Parkland victim’s dad says Kavanaugh ‘turned his back’ on him

“The litany of “Roberts Five” decisions explains why big Republican interests want Judge Kavanaugh on the court so badly”, Whitehouse said. “Our independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic”.

There is a long history of heated fights over US Supreme Court nominations.

They said his resume of 12 years as an judge on the federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., his classes taught at Harvard and Yale law schools, the glowing reviews from lawyers, students and fellow judges, and the legal approval of the Supreme Court, which has adopted his reasoning in 13 different cases already, prove he’s earned a promotion to sit with the justices. He has said, ‘The judge’s job is to interpret the law, not to make the law or make policy.’ I agree, as do most of the people we represent: judges shouldn’t be legislating from the bench.

“That’s like Bonnie getting arrested and saying, ‘You know who’d make a great judge?” So in that sense, Tuesday’s start to the Kavanaugh hearings marks the natural next step in the Republicans’ devastatingly successful strategy to pack the federal courts.

There were reportedly concerns that a walkout might backfire, and this way Democratic voters got to watch their senators taking on Kavanaugh, rather than staring at a half-empty chamber. But consistent with the uproar of the Trump era, Kavanaugh was upstaged even before he delivered his opening statement, as stunning revelations began to emerge of a new book by veteran reporter Bob Woodward that portrays Trump as a grave threat to national security and raging and incompetent.

Potential 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls Sens. “We have not had an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing”, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris said.

A White House rep said Kavanaugh wasn’t trying to ignore Guttenberg.

Grassley told her she was “out of order”, but other Democrats chimed in to back up Harris, including Sen. Republicans hold a slim Senate majority and can confirm Kavanaugh if they stay united. There were no signs of Republican defections. Cruz goes on to lay out how Kavanaugh is not the Supreme Court Democrats expected when they went to the polls in 2016.

Of course, Democrats haven’t asked any of those questions yet – that begins Wednesday morning.

Kavanaugh, 53, would replace retired swing-vote justice Anthony Kennedy, a move that could solidify a hard-right majority on the nine-member court and help shape key aspects of American society for a generation or more.

Democrats, who favor a “living Constitution”, meaning whatever they think the founding document ought to say, are pitted against “originalists”, who believe the document speaks for itself and should be taken as something only slightly less compelling than holy writ.

By not staging a walkout, however, Democrats also allowed themselves to become part of the process and grill Kavanaugh in the upcoming hearings, hoping to mobilize opposition to his candidacy.

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh opened on a contentious note Tuesday, with Senate Democrats raising noisy objections that much of Kavanaugh’s lengthy paper trail is still off limits.

Bystanders and media outlets shared videos of the women being led away from the hearing in makeshift handcuffs.