For a judge, there is no higher honor in the judicial practice than being nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States. Recently, President Donald Trump bestowed that honor upon Brett Kavanaugh, a United States Circuit Judge who serves on the District of Columbia Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. Unfortunately for Kavanaugh, he may not receive the honor of serving on the Supreme Court if Sen. Cory Booker has any say.
Booker has made it a mission to get his message out about Kavanaugh’s questionable past. Booker, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has stirred up Kavanaugh’s hearing by risking his Senate seat and releasing emails that reveal Kavanaugh’s truest opinions on some of the biggest, most important issues facing Americans today. What Booker did was brave, necessary and we should all be thankful for it.
By releasing emails which detailed Kavanaugh’s opinions on cases dealing with women’s reproductive rights, racial profiling and many other topics, we, the American people, now have a clearer view of who Kavanaugh really is. When asked at his hearing about his opinions on Roe v. Wade, Kavanaugh claimed that it was “settled as precedent of the Supreme Court” meaning that it would be exceedingly difficult to overturn. For those who support the Roe v. Wade decision, Kavanaugh’s assertion was refreshing and encouraging until Booker let us know what Kavanaugh really felt.
“I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent,” Kavanaugh said on record in one of the dozens of emails that Booker released.
It is in these candid emails, ones that Kavanaugh could have never foreseen being for public consumption, that he reveals his genuine opinions on a case that has implications for millions of Americans.
Had it not been for Booker, the Republicans would have kept these documents “committee confidential,” and the American people would have been misled by the recent statements of this Court nominee. Booker risked expulsion from the Senate for this brave act, and we are a better nation because of it. The Senate Republicans would have voted, along partisan party lines, to nominate a judge who lied to the American people about his beliefs over one of the most contested Supreme Court cases in the history of the court. Now that we have the same information they do, Kavanaugh’s inconsistencies are clear and he is unfit to hold the vacant seat on the court.
Thanks to Booker, the Republicans now have to face the reality that they can not steal another Supreme Court seat — the way they did in 2016 from Merrick Garland who was a Barack Obama nominee. They must face the fact that Booker let us all see that Kavanaugh is inconsistent and willing to lie in order to receive an honor he is not worthy of.
As for Booker, he is deserving of the honors. He exposed the controversial past of a nominee who was being protected by Senate Republican power. Booker risked his Senate career in order to deliver the truth to the American people. In an era where the president, his associates and apparently his Supreme Court nominees all have a problem with telling the truth, it is refreshing to have a patriot like Booker fighting for us.
