Jewish GOP group praises contentious Kavanaugh confirmation
With both sides looking to November midterms, Republican Jewish Coalition worries judge could be last Trump nominee to make it through Senate
Jewish Republicans lauded the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court Saturday, as the GOP celebrated a victory for President Donald Trump that managed to unite much of the party and will likely swing the highest bench in the land to the right.
Kavanaugh was voted in by the Senate Saturday on a near-party line 50-48 vote, capping a fight that seized the national conversation after claims emerged that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted women three decades ago — which he emphatically denied. Those allegations magnified the clash from a routine Supreme Court struggle over judicial ideology into an angrier, more complex jumble of questions about victims’ rights, the presumption of innocence and personal attacks on nominees.
Republican Jewish Coalition chairman called Kavanaugh an “outstanding judge” and bemoaned what he described as a “toxic” atmosphere in Washington.
Matt Brooks, director of the same organization, said the contentious vote underlined the importance of upcoming midterm elections, which could see the Senate gain a Democratic majority.
“Without a Republican majority in the Senate, Judge Kavanaugh could well be the last Trump nominee for any post to be confirmed,” he said in a statement shortly after the confirmation.
Many in the GOP had characterized the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh as a politically motivated attempt to torpedo his nomination.
Democrats said Kavanaugh would push the court too far, including possible sympathetic rulings for Trump should the president encounter legal problems from the special counsel’s investigations into Russian connections with his 2016 presidential campaign. And they said Kavanaugh’s record and fuming testimony at a now-famous Senate Judiciary Committee hearing showed he lacked the fairness, temperament and even honesty to become a justice.
The vote gave Trump his second appointee to the court, tilting it further to the right and pleasing conservative voters who might have revolted against GOP leaders had Kavanaugh’s nomination flopped. Democrats hope that the roll call, exactly a month from elections in which House and Senate control are in play, will prompt infuriated women and liberals to stream to the polls to oust Republicans.
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York looked ahead to November, appealing to voters beyond the Senate chamber: “Change must come from where change in America always begins: the ballot box.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal fumed that Kavanaugh was “dangerous and deeply flawed.”
This day is the saddest & angriest of my time in the Senate. The Republicans have succeeded in confirming a dangerous & deeply flawed nominee only by breaking all the rules & norms. The damage done today will be enduring—to the United States Supreme Court & to our country.
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) October 6, 2018
Kavanaugh is set to be sworn in later Saturday.
In a statement, the Supreme Court said Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the Constitutional Oath and retired Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh is replacing, will administer the Judicial Oath in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court. Both oaths will be administered so Kavanaugh can participate in the work of the court immediately.
A formal investiture ceremony will take place at a special sitting of the court at a later date.
Kavanaugh’s appointment has raised concerns that the devout Catholic and conservative jurist could swing the court to the right on sensitive issues such as abortion.
Kavanaugh, in an opinion piece published this week in The Wall Street Journal, said he views his role as a judge as that of “an umpire — a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no political party, litigant or policy.”
“I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge,” he said, in a highly unusual plea to defend his impartiality.
“I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge. I am a pro-law judge.”
