Achieve, to participate in and contribute to society violates the equal protection clause. 81, massive victory. I thought it was very interesting her points she often made in the dissent. The Supreme Court argued in the 2007 case ledbetter versus Goodyear Tire and rubber company, the majority saitd, you know what . If you have been discriminated against in pay in your job, and you learn about it years later, you can no longer appeal for redress because you had to have come to the court at the moment the discrimination first occurred. Of course, that was a catch22, an impossible situation. If you didnt know about it, you couldnt possibly come to the court. And she addressed this, and she said comprehend she said the majority does not comprehend or is indifferent to the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination. So she called on congress to act to address really this mistaken opinion of the court, and we did in 2009, the first year i came to the senate. And another dissent that i think was powerful, Shelby County versus holder. So the majority struck down Voting Rights act protections against voter sup pregnancy and intimidation, arguing that those things no longer exist. Its as if you had a penalty for robbery and it was so effective that everyone quit robbing so you get rid of the law, the Supreme Court strikes down the law that says robbery is an offense. It made no logical sense. However, she described it this way in a way we can all understand in her dissent. She called the ruling is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet. The foundation she laid on gender discrimination created the foundation for similar arguments to end lgbtq discrimination. It came to play in roemer versus evans where the court overturned laws around the country that criminalized gay sex or bergefeld versus hodges, the case that established marriage equality. The case of bosstock versus clayton county, the case that banned employment discrimination against lgbtq workers. So her arguments reverberate in continuous ways. You know, we losing her is a very powerful and difficult moment because of her championship of opportunity in this country. So on sunday night, i went down to the Supreme Court and i had thought about it on friday night when she first word passed of her dying, i thought about it on sunday night, but i thought its going to be a scene of confrontation, of people with bullhorns yelling at each other and confronting each other. That doesnt fit how i want to honor her. And i thought on sunday night i need to go and be there at the Supreme Court, and i was so relieved to find that there was not a scene of confrontation. There was a scene of hundreds of people coming to honor her championship of opportunity in our country, the role that she played for so many so often as an advocate and as a justice. This is a piece of what it looked like, although you have to kind of multiply the flowers and the and everything you see over a huge expanse. Its just a small portion of it. And i was very struck by watching people kneel down to write with chalk. Women, men, boys, and girls, to say what she meant to them, what she meant to this country, what she meant to striking open the doors of opportunity. And then i started reading some of the things that were being written. This is one of them. This says we can because she did. Thank you, r. B. G. And in another written sign, there was a quote. I ask no favors for my sex. All i ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our neck. Give us opportunities. Now, this is actually Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoting sara greinke of charleston, south carolina, born in 1792. Sara became the countrys first female abolitionist, an early pioneer of the Womens Movement. And when Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoted her in the notorious r. B. G. Documentary, it made this quote famous for a generation. And i was struck by this sign which i thought summed up basically her entire efforts on womens rights. Its a quote of hers that says women belong in all places decisions are being made. And you can see again the massive number of flowers and signs that people have left in front of the Supreme Court. And then i saw this which summed up a young womans commentary on that principle. I grew up never knowing there was a Glass Ceiling because of you. Thank you, r. B. G. So we mourn her loss. She was a champion for opportunity for all. She was a champion for so much that goes to making this world a better place for ordinary people, ordinary people, which brings us to the challenge we have before the court, because realize that the Supreme Court has become a very powerful, ninemember, appointedforlife superlegislature. Its not calling balls and strikes any longer. No, its a setting for a pitched battle between the original vision of our country we the people government, or as lincoln said, government of, by, and for the people and a different vision for our country, a Federalist Society vision for our country, a vision of we the powerful minority want to control the government for our own benefit. Thats the battle thats being waged on the court. Is it government by and for the people or government by and for the powerful . You know, this has been a battle that has been waged since our 1787 constitution. In 1781 we had our first constitution, the articles of confederation. And the minority view of the white, wealthy power of the south was protected by the requirement for a supermajority in that first constitution, the articles of confederation. And the founders said, this isnt government by and for the people. This is not government by and for the people. No, the majority will is the power of government by and for the people. So that was embodied in the constitution we have now, that vision of we the people. And that minority from the south, wanting to protect slavery, said we need strategies to prevent the majority from eliminating slavery. And we have to make sure that there are no civil rights granted to individuals of color in our nation that might undermine our complete control of the governments at the state level. And that minority said, we are very wealthy and we dont want any laws that undermine our wealth. So we need a strategy to control and prevent the people from getting fair wages and fair working conditions, because that means we make less money ourselves. So they pursued a strategy called nullification, a strategy that said, no federal law will have any impact on our state unless we endorse it at the state level. And eventually that fell before the court. So then they pursued the development of the supermajority blockade of decisions being made in this very chamber on behalf of racism. The supermajority was forged in the fires of racism for 87 years. No law was blocked by this chamber by the supermajority except civil rights. Then this battle expanded. It expanded to the issues of Corporate Power versus consumer rights, Corporate Power versus working conditions. And this is where we come to the current balance between the Federalists Society weighed in on before of the government by and for the powerful versus those who believe in the vision of our constitution of government by and for the people. So we have lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who honored our constitutional vision. And we have a president and a majority in this chamber that are intent in packing the court on behalf of the wealthy and powerful. And there is at this moment just a tremendous damage being done to the integrity of this body because the same party in the majority four years ago said, we have a principle the mcconnell rule that if a seat becomes vacant during an Election Year, we must listen to the people and let them decide whether the current president or a different president decides. Will it be the republican nominee or the democratic nominee . And they took that vote and they went with it. Many spoke out in favor of the principle. Many said this is the absolute right thing to do even though it was the first time in u. S. History that this body did not debate on a nomination, or vote on a nomination. Breakingthe protocol of our entire history in order to steal a Supreme Court seat from president obama and pass it on to the next president. So here we are four years later, much deeper into the Election Year in fact the election has already started with many absentee ballots having been delivered, having been voted, having been returned. And so any form of integrity would be to honor the mcconnell rule from four years ago and say, what we did four years ago was principled, we said we believed in it, it helped out the republicans enormously, but you know what . Were principled individuals. And so were going to stick with the same frame that we argued before the public four years earlier. So i ask my colleagues, are there not a whole number of you that will come together and say, yes, we have integrity with the decision we made four years ago, the mcconnell rule we argued four years ago, the rule that gave a Supreme Court seat to President Trump and took it away from president obama, for the first time stealing a Supreme Court seat in our history, that were going to honor that same principle today . I ask my colleagues, search your hearts, ask ask, do you want to be remembered in this role of so fiercely advocating a principle that benefited you then and so fiercely violating it now to your own benefit once again, doing so much damage to the integrity of this chamber and so much damage to the vision and principle of government of, by, and for the people . Let that not be the case. Let every member come here to the floor and together actually hold a debate. Weve seen all members on the floor today, republican colleagues, having many of them stated that they are quite ready to violate the principle they argued so strongly four years ago. We dont know where they went. Theyre gone. Theyre not here. So sila let the American People call attention because so ill let the American People call attention. Because the American People love our constitution. The American People love we the people. The American People love the principle of government of, by, and for the people and do not want to see it trampled in an effort to sustain a massive amount of Corporate Power against the consumer, wealthy power against the worker, and racist power against civil rights. Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. Mr. Bennet mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from colorado. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. In the summer of 1920, america ratified the 19th amendment. This breakthrough in our history, born of decades much setback and struggle by many unremembered women who never lived to actually cast a vote, for what to us now is a selfevident proposition that women in this country should have the right to vote, moved this country one step closer to equality. Thats why i think its so fitting that a century later we pay our respects to the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who more than anyone advanced the cause of equality between men and women over her remarkable career. Justice ginsburgs commitment to equality was not the result of laufty idealism. But the hard experience of her life. 13 years after ratification of the 19th amendment, joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born to a workingclass family in brooklyn. It was the middle of the great depression. Her father sold if you ares at a time when no one would buy them. Tragically, her mother died of cancer before ruth graduated from school. But she is challenges, like others she would face, did not defeat her. They didnt prevent her from graduating first in her class at cornell. They didnt exclude her from harvard law school, where she was one of only nine women in a class of 550 and had to justify to the dean why she had taken the place of a man. She finished her law degree at columbia, where she once again was first in her class and not a Single Law Firm would hire her. She applied to clerk for Justice Felix frank furtherert on the Supreme Court who said although she was an impressive candidate, he wasnt ready to hire a woman. She understood these early firsthand experiences with discrimination, not merely as barriers to her obvious talents and potential but as a vicious threat to our countrys full potential. She knew that any country that would deny a single persons chance to make a contribution on account of their race or their gender or their religion or whom they loved will never fully flourish. Tearing down these barriers became the cause of her career. She rose to become a full professor at Rutgers Law School and founded americas first law journal on gender issues. Later she returned to columbia law school, where she became the first woman to hold a full professorship. She worked pro bono for the aclu, cofounding their womens rights project. She quickly became one of the most accomplished litigators in the country, writing a brief the Supreme Court cited in reed against reed to rule for the first time that discrimination on the basis of sex violated the 14th amendment. Ruth Bader Ginsburgs arguments led the court to overcome centuries of narrow views about the proper role of women in american life. As a result, the Courts Holding redefined american law. Ruths accomplishments led to an appointment to the prestigious United States court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit. And in 1993, president clinton named her to the Supreme Court. Her nomination sailed through this body with 98 votes. A reminder of a time not so very long ago when the senate actually understood its constitutional responsibility to advise and consent and what that actually meant. For more than a quarter century on the court, Justice Ginsburg authored rulings that promoted fairness, advanced equality, and secured hardwon rights. They upheld affirmative action and protected a womans right to choose. Her dissent in one gender discrimination case was so powerful, mr. President , it inspired the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act, the very first legislation president obama signed. At the same time, she could never accept decisions that nullified the right to vote or otherwise limited our democratic values. Even when it was hard for some of her colleagues to perceive the systemic racism in our country. When they were gutting critical protections to the Voting Rights act, she had the common sense to tell them that, youre, quote, throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because youre not getting wet. As always, she cut through Legal Convention and saw with clear eyes the enduring threat discrimination poses to our elections. She knew voters still deserved the protection of the law and all these years later after state after state after state have passed laws dispossessing people of important rights with respect to the right to vote, shes been proven right. As we reflect on her legacy in a real sense, i would say Justice Ginsburg herself should be thought of as a founder of our country, not because she is this an important title or war she is this an important title or wore a black robe, although she worry it as well as anyone. Bute she knew where we had fallen short and dedicated her life to calling America Closer to our best traditions of equality, liberty, and opportunity for all. Because the young joan ruth bad bader knew america would be worse without her, Justice Ginsburg made america more democratic, more fair, and more free. Mr. President , id ask that my next remarks appear separate in the record from the last. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. Before i turn over to my, the hardworking colleague from michigan who is here later than he should be only because thats the kind of person that he is, working so tremendously hard on behalf of the people of michigan and the people of this country, let me just say one word about where we find ourselves in the senate. Im just going to take two minutes to do this. But i believe that American History can be best understood from the very founding of our country until now as an epic battle between the highest ideals that humanity has ever expressed in our founding documents and the worst instincts of human beings. The founding that took the form of the institution of slavery. You can draw a Straight Line from those days to these days. There is no doubt in my mind which side of that line Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on. And theres no guarantee that this country is going to become more democratic, more fair and more free. That took the work of suffragettes, took the work of enslaved people like Frederick Douglass, another founder of this country who in his lifetime changed the entire approach of the Abolitionist Movement to argue it was not a proslavery document but it was an antidlaifer document and that antislavery document and we