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Democratic Senators Throw a Wrench in Kavanaugh’s Sure Thing Nomination Process

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Sen. Kamala Harris isn’t playing around. (Screenshot)

The junior United States Senator from California–Kamala Harris–is a boss. Her unrelenting questioning during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brent Kavanaugh was extraordinary. And things have gone uphill from there.

Now, the nomination that was supposed by a slam dunk, doesn’t look so easy anymore. Other United States Senators of the Democratic persuasion are no longer playing “the get along to go along” game.

I don’t care at this point who is or isn’t running to be the Democratic nominee for President. I care that elected officials are growing a spine. It’s about time. The GOP started out with enough votes to confirm Kavanaugh, who is clearly being positioned to obstruct proceedings against the President in addition to serving as the deciding vote on making this country re-live the not-so-good old days again.

At a minimum Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have added placed an asterisk to the history books when the 21st Century Supreme Court is discussed. (That’s assuming we have history books and not tracts on the glories of our Dear Leader in the future.)

More than 140 women’s rights advocates have been arrested during the hearings as of this writing because they understand a big part of this nomination involves finding a judicial path toward undoing Roe v. Wade.

“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked.

Senator Harris got right to the point with her questioning, as this passage reported in Common Dreams indicates:

…Kavanaugh refused to say whether he agreed with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s straightforward statement, made at her 1993 confirmation hearing, that a woman should be treated as “a fully adult human responsible for her own choices,” citing the need to observe “judicial independence” numerous times when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) attempted to extract an answer. Seeing that the line of questioning was leading nowhere, Harris moved on to a simpler inquiry.

“Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked.

“I’m not aware of any right now, Senator,” Kavanaugh finally responded.

From The Cut:

After she finished, the entire room was silent for three seconds, before Kavanaugh replied: “Um … I’m happy to answer a more specific question, but …”

“Male versus female, ” Harris responded curtly. Kavanaugh fumbled a few more moments before Harris repeated the question.

“I’m not aware of any right now, Senator,” Kavanaugh finally responded.

If you’ve got eight minutes to spare, the video below of Sen. Harris trying to get Kavanaugh on the record (she obviously knows something) is worth watching.

Going beyond the California Senator’s tough questions it’s clear to me now that Senate Democrats are working with a real plan to win this battle.

Corker Booker of New Jersey dropped 12 pages of confidential documents–kept private for ‘national security’ reasons–tied to discussions Kavanaugh had on racial inequality including one email thread titled “racial profiling.”

From The Hill:

“I am right now, before your process is finished, I am going to release the email about racial profiling, and I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate,” Booker said at the hearing.

Booker acknowledged that he would be “knowingly violating the rules.”

Booker questioned Kavanaugh on Wednesday night about his stances on racial inequality, referring to emails from his time as a White House counsel for President George W. Bush. But, Republicans later pointed out, one of the emails he was referring to was labeled as “committee confidential.”

Republicans on the committee threatened Booker with disciplinary action, to which he responded: “bring it.”

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and other Republicans on the committee threatened Booker with disciplinary action, to which he responded: “bring it.”

Yes! Yes! Yes! (Of course, it does take two-thirds of the Senator to actually expel a member, so there’s that.)

As Kos points out, Booker’s move, combined with Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono fiercely attacking Kavanaugh for his views on indigenous rights—an area of concern to Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski has a particular interest. And the information in the other leaked emails directly contradicting Kavanaugh’s public proclamations on Roe v Wade as settled law should be making Maine Republican Susan Collins uneasy.

As of now, there’s strong indication that Democrats will hold their people, even West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, if enough Republicans defect to sink the nomination. (Less need to take a politically dangerous vote for a losing cause.) Heck, if Democrats can find enough Republican votes to sink the nomination, there might not even be a vote! The desire to put red-state Democrats in a tough spot would likely be outweighed by the political nightmare of denying Trump’s rabid base the Supreme Court justice they feel entitled to having. If the GOP base is already depressed, imagine how much worse it could be if Senate Republicans, yet again, were unable to use their majority to enact a key piece of Trump’s agenda?

Today, we saw Senate Democrats take a series of high-profile steps, seemingly random, but in reality targeted at three winnable Republicans. Jumping off the strategic leaks by Sen. Corey Booker (backed by the entire Democratic caucus), information newly revealed puts THREE Republicans in a bind … or gives them an excuse to vote “no” on Kavanaugh.

Oops.

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Doug Porter

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

Comments

  1. Unless you are listening to the hearings, it is easy to miss or dismiss the women who are making righteous noise then being hauled off by police and arrested as a backdrop to the hearings. As Dahlia Lithwick writes in a must read article, the Republican men and SCOTUS candidate have pulled out all kinds of sports talk.

    “… but the reality is that a whole lot of mostly white men are talking about the fact that the fate of women’s bodies will be decided by a federal judge who is pretending he has no opinions on this matter, and this will have very real impacts on women for generations to come. As much as the white male Republicans on the committee might roll their eyes and deplore incivility, women are very, very angry about all this, and they are expressing it corporeally. That isn’t a sporting event. It is life and death. “

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