Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and votes
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| Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court vacancy, 2017 Supreme Court of the United States |
The Senate voted 50-48-1 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as the 114th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on October 6, 2018. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who opposed Kavanaugh's nomination, paired her vote with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who supported Kavanaugh's nomination, allowing Daines to attend his daughter's wedding instead of flying back to Washington, D.C., for the vote. A simple majority was needed to confirm Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice the same day as his confirmation, October 6, 2018.[1]
On September 28, 2018, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 along party lines to report Kavanaugh’s nomination to United States Supreme Court to the full Senate for a vote. The Senate voted 51-49 to end debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on October 5, 2018. [2]
A first round of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was held September 4 to 7, 2018. They began with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee giving opening statements. Kavanaugh was introduced by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Rob Portman (R), and attorney Lisa Blatt, and then he gave opening remarks. The following two days consisted of question and answer sessions with members of the Senate. The final day included testimonies both for and against Kavanaugh.[3]
In a second round of hearings, Kavanaugh and college professor Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018, about an allegation by Ford that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when the two were in high school. Kavanaugh denied the allegation.[4]
All nominees to the court are subject to the advice and consent of the United States Senate. Judicial nominations from the president are referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the hearings, the committee was composed of 11 Republican and 10 Democratic senators.
The entries below are listed in reverse chronological order. Click here for day five, here for day four, here for day three, here for day two, and here for day one.
Senate confirmation vote
The Senate voted 50-48-1 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as the 114th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on October 6, 2018. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who opposed Kavanaugh's nomination, paired her vote with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who supported Kavanaugh's nomination, so Daines could attend his daughter's wedding instead of flying back to Washington D.C., for the vote. A simple majority was needed to confirm Kavanaugh.
Senate cloture vote
The Senate voted 51-49 to end debate on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on October 5, 2018. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the only Republican to vote against advancing Kavanaugh's nomination. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to vote to advance the nomination. A cloture vote proposes ending unlimited debate on a nomination. The vote begins a 30-hour time limit for final debate before a confirmation vote.
Senate Judiciary Committee vote
On September 28, 2018, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 along party lines to report Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate floor for a vote.[2]
| Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court | |
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| Member | Vote |
 Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman
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 Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ranking member
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| Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)
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| Cory Booker (D-N.J.)
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| Chris Coons (D-Del.)
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| John Cornyn (R-Texas)
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| Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
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| Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
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| Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)
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| Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
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| Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
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| Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)
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| Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
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| Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)
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| John Kennedy (R-La.)
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| Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
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| Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
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| Mike Lee (R-Utah)
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| Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)
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| Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)
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| Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
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Day five (9/27/2018)
Prepared statements
Click the links below to view the prepared statements of Kavanaugh, Ford, and Sens. Chuck Grassley (R) and Dianne Feinstein (D).
Day four (9/7/2018)
Witness testimonies
Click the names below to access a transcript of each witness' testimony during the hearing, if available.[5]
Day three (9/6/2018)
The topics below were comprised from a number of analysis and summary articles.
Affordable Care Act
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked Kavanaugh about a dissenting opinion the judge wrote in 2015 where he sided with the group Priests for Life, who argued that a provision in the Affordable Care Act to opt out for religious reasons was burdensome.
Kavanaugh expanded on his dissent, saying “the government had ways to ensure contraceptive coverage without doing so on the backs of religious objectors.”[6]
Cruz also asked Kavanaugh about a case in which he argued that a high school should allow student-led prayer in public at football games.
“Religious people, speakers and speech are entitled to equal treatment,” Kavanaugh said.
Presidential power
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked Kavanaugh about placing checks on presidential power. He said, "Give us some reassurance about your commitment to the democratic institutions in this country, in the face of a president who seems prepared to cast them aside. Whether it's voter suppression, the role of the media — case after case, we hear this president willing to walk away from the rule of law in this country."[7]
Kavanaugh responded, "No one is above the law. I've made clear in my writings that a court order that requires a president to do something or prohibits a president from doing something under the Constitution or laws of the United States is the final word in our system."
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked Kavanaugh when the Supreme Court should question what a president says about national security.
Kavanaugh replied, "National security is not a blank check for the president...Even in the context of wartime, the courts are not silenced. Civil liberties are not silent."[7]
Day two (9/5/2018)
The topics below were comprised from a number of analysis and summary articles.
Abortion
Kavanaugh was asked by senators including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) about his views on the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
"I don’t live in a bubble," he told Feinstein. "I live in the real world. I understand the importance of the issue." He added that Roe is "settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis."[8]
The judge was also asked about an opinion he wrote in 2017 dissenting from a majority ruling which required the government to permit a pregnant 17-year-old girl who had entered the country without legal permission to obtain an abortion.
Kavanaugh said, “If she had been an adult she would have had a right to obtain an abortion immediately,” but that legal precedent left room for delay in cases involving parental consent.[8]
"I specifically said the government cannot use this as a ruse to prevent abortion," Kavanaugh told Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). He said he also considered the girl’s circumstances. "She's a 17-year-old, by herself in a foreign country in a facility where she's detained and she has no one to talk to and she's pregnant. Now that is a difficult situation."[9]
Legal access to firearms
Sen. Feinstein asked Kavanaugh about his dissenting opinion in a 2011 case where he would have ruled unconstitutional Washington, D.C.’s ban on assault firearms.
Kavanaugh said his dissent was based on the precedent that the Constitution protects individual possession of handguns. “I was trying to follow strictly and carefully the Supreme Court precedent,” he said.[8]
He added, "Semi-automatic rifles are widely possessed in the United States. There are millions and millions and millions. As a judge, my job was to follow the Second Amendment decision of the Supreme Court, whether I agreed with it or disagreed with it."[9]
Judicial independence
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked Kavanaugh whether he would be independent from the president in making judicial decisions.
Kavanaugh responded, “The first thing that makes a good judge is independence, not being swayed by political or public pressure.”[10]
When Kavanaugh was asked for examples of what he saw as judicial independence, he cited the 1974 ruling ordering President Nixon to hand over subpoenaed materials during the Watergate investigation.
Presidential power and pardon
Kavanaugh was asked questions about presidential power that included whether a sitting president can be required to respond to a subpoena, whether he believed the president could fire a prosecutor investigating him, and whether a president could pardon himself.[11]
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked Kavanaugh whether he would commit to recusing himself from cases investigating the president.
"To be consistent with the principle of independence of the judiciary, I should not and may not make a commitment about how I would handle a particular case, and the decision to participate in a case is itself a decision in a particular case," Kavanaugh said.[8]
Day one (9/4/2018)
The first day of Brett Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation hearings began at 9:30 a.m. EST. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee commenced the hearings with opening statements. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Rob Portman (R), and attorney Lisa Blatt then introduced Kavanaugh. Testimony from Kavanaugh ended the day.[3]
Democrats pursued procedural processes to adjourn hearings for the first hour and a half of the hearings. Protestors in the hearing room resulted in 70 arrests, according to Capitol police.[12]
Judiciary Committee member statements
Click the links below to access the opening statements made by the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Statements were obtained from the Senate Judiciary Committee's website, senators' websites, or social media. Sen. Jeff Flake's (R-AZ) statement could not be obtained as of September 5, 2018.
Brett Kavanaugh opening statement
The video below shows the opening statement of Brett Kavanaugh. Click here for the transcript of his speech.
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Judiciary Committee questionnaire
The Senate Judiciary Committee provided Kavanaugh with a questionnaire to fill out prior to his confirmation hearing on July 14. He returned it completed on July 20. You can view it below. Click here to view the appendices.
See also
- Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court
- Supreme Court vacancy, 2018: An overview
- Timeline of events related to the Supreme Court vacancy, 2018
- Process to fill the vacated seat of Justice Anthony Kennedy
- Supreme Court of the United States
- History of the Supreme Court
- Supreme Court cases, October term 2017-2018
Footnotes
- ↑ WKOW, "The Latest: Kavanaugh sworn in as Supreme Court justice," October 6, 2018
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Hill, "Judiciary panel approves Kavanaugh, sending nomination to full Senate," September 28, 2018
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Senate Judiciary Committee, "Nomination of the Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States," accessed September 4, 2018
- ↑ New York Times, "Brett Kavanaugh’s Accuser Reaches Deal to Testify," September 23, 2018
- ↑ Committee on the Judiciary, "Nomination of the Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Day 4)," accessed September 10, 2018
- ↑ Washington Post, "Supreme Court nominee declines to condemn Trump’s attacks on judiciary," September 6, 2018
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 NPR, "Senators Dispute Status Of Released Documents As Questioning Of Kavanaugh Wraps Up," September 6, 2018
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Bloomberg, "Kavanaugh Won't Promise to Recuse in Trump Case: Hearing Update," September 5, 2018
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 NPR, "Kavanaugh Defends Controversial Abortion, Gun-Control Dissents," September 5, 2018
- ↑ The Associated Press, "Kavanaugh’s lips sealed on White House subpoenas, pardons," September 6, 2018
- ↑ Reuters, "Supreme Court nominee evasive on scope of Trump's presidential power," September 5, 2018
- ↑ CNN, "Partisan shouting marks first day of Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing," September 4, 2018
