“Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2013 asserted that it’s a ‘traditional exercise’ of presidential power to ignore laws the White House views as unconstitutional, as he defended the controversial practice of signing statements prevalent in George W. Bush’s White House,” CNN reports.
Wrote Kavanaugh: “If the President has a constitutional objection to a statutory mandate or prohibition, the President may decline to follow the law unless and until a final Court order dictates otherwise.”
“Senate Republicans are pressing ahead on confirming Brett Kavanaugh before the midterm elections even after National Archives said that it can’t meet the GOP’s request for records until the end of October, days before the midterm elections,” Politico reports.
Said a source close to GOP Senate leaders: “I can’t envision a scenario where that vote is delayed… There’s no chance in hell Mitch McConnell holds this vote after the election.”
The National Archives said “it won’t be able to produce the full cache of documents requested by Senate Republicans on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until the end of October, casting doubt on whether he can be confirmed by the midterm elections this fall,” the Washington Post reports.
“Gary Stern, the Archives’ general counsel, told Senate Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley (R-IA) in a letter that the records he has requested could total more than 900,000 pages. Grassley, backed by other Senate Republicans, asked for all documents from Kavanaugh’s tenure in the George W. Bush White House as an associate White House counsel.”
Roll Call: “That could force Grassley and Senate Republicans to either slow down the confirmation process or curtail the amount of records they seek from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House.”
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“While Democrats are crying foul after Republican leaders angled to limit disclosures of documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s past work, one of the GOP senators whose vote may be pivotal to his confirmation says she’s just fine with it,” Bloomberg reports.
“Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters Tuesday that she has no objection to a decision late Friday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, to leave out of a federal document request all the paperwork and emails from Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary to President George W. Bush.”
Jeffrey Toobin: “At some point in the process, all four of these nominees—Haynsworth, Carswell, Bork, and Ginsburg—seemed like shoo-ins for confirmation, much as Kavanaugh does today. And yet they were all defeated. And the Justices who took their places were closer to the judicial and political mainstream. To be sure, the analogies to Kavanaugh’s case can be overdrawn. The most obvious difference is that Democrats controlled the Senate when Nixon and Reagan made their nominations. And Nixon and Reagan were less right-wing than Trump has been, at least when it comes to judicial nominations. Trump and his allies can be expected to fight furiously for Kavanaugh precisely because Blackmun and Kennedy turned out to be more moderate than many anticipated.”
“Still, the current Republican margin in the Senate (owing to John McCain’s absence) is just a single vote, and Kavanaugh’s long paper trail, both as a judge and as a Republican political appointee, gives Democrats a great deal of material to exploit. Most of all, they need to remember that fighting Supreme Court nominees, even against formidable odds, can succeed—and produce a better Court than anyone might have expected.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said that he will support Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court, The Hill reports.
Said Paul: “After meeting Judge Kavanaugh and reviewing his record, I have decided to support his nomination.”
“Judge Brett Kavanaugh two years ago expressed his desire to overturn a three-decade-old Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of an independent counsel, a comment bound to get renewed scrutiny in his confirmation proceedings to sit on the high court,” CNN reports.
Speaking to a conservative group in 2016, Kavanaugh bluntly said he wanted to “put the final nail” in the 1988 Supreme Court ruling.
“Whether that means Kavanaugh views Mueller’s appointment and investigation itself as unconstitutional is unclear, given the special counsel works directly for the Justice Department under a different set of rules that governed the independent counsel.”
A new Pew Research poll finds 41% think the U.S. Senate should confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, while 36% say they should not and 23% do not offer a view on the question.
“Opinions of his nomination are already deeply polarized: 73% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think he should be confirmed. By contrast, 63% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say the Senate should not confirm him.”
“Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s road to confirmation may have a little-noticed obstacle: Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) firm views on privacy,” Bloomberg reports.
“While abortion has gotten most of the attention in the partisan fight over the nomination, the Kentucky Republican strongly disagrees with Kavanaugh on the meaning of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, and he’s shown little reluctance to defy Senate GOP leaders or the White House to make a point on civil liberties and other privacy issues.”
“In a Senate controlled by the GOP 50-49 with Republican Senator John McCain absent while fighting brain cancer, Paul’s vote can’t be taken for granted.”
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “incurred tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt buying baseball tickets over the past decade and at times reported liabilities that could have exceeded the value of his cash accounts and investment assets,” the Washington Post reports.
The White House said Kavanaugh “built up the debt by buying Washington Nationals season tickets and tickets for playoff games for himself and a ‘handful’ of friends.”
“Kavanaugh’s most recent financial disclosure forms reveal assets between $15,000 and $65,000, which would put him at the bottom of the financial ranking of justices, most of whom list well over $1 million in assets.”
“The White House on Monday immediately played up Brett Kavanaugh’s pro-business, anti-regulation record and is asking industry trade groups for help pushing his confirmation through the Senate… In the one-page document, which was obtained by Politico, the White House wrote that Kavanaugh has overruled federal regulators 75 times on cases involving clean air, consumer protections, net neutrality and other issues.”
“For Senate Republicans, the rejection of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, could foment a political disaster in the midterm elections,” the Washington Examiner reports.
“The conservative grassroots base is cheering Kavanaugh’s selection to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy; they expect the Republican controlled Senate to seal his confirmation before Election Day. Failure to deliver on this vital issue to the GOP base could depress voter turnout and jeopardize the party’s congressional majorities.”
Benjamin Wittes: “If Kavanaugh’s writings on special counsel investigations really influenced Trump’s decision to nominate him, then Trump is a bigger fool than I have imagined. Kavanaugh’s writings on the subject don’t clarify all of his views on the subject of the Mueller investigation. But they clarify certain big things, and those things are really not good for Donald Trump.”
“Noah Feldman writes that ‘Properly understood, Kavanaugh’s expressed views actually support the opposite conclusion’ than the one to which many knees are jerking. Feldman is exactly right. In some respects, he actually understates the case.”
President Trump “could have done a lot worse than Brett Kavanaugh, according to Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins,” Politico reports.
“The centrist GOP senators offered few hints on Tuesday about how they will vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. But it’s clear that Trump could have made confirmation in the narrowly divided Senate much more difficult if he had picked someone like 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett or another equally conservative nominee.”
“Brett Kavanaugh could add a powerful new voice on the Supreme Court to restrain what government agencies can do, ushering in a new era of tougher scrutiny of federal regulations loathed by businesses,” Bloomberg reports.
“In a dozen years on the U.S. appeals court that handles most challenges to rules issued by federal bureaucrats, the Supreme Court nominee’s record reveals views closely aligned with conservatives who seek to rein in agencies on issues from climate change to net neutrality and financial oversight.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Senate Democrats can successfully orchestrate the rejection of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “if they can convince the American people that his confirmation will lead to the undoing of abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act by the Supreme Court,” Politico reports.
Said Schumer: “Let me say this. I believe if we can prove to the American people, which I believe is truly the case, that this nominee will lead to a court that repeals women’s reproductive freedom, repeals ACA with its protections for pre-existing conditions, we will get a majority of the Senate to vote for it.”
He added: “Obviously, even if we had every Democrat, we need two Republicans. But if we can make that case, we will get a majority.”
Politico: “Kavanaugh’s paperwork predicament — stemming from two years he spent in President George W. Bush’s White House Counsel’s office and just over three as Bush’s staff secretary—is not completely unique.”
“But the quantity of files potentially at issue in Kavanaugh’s case could be unprecedented. Former officials believe millions of pages of emails and other documents circulated through Kavanaugh’s office during his time as staff secretary. If Senate Democrats insist on receiving every page, the confirmation process could grind to a crawl.”
President Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, NBC News reports.
“If confirmed, he would make the Supreme Court solidly conservative, joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — providing a five-vote majority. He would be sure to join the conservatives more often than Kennedy, who sometimes voted with the court’s liberals in cases raising hot-button social issues.”
New York Times: “Judge Kavanaugh’s long history of legal opinions, as well as his role in some of the fiercest partisan battles of the last two decades, will give Democrats plenty of ammunition for tough questions.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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