AND THE NOMINEE IS | Getting To Know Justice Kavanaugh | Brace Yourselves For Brett Battle
July 10, 2018
SURPRISE SURPRISE
|The president last night nominated JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH to the Supreme Court. He has close ties to Washington’s conservative legal establishment and should he make it onto the high court he will move the Supreme Court even further to the right. He’s only 53 years old and formerly clerked for JUSTICE KENNEDY. And as one of the the more experienced members of PRESIDENT TRUMP’S Supreme Court shortlist, he has a long history of legal opinions that are about to serve as ammunition for both Democrats and Republicans in the confirmation fight ahead.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
|Dylan Matthews with Vox put together an explainer on JUDGE BRETT KAVANAUGH that outlines the Supreme Court nominee’s resumé and reveals why liberals fear him and why some conservatives wish he’d done more to make liberals fear him.
GETTING TO KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU
|The fight over BRETT KAVANAUGH’S nomination will likely come down to a handful of key senators that are already facing heavy pressure from both political parties. Siobhan Hughes, Natalie Andrews and Kristina Peterson note in The Wall Street Journal which seven senators to watch in the battle ahead.
GETTING TO YES
|POLITICO’s Christopher Cadelago, Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia report on the president’s meeting with JUSTICE ANTHONY KENNEDY that helped him “get to ‘yes'” on putting JUDGE KAVANAUGH on the Supreme Court. Turns out, the president may have wanted Kavanaugh from the moment Kennedy told him of his plans to retire. The POLITICO team writes, “Administration officials said Trump was taken with Kavanaugh even before his conversation with Kennedy. But Kennedy, in leaving the impression with Trump that Kavanaugh would be a great candidate for the job, helped the president make up his mind.”
TELL ME WHO YOU LOYAL TO
|“Not since Warren Harding in 1921 nominated former President William Howard Taft to be chief justice has the country been presented with a high court nominee so completely shaped by the needs and mores of the executive branch as BRETT KAVANAUGH.” That’s Garrett Epps writing in The Atlantic that PRESIDENT TRUMP’S new SCOTUS nominee’s devotion to the presidency is not only something to keep a watchful eye on, it’s something that may have been a key selling point for POTUS.
WHY DEADLOCKING IS DEMOCRATIC
|In The Washington Post, Lee Drutman and James Wallner argue against filling the empty seat on SCOTUS. They say a court of eight would be far less political and far better for our country. “There is only one way to get out of the vicious cycle ahead of us: We need to stop thinking of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of every controversial issue in American politics. Short of that, we must make it harder for the court to act decisively in controversial cases. This could be done by requiring an even number of justices picked by a majority and a minority in the Senate. Let the court deadlock more, and let democracy do the hard work of politics, instead of lawyers and judges.”
HERE GOES NOTHING
|Burgess Everett and Elana Schor with POLITICO report on Republicans’ readying for a brutal SCOTUS battle and note that SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL has no room for error. He’s going to have to pull off this confirmation by the narrowest of margins on the tightest of timelines. But if his Supreme Court track record tells us anything, McConnell will likely put yet another ‘W’ on the board and make it look easy.
FOOD FOR THE SOUL
|Because we all could use a little laugh to cut the tension building ahead of the upcoming blowout over the Supreme Court, I give you the latest from Any Borowitz.
SCOTUS VIEWS
Kavanaugh Resembles Roberts, But They're Hardly Clones
Bloomberg“After watching Roberts in action, though, Kavanaugh’s Republican-approved smoothness reads to the left like a stealthy way for a right-wing ideologue to get his way. And to portions of the right it seems like a sign that he won’t be a reliable ally when the chips are down.”
Will Kavanaugh Provide Cover For Trump?
The New York Times“But the Senate must also explore a question central to evaluating the judge’s commitment to the rule of law: Does he have the requisite independence from President Trump to serve as a check on his abuses of power?”
Trump Picked The Wrong Judge
The Washington Post“Would another Republican have the guts to put forward a nominee who would so clearly inflame the culture wars? Would another Republican president shatter the GOP nominee mold by selecting a mother of seven kids, an outspoken Christian and a graduate from a ‘normal’ non-Ivy League law school? The base-motivating, electrifying pick was right there, in the palm of his hand.”
If The Supreme Court Is Nakedly Political, Can It Be Just?
The New York Times“The next Democratic president will nominate a liberal to the court in the hope of tilting it in the other direction. Everyone is so accustomed to this state of affairs that people have forgotten to question it. But we wonder whether a Supreme Court that has come to be rigidly divided by both ideology and party can sustain public confidence for much longer.”
OTHER NEWS
Supreme Court Nominee Has Been A Foe Of Emissions Rules
Reuters“Brett Kavanaugh, nominated on Monday to be a Supreme Court justice by U.S. President Donald Trump, is a long-time skeptic of business regulations, especially on rules limiting harmful emissions, although he has called global warming an ‘urgent’ issue.”
Supreme Court Justice Would Weigh Death Penalty Dispute In First Days On The Job
The Hill“On the second day of the term, the justices are scheduled to hear a case challenging whether a state can execute a prisoner whose mental disability leaves him with no memory that he committed murder or whether the death penalty should be barred in this case by the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The case centers on Alabama death row inmate Vernon Madison, who suffers from vascular dementia and memory loss after numerous severe strokes.”