortunately, the nominee's answers trended the other way. Regarding the Court as an institution, the nominee continued to reject the examples of Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. She refused to denounce partisan Court packing. On judicial philosophy, the judge continued to deflect actually basic questions.

The lack of candor is especially troubling since the President sent us a nominee with no meaningful written record on constitutional matters. For more than 8 of Judge Jackson's 9 years on the Federal bench, she was a trial judge on the district court. As the nominee herself explained on Tuesday, that role neither requires a particular talent for constitutional interpretation nor gives judges much of a chance to exhibit one. She deflected a question about judicial philosophy by explaining that such questions do not often occur to her on the lower court.

District court records alone shed little light on what kind of Supreme Court Justice someone might be.

Now, Judge Jackson's current post on the DC Circuit is a much closer analog. The problem is, she has held that position for less than a year and has only published two opinions. Justice Gorsuch had authored 212 circuit court opinions before he was nominated to the Supreme Court. Justice Kavanaugh had written 306. Senators had an unbelievable wealth of writings to examine. As to Justice Barrett, in just 3 years on the Seventh Circuit, she had already written 91 appellate opinions, not to mention her many academic writings on constitutional law. Judge Jackson has written a total of two circuit court opinions--just two.

The only real body of evidence before the Senate is her record as a trial judge. Like I mentioned, those rulings communicate very little about the judge's approach to big-picture questions of interpretation. But to make matters worse, Judge Jackson declined to answer basic questions about those rulings. Senators asked about clear patterns in the judge's criminal sentencing decisions. The nominee deflected by saying every case is unique. So Senators tried to examine one case at a time. Then the nominee said she couldn't recall details. So Senators tried to supply the details. Then the nominee stonewalled and said no one case can fully capture a judge's record.

This made up an endless circle of evasion. Judge Jackson wouldn't address broad patterns in her rulings because she said it was unfair-- unfair--for Senators to zoom out, and she wouldn't discuss specific cases because she said it was unfair for Senators to zoom in.

Since the only real body of evidence before the Senate is Judge Jackson's trial records, Senators asked why she consistently opposed weak sentences for certain crimes.

The nominee then ducked the question over and over. She blamed Congress for giving her that discretion in the first place. Both the nominee and then Chairman Durbin kept repeating that if Senators wanted to guarantee harsher penalties, we could mandate them.

That is true, but it is a non sequitur.

Senators wanted to know why Judge Jackson used the discretion she actually did have in the specific ways she chose to use it. The Senators were trying to understand what this nominee does with discretion when she has it.

But, again, the nominee would not answer. She kept blaming the mere existence of her discretion for her decisions to go soft on criminals, when she could have just as easily used that discretion to be tough. We basically had a nominee saying that: If Senators want me to be tough on crime, you will have to change the laws to force me--force me--to do it.

In several egregious instances, from child exploitation to fentanyl trafficking, the nominee used especially unusual and creative legal moves that stretched the bounds of the judicial role. In the nominee's own words, she simply has a ``policy disagreement'' with parts of the sentencing law.

Evidently, the judge's personal policy views change how she applies the law.

Finally, I understand some Democratic Senators held a press conference yesterday to complain that Republicans' questions were too tough.

Of course, nobody could have less credibility to police the fine details of confirmation hearings than our Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. The last 48 hours were a dry and friendly legal seminar compared to the circus that Democrats inflicted on the country just a few years back.

The American people know it is not asking too much to ask a Federal judge legal questions about her record. I just wish the Senate had gotten more answers.

Ukraine

Madam President, now on a different matter, today, President Biden is overseas meeting with America's closest European allies as Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine enters its second month.

He is engaging with a Europe that has been profoundly changed. NATO allies have watched a neighbor invaded by an aggressive Russia. Some, like Germany, are ending 30 years--30 years--of post-Cold War neglect for military modernization and energy security.

I am glad that, as I urged last week, the President's itinerary will include not just Western Europe, but also Poland. His presence on the eastern flank will send an important message. Of course, the most concrete way to support Ukraine is with greater commitments of lethal aid. Ukrainian forces can win this fight.

Let me say that again. Ukrainian forces can win this fight. But they need more weapons, more ammunition, more fuel, and they need it all as fast as possible.

The allies and partners who are helping equip Ukraine also need replenishing their own arsenals. But the fight has highlighted shortcomings in both our current stockpiles of critical weapons and munitions and our industrial capacity to produce more quickly.

As other NATO members wake up to the importance of long-term investments in defense, America should lead by example. We have to meet the military requirements that come from being a superpower facing growing threats to our global interests: sustained increases in defense spending, deeper inventories of critical weapons systems and munitions, less redtape, work with industry to make our development and production systems more nimble.

This will not only help us meet the growing requirements of our military but also ensure we can be a reliable supplier of weapons and munitions to our allies and our partners.

As the Washington Post reported just yesterday, recent events have caught our defense industrial base napping.

Here is the quote from the Post:

[W]eapons manufacturers weren't geared up to make antitank

and antiaircraft arms at a wartime pace. While the United

States had 13,000 Stingers in its stockpile before the

invasion, there were no plans to produce more en masse . . .

Militaries in Europe that have given their Stingers and

antitank missiles to Ukraine now want to refill depleted

stocks, creating competition for new units rolling off the

assembly line.

So President Biden already has real power to address this himself. The Defense Production Act was created during a period of tense competition with Russia to bolster production of critical military supplies. The exact circumstance we are in right now.

Ironically, the far left has demanded the President invoke the Defense Production Act for everything but--everything but--its central purpose. They don't want to use the Defense Production Act to bolster defenses, but, rather, to force taxpayer money into renewable energy schemes that are not ready for prime time. Democrats should be using the Defense Production Act to literally produce more defenses, but they want, instead, to use it to spin up some more Solyndras.

Of course, the real solution for global energy concerns is not throwing money into finicky technologies that themselves rely on Russian and Chinese supply chains. It is to unshackle U.S. energy producers. We can help meet Europe's needs by increasing American crude and LNG exports, but our European friends will have to make necessary sacrifices to wean themselves off of reliance on Russia.

Putin's war of aggression reminds us the so-called international order is not self-enforcing. The relative Pax Americana that has lasted for the better part of a century does not--not--sustain itself automatically. American leadership remains in very high demand.

Putin's unprovoked war has further discredited the small pockets in both of our political parties who want America to pull back from the world stage, who excuse the behavior of tyrants, who think it would be prudent and sensible to cede vast spheres of influence to Russia and China. There is nothing remotely prudent or sensible about handing over entire regions of the world to these thugs.

The national security interests of the United States have never stopped at our own borders, and they certainly do not today. We are a superpower with worldwide interests requiring a worldwide presence and a worldwide network of allies and partners. American power will not preserve itself. American security will not protect itself. American interests will not uphold themselves. And America's partners will not lead themselves.

This awesome responsibility falls on the shoulders of the President of the United States, the leader of the free world. President Biden has an opportunity as soon as he returns from Europe to begin charting the right course for America and the West.

On Monday, his administration will submit his budget request for the next fiscal year. We will see if the President finally commits to investing in a future of strong American leadership.

Our global challenges are not partisan issues; they are American issues. I sincerely hope that the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces submits a defense budget request that reflects this reality.

The world is dangerous and getting smaller. America must not shrink from the challenge, but rise and meet it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Judiciary Committee has completed its hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. I enjoyed meeting the nominee. I went into the Senate's process with an open mind.

But after studying the nominee's record and watching her performance this week, I cannot and will not support Judge Jackson for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

First, Judge Jackson refuses to reject the fringe position that Democrats should try to pack the Supreme Court. Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer had no problem denouncing this unpopular view and defending their institution. I assumed this would be an easy softball for Judge Jackson, but it wasn't. The nominee suggested there are two legitimate sides to the issue. She testified she has a view on the matter but would not share it. She inaccurately compared her nonanswer to a different, narrower question that a prior nominee was asked. But Judge Jackson, seemingly, actually tipped her hand. She said she would be ``thrilled to be one of however many.''

``However many.''

The opposite of Ginsburg and Breyer's sentiment. The most radical pro-court-packing fringe groups badly wanted this nominee for this vacancy. Judge Jackson was the court-packer's pick, and she testified like it.

Second, for decades, activist judges have hurt the country by trying to make policy from the bench. This has made judicial philosophy a key qualification that Senators must consider.

President Biden stated he would only appoint a Supreme Court Justice with a specific approach that is neither textualist nor originalist. That is the President's litmus test: No strict constructionists need apply. And that President picked Judge Jackson.

If the nominee had a paper trail on constitutional issues, perhaps it could reassure us, but she doesn't. When Justice Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme Court, he had written more than 200 circuit court opinions that Senators could actually study. Justice Kavanaugh had written more than 300. Justice Barrett outpaced them both. She wrote almost 100 appellate opinions in just 3 years, plus years of scholarship as a star professor that Senators could actually examine.

Judge Jackson has been on the DC Circuit for less than a year. She has published only two opinions. Beforehand, Judge Jackson served as a trial judge on the district court. She testified on Tuesday that that role did not provide many opportunities to think about constitutional interpretation.

Yet when Senators tried to dig in on judicial philosophy, the judge deflected and pointed back to the same record she acknowledged would not shed much light. One Senator simply asked the judge to summarize-- summarize--well-known differences between the approaches of some current Justices. The nominee replied that 2 weeks' notice had not been enough time to prepare an answer.

President Biden said he would only nominate a judicial activist. Unfortunately, we saw no reason to suspect that he accidentally did the opposite.

Third, and relatedly, we are in the midst of a national violent crime wave and exploding illegal immigration. Unbelievably, the Biden administration has nevertheless launched a national campaign to make the Federal bench systemically softer on crime. The New York Times calls this a ``sea change.''

Is it more likely the administration chose a Supreme Court nominee who would push against their big campaign or somebody who would be its crowning jewel?

This is one area where Judge Jackson's trial court records provide a wealth of information, and it is troubling, indeed.

The judge regularly gave certain terrible kinds of criminals light sentences that were beneath the sentencing guidelines and beneath the prosecutor's request.

The judge herself, this week, used the phrase ``policy disagreement'' to describe this subject. The issue isn't just the sentences. It is also the judge's rhetoric and trial transcript and the creative ways she actually bent the law.

In one instance, Judge Jackson used COVID as a pretext to essentially rewrite--rewrite--a criminal justice reform law from the bench and make it retroactive, which Congress, of course, had declined to do. She did so to cut the sentence of a fentanyl trafficker while Americans died in huge numbers from overdoses.

Judge Jackson declined to walk Senators through the merits of her reasoning in specific cases. She just kept repeating that it was her discretion and if Congress didn't like it, it was our fault for giving her the discretion. That is hardly an explanation as to why she uses her discretion the way she does.

It was not reassuring to hear Judge Jackson essentially say that if Senators want her to be tough on crime, we need to change the law, take away her discretion, and force her to do it.

That response seems to confirm that deeply held personal policy views seep into her jurisprudence, and that is exactly what the record suggests.

I will conclude with this. Late on Tuesday, after hours of questioning, I believe we may have witnessed a telling moment. Under questioning about judicial activism, Judge Jackson bluntly said this:

Well, any time the Supreme Court has five votes, then they

have a majority for whatever opinion they determine.

That isn't just a factual observation. It is a clear echo of a famous quotation from perhaps the most famous judicial activist of all time, the archliberal William Brennan.

The late Justice Brennan told people the most important rule in constitutional law was ``the Rule of Five.'' With five votes, a majority can do whatever it wants.

That is a perfect summary of judicial activism. It is a recipe for courts to wander into policymaking and prevent healthy democratic compromise.

This is the misunderstanding of the separation of powers that I have spent my entire career fighting against. But President Biden made that misunderstanding his litmus test.

And nothing we saw this week convinced me that either President Biden or Judge Jackson's deeply invested, far-left fan club have misjudged her.

I will vote against this nominee on the Senate floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.