Democrats launch blistering attack on high court nominee
Harris questions Kavanaugh’s loyalty, Trump criticizes foes
In a chaotic first day of a confirmation hearing that started out testy and only turned nastier, outnumbered Senate Democrats showed Tuesday they won’t let Judge Brett Kavanaugh take a seat on the Supreme Court without a fight.
California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris slammed Kavanaugh, calling him a Republican partisan who would bring his conservative agenda to the Supreme Court if he is confirmed.
On a day when the Judiciary Committee’s Democrats took turns attacking President Trump’s nominee to the high court, Harris, as the party’s last speaker, took the harshest line.
“I am concerned whether you would treat every American equally or instead show allegiance to the political party and the conservative agenda that has shaped and built your career,” Harris told Kavanaugh. “I am concerned your loyalty would be to the president who appointed you and not to the Constitution of the United States.”
In his own statement, Kavanaugh pushed back against Democratic concerns, saying that “the Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution.”
If confirmed, he said in his prepared remarks, “I will keep an open mind in every case. I will do equal right to the poor and to the rich.”
But there was plenty of partisanship on display both inside and outside the hearing
room.
In a series of tweets, Trump was quick to savage the Democratic senators who questioned Kavanaugh’s credentials.
“The Brett Kavanaugh hearings for the future Justice of the Supreme Court are truly a display of how mean, angry, and despicable the other side is,” the president tweeted. “They will say anything, and are only looking to inflict pain and embarrassment to one of the most highly renowned jurists to ever appear before Congress. So sad to see!”
Earlier in the day, Harris’ fellow California Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, questioned whether Kavanaugh would protect a woman’s right to abortion, revealing what’s likely to be an important line of attack on the appeals court judge.
Feinstein noted that Kavanaugh told Sen. Susan Collins during a meeting with the Maine Republican that the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion is “settled law.” However, she added, “the question is really, do you believe that it’s correct law?”
Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman, countered that it would be wrong for Kavanaugh even to comment on abortion or any other issue that could come before him on the court.
“The American people don’t want their judges to pick sides before they hear a case,” Grassley said. “They want a judge who rules based upon what the law commands.”
The hearing opened with loud complaints from committee Democrats and raucous protests from anti-Kavanaugh hecklers in the hearing room. More than two dozen protesters had been ejected by the end of the day.
Democrats called for the hearing to be postponed to give them time to read 42,000 pages of documents relating to Kavanaugh’s service in the George W. Bush administration, which were released the night before the hearing.
Grassley dismissed every Democratic request for a postponement, as other Republicans called the flood of complaints “mob rule” intended to obstruct Kavanaugh’s likely confirmation by Republicans, who control both the committee and the full Senate.
All the delays, complaints and theatrics are “an attempt by my Democratic colleagues to re-litigate the 2016 election,” which put Trump in a position to make the Supreme Court appointment, said GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Feinstein had already failed to persuade Republicans to release more than 100,000 pages related to Kavanaugh’s White House service, a decision whose only explanation, she said in a statement last week, “is that these records would further reveal Kavanaugh’s controversial history and ideological views.”
Other Democrats argued that it was impossible to do a proper job of evaluating Kavanaugh without access to all his records.
“Today the Senate is not simply ‘phoning in’ our vetting obligation — we are discarding it,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. “What I fear most is that the American people will not know the full truth until (Kavanaugh’s) full record is public.”
Tuesday’s session provided a political road map for the next two days, when the senators will each have time to question Kavanaugh on what he’s done, both in his years on the bench and as a player in Republican politics.
Republicans painted Kavanaugh as someone with wideranging experience as an attorney, White House staffer for Bush and judge on the federal appeals court for the D.C. circuit.
“I know a good nominee when I see one, and you are a great nominee,” said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has been involved in the confirmation of every justice now on the Supreme Court. “My Democratic colleagues can’t admit that you’re actually a good judge and a good person as well.”
Even without all the papers they have requested, Democrats will have lots to work with. Besides Kavanaugh’s decisions in his 12 years on the bench, there are plenty of records about his time as an aide and staff secretary in the Bush White House, as well as his stint serving as a staff attorney in independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation in the 1990s, which resulted in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
But there were no suggestions that any GOP senator is likely to vote against Kavanaugh. And the Democrats’ effort to block the nominee on the Senate floor became even tougher Tuesday when Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey named retired GOP Sen. Jon Kyl, a supporter of Kavanaugh, to replace the late Sen. John McCain. That gives Republicans 51 of the Senate’s 100 votes, with Vice President Mike Pence available to break any ties.
But the fight will go on, said Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.
“There are battles worth fighting,” she said. “A lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of someone who will provide the fifth vote on issues impacting the lives of every working American is a battle worth fighting.”
“I am concerned your loyalty would be to the president who appointed you and not to the Constitution of the United States.” Sen. Kamala Harris