Dick Durbin: “I would like to address the issue just raised by the Senator from Massachusetts and responded to by the Senator from…”

“I would like to address the issue just raised by the Senator from Massachusetts and responded to by the Senator from Texas. The Senator from Massachusetts carefully avoided mentioning the obvious. This is the same Republican majority that will not fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. For the first moment in the history of the United States--in the history of the United States--we have a Presidential nominee sent to fill the vacancy of the late Justice Scalia, and the Republicans in the Senate refuse to give him a hearing or a vote. That has never--underline the word ``never''--happened in the history of the United States of America. When we say do your job, it starts at the highest Court and goes straight down to every Federal court in America. I sit on the Judiciary Committee, and what I think is particularly galling, troubling, and worrisome is that each one of these nominees has been carefully vetted by the Department of Justice, by the FBI, by Republican staffers--everyone imaginable--culling through every aspect of their life to see if they are truly worthy of being a lifetime appointee to the Federal bench, and they all passed the test. They were all voted out of committee, and they all languish on the floor of the Senate for the very reason the Senator mentioned. The Senator from Texas and many others are lying awake at night praying for the moment when President Donald Trump can pick Federal judges in America.…”