An Excellent Pick
Once again staying true to his campaign promises, President Trump just nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. He’s an excellent choice — though the coming wave of fear-mongering may hide that fact for a while.
Judge Kavanaugh, 53, is widely seen as one of the top legal minds of his generation — so much so that now-Justice Elena Kagan recruited him to teach at Harvard Law, where students across the spectrum rave about him. Though firmly committed to interpreting the Constitution as written, he’s no ideologue — which is why Sen. Ted Cruz and other hard-rightists had been urging Trump to pick someone else.
But now Democrats will proceed with their preset strategy for fighting any Trump picks — charging that confirmation guarantees the end of Roe v. Wade and ObamaCare.
Which is nonsense: Chief Justice John Roberts, who’s set to be the new swing vote on the court, has already joined the four liberal justices to save ObamaCare once, and all indications are that he’s unwilling to re- verse Roe or any other precedent more than four decades old. (For that matter, the only justice who clearly favors junking Roe is Clarence Thomas.)
No, what has Democrats despairing is the prospect of a Supreme Court that won’t create new progressive “rights” that even liberal majorities in Congress don’t dare pass as legislation.
But no high court nomination is a sure thing these days. Lefty activists are even now diving through Kavanaugh’s record (and even his trash) in hopes of finding something that will lose him a Republican vote or two — which would leave it up to a handful of Democratic senators facing re-election this fall in pro-Trump states.
Above all, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will try to play out the clock, pushing to delay any confirmation vote until after Election Day, when his odds of defeating the nominee might improve.
It’s up to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the White House to make sure Democrats’ hysterical games don’t derail a first-rate nominee.