Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I am very pleased to come to the floor this evening to coanchor the Congressional Black Caucus hour about the present…”

“I am very pleased to come to the floor this evening to coanchor the Congressional Black Caucus hour about the present nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch. I am very pleased that my good friend from Texas, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee, has agreed to coanchor this hour with me. Mr. Speaker, I am chair of the working group for the Congressional Black Caucus that looks at nominees for Federal courts. So, I have buried myself in the record of Neil Gorsuch and wrote the testimony that we submitted to the Senate. What I will do is speak for a few minutes generally about the nominee, and then I will go to my good friend from Texas. I am very pleased that another good friend, Mr. Don Payne, Jr., is here from the State of New Jersey, and we will hear from him as well. Now, just as the Congress has been polarized so has the court been polarized, if you look at the liberal and conservative blocks in that way. But, of course, since the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, there has been a 4-4 split. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is still a Member of the Court is not always a predictable conservative, though he tends to vote with the conservatives. What has happened in the Senate is entirely predictable, at least today. In an unprecedented move, the Senate refused to hear from or even meet the nominee of President Obama. There was almost a full year, yet the Senate refused to take up that nominee.…”