[VIDEO] Sen. Coons: “I have come over time to regret…changing the rules…in 2013…I anticipate that many of my colleagues will come to regret the decisions and actions taken today”

April 06, 2017

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today delivered remarks on the Senate floor in response to Senate Republicans’ utilization of the ‘nuclear option’ to ensure the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Full audio and video of Senator Coons’ remarks are available here.

Excerpts from Senator Coons’ remarks:

As I look around at what just happened on this Senate floor, I am sick with regret. So I rise now to speak in defense of the Senate.

As I look around at what just happened on this floor, with too little discussion of its lasting consequences and too little visible concern or emotion, I must ask the question: where are we headed?

I for one will say that I have come over time to regret joining my Democratic colleagues in changing the rules for lower court nominations and confirmations in 2013. Of course, I could give an entire speech on the obstruction that led us to that point. I could document the Republican and Democratic deeds and misdeeds of the last Congress and the Congress before that and the decade before that. As my more seasoned and senior colleagues demonstrated in the Judiciary Committee deliberations, those who have served here longest know best the record of grievance of Congresses and decades past. And I anticipate that many of my colleagues will come to regret the decisions and actions taken today and tomorrow in this Congress and in Congresses ahead. And, instead of focusing on that shared regret, I want to work together not to continue to tear down the traditions and rules of the Senate, but to find ways to strengthen and fortify and sustain them.

Senators of both sides told me we could not find a durable compromise because we do not trust each other anymore. If we can't trust each other anymore, then are there any big problems facing this country, which we can address and solve?

We did not get here overnight. We have become increasingly polarized. How can we work together to repair this lack of trust so we can face the very real challenges that face our nation?

Senator Coons’ remarks, as delivered, are below:

Mr. President, today is a day when many senators are speaking about Judge Gorsuch and about the Supreme Court. And as I think many know in the last week, in the Judiciary Committee hearings, and in other settings, I have announced I will vote against Judge Gorsuch on the final vote tomorrow, and I believe I have made my reasons for my opposition clear. I have thoroughly reviewed and considered Judge Gorsuch's record and where he fits within American jurisprudence, and I have no second thoughts about my decision.

But, as I look around at what just happened on this Senate floor, I am sick with regret. So I rise now to speak in defense of the Senate.

The Senate has been hailed by many, including our nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Gorsuch, as the world's greatest deliberative body. And yet today I think one more blow has been struck at that title and reality. The late Senator Robert Byrd who served in this chamber for 51 years would famously remind new senators that, in war and in peace, the Senate has been the sure refuge and protector of the rights of the states and of a political minority.

Of course, although Senator Byrd was the longest serving senator, as a Delawarean, I grew up in the tradition of Senator Joe Biden, a 36-year veteran of this body, who left its ranks only to ascend to the vice presidency and spend eight more years as its presiding officer.

Since I had the honor of assuming Senator Biden's former seat, I have committed to following his example of working across the aisle. Through Republican and Democratic administrations with whomever is willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work for the American people. And I know my colleagues share in this foundational commitment to serve our constituents and country.

But, as I look around at what just happened on this floor, with too little discussion of its lasting consequences and too little visible concern or emotion, I must ask the question: where are we headed?

You can't see it, but around this chamber are white marble statues, busts, of former presiding officers, of former vice presidents of the United States. There in the halls outside this chamber, up in the upper levels inside this chamber in the galleries, and all the former vice presidents are memorialized in these white marble busts. And former vice president, Adlai Stevenson, the grandfather of the Illinois governor who ran for president in the middle of the 20th century; former Vice President Adlai Stevenson said when he delivered his farewell address to the Senate on his last day in office as the presiding officer of the Senate in 1897, said and I quote, "it must not be forgotten that the rules governing this body are founded deep in human experience. They are the results of centuries of tireless effort to conserve, to render stable and secure, the rights and liberties, which have been achieved through conflict. By its rules, the Senate wisely fixes the limits to its own power. Of those who clamor against the Senate and its mode of procedure, it can truly be said that they know not what they do. In this chamber alone are preserved without restraint two essentials of wise legislation and good government: the right of amendment and of debate."

It was exactly that right, those rules that were assaulted today, but have been under assault for a long time. In recent days, I have reached out to my Republican and Democratic colleagues trying to see if there was some way we could reach a reliable, consensus agreement to safeguard these institutional values and avoid the events of today and tomorrow.

I told my colleagues I was not ready to end debate on Judge Gorsuch's nomination until we could chart a course for the Senate to move forward on a bipartisan basis when considering future Supreme Court nominations. I think for us to get to any constructive conversation about moving this Senate forward requires owning the role that all of us, each of us, have played over our time here, whether a few years or decades, in bringing us to this point.

I worked to try and find a solution to get past this moment on the brink. I wanted to ensure our next Supreme Court nominee would be the product of bipartisan consultation and consensus as was safeguarded for years by the potential of a 60-vote margin.

I wanted certainty that the voice of the minority would still be heard as next vacancies arise. Among many, this effort to forge consensus was met with hopelessness or even hostility.

And back home, thousands of constituents called my office urging a vote against Gorsuch and urging I support the filibuster and some even urged me to stop talking about any sort of deal. In fact, back home in Delaware, some national groups ran ads against me when there was even a rumor of a hint that there might be conversations about avoiding this outcome.

There were senators on both sides of the aisle that told me that an agreement was impossible. They said any agreement is based on trust. And we simply do not trust each other anymore.

Given the events of the last years, the disrespect and mistreatment of Merrick Garland, the course of the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, I can understand how there is a raw wound right now in this chamber where each side feels the other has mistreated a good and honorable and capable nominee for the Supreme Court.

But, let me say my last point again. Senators of both sides told me we could not find a durable compromise because we do not trust each other anymore. If we can't trust each other anymore, then are there any big problems facing this country, which we can address and solve?

This morning, I gave an address at The Brookings Institution about the threat that Russia poses to our democracy, to our allies, to our national security, and to the endurance of our republic. If that threat is not something that deserves determined, bipartisan effort, I don't know what is.

There are many threats to our future that I could lay out today, but let me simply emphasize, that in the absence of trust, this body cannot play its intended Constitutional role. And without trust, we will not rebuild what is necessary to sustain this body.

Now, everyone likes to point the finger at the other side as the source of this distress. The reality is there is abundant blame to go around. Folks like to remember the good old days when Justice Scalia was confirmed by this body ninety-eight to zero. When Justice Ginsburg was confirmed ninety-six to three.

But if we look at our five most recent nominees to the Supreme Court that got votes, you can see a clear trend. Nine senators, all Republicans, voted against Justice Breyer. Then twenty-two senators voted against Justice Roberts. Then forty-two senators, mostly Democrats, voted against Justice Alito. For President Obama's nominees, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, more than thirty Republicans opposed each one. Only nine Republican senators voted for Sotomayor, and only five Republicans voted for Justice Kagan.

We have been on this trajectory -- both parties -- for some time. Then, of course, we have Chief Judge Merrick Garland, the first Supreme Court nominee in American history to be denied a hearing and a vote, and we have Judge Gorsuch, the first to be the object of a partisan filibuster on this floor.

We did not get here overnight. We have become increasingly polarized. How can we work together to repair this lack of trust so we can face the very real challenges that face our nation?

My own attempts of recent days, although I was blessed to be joined by senators of good will and good faith and great skill in both parties, were ultimately not successful. I wish I had engaged sooner and more forcefully, I wish I had been clearer with my colleagues how determined I was to seek a result. But this doesn't mean I'm disappointed that I tried. And it also doesn't mean I am going to stop.

I am not going to stop trying to fix the damage that has been done, trying to find a better pathway forward. And I ask my colleagues, if you know what you have done today, then what will we do tomorrow? How can we avoid the further deepening, corrosive partisanship in this body? What past mistakes can each of us own up to? What steps can we take to mend these old wounds? And what more can we do to move forward together?

We sometimes talk about the dysfunction of this body as if it is external to us, as if we bear no accountability for it. But, at the end of the day, here we are. One hundred men and women sent to represent fifty states of this republic and 325 million people. And, in many ways, we have all let them down today.

I can tell you, Mr. President, what I am going to do tomorrow. I commit to working with anyone who wants to join to me to try to strengthen and save the rules and traditions of this body and its effectiveness as an absolutely essential part of the Constitutional order for which so many have fought and died. It is what all of our predecessors would have wanted.

Thank you, Mr. President. With that, I yield the floor.

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