On the recordOctober 25, 2020
I want to start by thanking my friend and colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania, for talking this evening about what is at stake for so many of his constituents with this Supreme Court nomination and the very real possibility that the Affordable Care Act will be struck down and what that means to so many of his constituents. I do think this is a moment where we need to reflect and take stock of where we are as a country on many fronts. We are in the middle of a global pandemic. We just saw the highest single day of new reported cases on Friday. Millions of Americans are unemployed and worried about how they are going to pay their rent and how they are going to pay for their medications. We are here at a time when a Republican-led lawsuit to strike down the Affordable Care Act, supported by President Trump and his Department of Justice, is scheduled for a fateful hearing in the Supreme Court on November 10--1 week after the upcoming election. We are here in the wake of the killings of Black men, like George Floyd, and Black women, like Breonna Taylor, which sent throngs of protesters into the streets across the country to rightly demand greater police accountability and racial justice. We gather here as wildfires in the West and hurricanes in the South demonstrate with deadly and destructive voracity the accelerating and dangerous consequences of climate change.…
