Democrats fight to stick to script against Kavanaugh

Washington — Two weeks before Senate confirmation hearings, Democrats keep reminding themselves to stick to the script in their fight against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh: focus on the issues, don’t fall into the process-argument trap.

That means Democrats need to turn up the pressure on how Kavanaugh would rule in cases related to the Affordable Care Act, which they hope to make a top November midterm campaign issue, as well as possible rollbacks to abortion rights as enshrined in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., summed up the strategy the day after President Donald Trump announced he had tapped the judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as his nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, who for three decades had been the swing vote on the high court.

“Our focus is on the substance here. We think that the nominee would be so devastating in what he would put into place and turn the clock back decades,” Schumer said July 10.

Democrats have strayed from that focus at times, particularly in the last couple of weeks as the fight inside the Capitol has centered on what documents will be given to the Senate from Kavanaugh’s days as a lawyer and staff secretary in the George W. Bush White House.

The dispute is legitimate and has a familiar refrain from when Republicans were in the minority and clamored for more documents during the 2010 confirmation of Justice Elena Kagan, who had served in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

The more senators can see the private writings of potential justices, the more they can assess how they will rule if on the court.

So angry Democrats, led by Schumer, held a news conference Thursday to threaten a lawsuit if the National Archives fails to fulfill their freedom-of-information request for hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.