Even before accusations of sexual misconduct were leveled against Brett Kavanagh, there were legitimate reasons for the confirmation hearing of a Supreme Court Justice nominee with only 34% of public support to be delayed until after November’s midterm elections. Republicans should be expected to follow the precedents that they themselves established, and the logistical difficulties of producing so many documents so quickly has resulted in a frighteningly corrupt system.
In 2016, during Obama’s last nine months in office, he put forward Merrick Garland to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. This selection was a completely typical use of presidential power, and in his announcement of Garland’s nomination, Obama defended the tradition of non-political confirmation processes. He said, “At a time when our politics are so polarized … this is precisely the time when we should play it straight and treat the process of appointing a Supreme Court justice with the seriousness and care it deserves.” Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, disregarded the President’s words and attempted to steal the seat from the Democratic Party, by refusing to even meet with Garland and not allowing the Senate to hold any confirmation hearings. McConnell claimed that the Supreme Court nomination should wait nine months until a new president was elected so that “the American people [could] have a say in the court’s direction.”
By doing so, McConnell eroded political norms and set a precedent that confirmation hearings should be held after elections. Hypocrite that he is, McConnell, in a July 9, 2018 tweet after Brett Kavanagh’s nomination, asked liberals to “evaluate [Trump’s] nominee fairly, based on their qualifications.” What he was actually asking was for liberals to let him change the rules that he created to try to push through a Supreme Court nominee, who at only 53 years old, would likely serve for at least thirty years, a mere four months before an election that could lead to Democratic control of Congress. Not only is this action hypocritical, but it also hasn’t allowed for adequate time for Kavanagh’s documents to be processed appropriately.
As one of the Supreme Court Justice nominees with the longest paper trails, a Kavanagh nomination should take longer than normal. Due to the sheer speed at which the National Archives is being asked to produce documents, the typical process has been degraded. Former President George W. Bush’s personal lawyer has taken over the process of producing documents for the confirmation hearings, which is overtly corrupt and partisan. Having a lawyer hired by a Republican president decide what the Senate gets to see or not see regarding a Supreme Court nominee who is hugely unpopular, quite young, and able to push the highest court in the land to overturn rulings as important to the American people as Roe v. Wade leaves many fearing for the American democratic system.
Anyone who cares about the future of our nation should be watching right now and should be calling on the Senate to pause the confirmation hearings and allow the people to vote before a decision of this caliber is made in haste. For the second time in three years, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party are making an partisan decision about a Supreme Court seat foregoing a fair and democratic confirmation process. This time, the American people must make it known that they do not consent.
