KAVANAUGH’S PRE-ORDAINED PRESENCE ON SCOTUS | National Archives Not Backing Down | The Partisanship Contagion
August 14, 2018
IT'S GONNA BE ME
|“Supreme Court nominee BRETT KAVANAUGH could not have known in 2002 that an email he received about stalled judicial nominations included the names of a future chief justice, a future associate justice and a judge whose failed nomination would further fuel the partisan warfare. Nor could he have known that the latest battle would involve his own nomination.” That’s Richard Wolf with USA Today noting that Judge Kavanaugh is used to partisan gamesmanship, having been a participant in it for a big part of his career.
CAN I SPEAK WITH YOUR MANAGER
|The National Archives isn’t ready to cave to Democrats’ requests for the records of Supreme Court nominee, JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH. Archivist David Ferriero responded to SENATOR FEINSTEIN’S letter that it is the agency’s policy to only respond to requests from a committee chair — all of whom are Republicans. Jordain Carney with The Hill reports.
ED BOARD OVERTURE
|The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal defends Republicans in its latest piece on the confirmation fight over JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH. The Ed Board says SENATOR GRASSLEY’S timeline for confirmation hearings is simply following the precedent set by Democrats when they nominated JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN.
THE LITTLE CASE THAT COULD
|“Immigration courts from Boston to Los Angeles have been experiencing fallout from a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that has caused some deportation orders to be tossed and cases thrown out, bringing more chaos to a system that was already besieged by ballooning dockets and lengthy backlogs. The little-known ruling addressed what might seem like a narrow procedural issue over how to properly provide notices to immigrants to appear in court for deportation proceedings. But it is having broader implications in immigration courts that are in charge of deciding whether hundreds of thousands of people should be allowed to stay in the United States.” AP’s Amy Taxin reports on the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision from earlier this year that is making serious waves.
SWING SWING FROM THE TANGLES OF MY HEART
|Abigail Simon for TIME says the era of the swing justice is over — at least for the foreseeable future. And while it’s pretty easy to understand how great Republicans have been at activating their voters around SCOTUS, it’s not so easy to see how Democrats could possibly make up lost ground on the matter any time soon.
CONTAGION
|In The Atlantic, Benjamin Wittes argues that the confirmation wars are over because partisanship won out, and like a disease, only continues to spread. He writes, “And so we come to a place where Brett Kavanaugh is preponderantly likely to be confirmed by the Senate, yet for all the wrong reasons. He will be confirmed not because he is well qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, though he is certainly well qualified. He will be confirmed not because he is a principled and talented jurist, though he is a principled and talented jurist. Indeed, he will be confirmed not because of any of his virtues, though he has many virtues. He will be confirmed because there are 51 Republican senators in office and a Republican vice president who can break a tie if need be.”
ALL AVAILABLE OUTCOMES
|The New York Times put together all possible scenarios for how a Supreme Court shaped by PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP could restrict access to abortions in America. The most likely outcome is that a Trump Court will slowly but surely chip away at Roe v. Wade until most women in conservative states are without access.