WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) single-minded focus on rushing through President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court instead of focusing on a comprehensive bipartisan response to the grave public health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Durbin urged Leader McConnell to start negotiating in good faith – as the Senate did in March when it passed the CARES Act – with Congressional Democrats on a bipartisan COVID-19 relief bill that provides meaningful assistance to Americans and small businesses in need.
“We live in a country now where 220,000 people have died from this COVID-19 pandemic… eight million have been infected… wouldn’t you think that would be the focus on the floor of the United States Senate? Wouldn’t you think that the Senate Majority Leader, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, who controls the business of the floor, would make that job one for all of us and stick together on a bipartisan basis to come up with an agreement before we did anything else?” Durbin asked. “If you guessed that, you’re wrong. Because for the next five days, we are consumed with filling one Supreme Court vacancy. He is determined to fill that vacancy at any cost, including ignoring the major issue of our time, the major issue of the moment, the pandemic which affects this country so gravely.”
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Durbin concluded, “The American priority of the moment is not this vacancy on the Supreme Court. It’s the fact that there are vacancies in homes across America from 220,000 deaths in this country and they continue on pace every single day. We ought to be coming together on a bipartisan basis. The person who should be leading us in the Senate is the Senate Republican Leader. He does not. And as a consequence, we waste our moments here when they should be spent helping America with its highest priority.”
