Schumer Floor Remarks on Judge Gorsuch and President Trump’s Cuts to Medical Research & Infrastructure to Pay for the Wall

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks on the Senate floor underscoring his opposition to Judge Gorsuch serving on the Supreme Court and to President Trump’s plan to inflict deep cuts on critical domestic programs in order to pay for a border wall. Below are his remarks:

Mr. President, first, on the Supreme Court.

Last Thursday, I announced my opposition to Judge Neil Gorsuch and endeavored to explain why, on the merits, I do not believe he deserves to be elevated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

Now, I listen to my friend the distinguished Majority Leader, each morning. Since the beginning of this Congress, he has chalked up every Democratic request or objection in this body to “sour grapes”; to some leftover resentment from the election. It’s just not true, but he keeps trying.                   

And now he’s trying the same strategy with Judge Gorsuch. He repeatedly cites a quote by a friend of the Judge who of course said that “there is no principled reason” to oppose his nomination; so  he says it must be politics. That’s what the Majority Leader concludes.

I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree with the Majority Leader on this point. There are several principled reasons to oppose Judge Gorsuch’s nomination.

First, Judge Gorsuch was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check on a president who has shown almost no restraint from executive overreach. He asserted independence, but could not point to a single thing in his record to guarantee it, and he refused to publicly condemn what the president did when he went after the three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit. They had a case before him. He said if they don’t decide my way, they will be guilty of terrorism. I have never seen anything like that in all my years in politics. And Judge Gorsuch refused to publicly condemn it. He said privately to some people he was disheartened. When President Trump said “he didn’t mean me,” Judge Gorsuch shrugged his shoulders, going along with what the president said.

Second, he was unable to convince me he would be a mainstream justice who could rule free from the biases of politics and ideology. His career, early writings, and judicial record suggests not a neutral legal mind but instead someone with a deep-seated conservative ideology. He was championed by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, and has not shown one inch of difference between his views and theirs.

I would ask my colleagues the question: are all these groups who are spending dark, secret, undisclosed money to support his nomination doing so because they just want a Justice on the Court who will “call balls and strikes?” I doubt it. Some here may agree with the Heritage Foundation, but they’re not a mainstream organization. They’re on the far right. That’s their right to be, but their advocacy of Judge Gorsuch suggests he is not a balls-and-strikes guy.

And finally, Judge Gorsuch is someone who almost instinctively favors the powerful over the weak, corporations over working Americans. That’s what his record shows. Judge Gorsuch repeatedly sided with the insurance companies who wanted to deny disability benefits to employees and, in employment discrimination cases, he sided with employers the great majority of the time.

He wrote – in dissent – that trucking company executives were right to fire truck driver Alphonse Maddin for leaving his trailer in order to save his life.  And just last week we saw another example of how extreme Judge Gorsuch’s views are, when the Supreme Court unanimously rebuked his interpretation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act.  In the opinion of even Justice Thomas, the educational rights Judge Gorsuch would allow to disabled students under the law amounted to no education at all.

Judge Gorsuch’s opportunity to disabuse us of all of those objections was in the hearing process, but he declined to substantively answer question after question. Absent a real description of his judicial philosophy, all we have to go on is his record – a record that landed Judge Gorsuch on the lists of the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. President Trump, of course, selected Judge Gorsuch off these pre-approved, conservative lists that he promised he’d do during his campaign.

To claim, as the Majority Leader does, that Judge Gorsuch is simply some neutral Judge is belied by his history since his college days, his own judicial record, and the manner of his selection.

Mr. President, these are principled reasons to oppose Judge Gorsuch. We need a Justice who will be an independent check on this president. We need someone who will consider fairly the plight of average citizens, not further tip the scales of justice in favor of already powerful corporations. Judge Gorsuch – his record and his performance in the hearing – did nothing to show me that he could be that kind of Justice.

So when Republicans say that if Democrats won’t support Judge Gorsuch, we won’t support any Republican-nominated Judge -- that’s simply not true. It may be hard for us to support anyone from a list culled by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, but we have several reasons to be concerned with Judge Gorsuch specifically.

And for all the hand-wringing by my friends on the other side of the aisle that they cannot imagine Democrats voting against Judge Gorsuch, I would like to remind them that only three – THREE – of the current Senators on the Republican side voted for either of President Obama’s confirmed nominees.  And all of them went along with my friend the Majority Leader’s unprecedented plan to refuse President Obama’s third nominee, Judge Garland, even a hearing or a vote for nearly a year. 

Which brings us back to the present day, where we Democrats have participated in a fair, transparent, and thorough process of advice and consent.  Now that the time to decide whether to provide consent approaches, we take that responsibility seriously. A lifetime appointment on the highest court of the land is not something to be taken lightly.

To participate in hearings and a thorough process – something we were denied – does not mean you have to be a rubber-stamp. After a thorough review of Judge Gorsuch’s record, many of my colleagues and I have concluded we cannot consent.

If Judge Neil Gorsuch fails to reach 60 votes, it’s not because Democrats are being obstructionist…it’s because he failed to convince 60 Senators that he belongs on the Supreme Court.  My friend the Majority Leader made the decision to break 230 years of Senate precedent by holding this seat open; if the nominee cannot earn the support of 60 Senators, the answer is not to break precedent by fundamentally and permanently changing the rules and traditions of the Senate, the answer is to change the nominee.

This idea that, if Judge Gorsuch doesn’t get 60 votes, the Majority Leader has to inexorably change the rules of the Senate…that idea is utter bunk. It is the free choice of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to pursue a change in rules if that’s what they decide. And I’d remind the Majority Leader that he does not come to this with clean hands; he blocked Merrick Garland for over a year. We wouldn’t even be here if Judge Garland was given fair consideration. That’s why we’re here today, not because of any Democrat.

Finally on the wall, Mr. President. Last night we learned that the Trump Administration will be seeking deep cuts to critical domestic programs in order to pay for a border wall

The administration is asking the American taxpayer to cover the cost of a wall – unneeded, ineffective, absurdly expensive – that Mexico was supposed to pay for – and he is cutting programs that are vital to the middle class in the effort to get it done.

• They want to cut the New Starts transportation program, TIGER Grants. These are the lifeblood of our road and tunnel and bridge building efforts. Build the wall or repair or build a bridge or tunnel or road in your community? What’s the choice?
• They want to cut off NIH funding for cancer research to pay for the wall. How many Americans would support that decision?
• And they want to cut programs that create jobs and improve people’s lives, all so the President can get his “big beautiful wall” – A wall that we don’t need and that will be utterly ineffective.

Think about that.

The President wants to slow down cancer research and make the middle class taxpayer shoulder the cost of a wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for.

He wants to cut funding for roads and bridges to build a wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for.

Mr. President, the proposed cuts that the administration sent up last night are dead on arrival in this Congress.

These cuts would be bad for the American people, they are not what the American people want, they are completely against one of the president’s core promises in the campaign, and they will be vigorously opposed by members on both sides of the aisle.