I wrote hundreds of posts about the horrible Bush nominees for the Supreme Court and our federal courts of appeal back in 2002, 2003,2004 and 2005, especially William Pryor, Charles Pickering, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. I endlessly criticized the nomination of Judge Alito. (Just type their name in the search box on the right).
In re-reading a few of these posts today, this one struck me as particularly prescient.
Packing the Supreme Court with conservatives will be one of Bush's longest lasting legacies. The judicial and criminal justice systems will change markedly. Protections we have taken for granted since childhood will disappear.
There will be no reason for every child over the age of 9 to be able to recite Miranda warnings or know a cop has to have a warrant if they want to come in the house or search. They won't know these things because they won't have seen them a hundred times on tv on the cop shows. They won't be referred to on the cop shows since there won't be any more Miranda or 4th Amendment rights to speak of -- the exceptions to these principles will become the rule. Exigent circumstances, good-fath exceptions, the inevitable discovery doctrine, just wait till you see what they will think of next.
Since the Justices are appointed for life, we fear we won't see the pendulum swing back again in our lifetimes. What a legacy to leave our children. If there is one reason not to back a third party candidate who can't possibly win over a Democrat who can, this is surely it.
Back to Kavenaugh: Bush nominated him for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003, along with the Janice Rogers Brown, when Manuel Estrada's nomination was blocked by Democrats (he later withdrew his name). He was nominated to be the 12th Justice on the Court. During Clinton's term, the Senate wouldn't consider even a 10th Justice on that court saying its workload was too light. The New York Times wrote in 2003:
Mr. Bush nominated Brett M. Kavanaugh, an associate White House counsel, and Janice R. Brown, a California Supreme Court justice, to the 11th and 12th seats on the appeals court.
The court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, currently has nine active judges and Mr. Bush's choice for the 10th seat, Miguel Estrada, a Washington lawyer, has been blocked by Senate Democrats.
During the eight years when President Bill Clinton was in office, Senate Republicans insisted the court's workload was so light there was no need for it to be filled to its 12-member capacity.
The article described Kavenaugh this way:
Mr. Kavanaugh, at 38, would be one of the youngest members of the federal appeals bench. He is assistant to the president and staff secretary, and has been responsible for marshaling the fleet of largely conservative judicial nominees the president has sent to the Senate, resulting in angry battles with Democrats. But he is probably better known as a senior assistant to Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President and Mrs. Clinton for a variety of issues.
Mr. Kavanaugh was one of the principal authors of the ''Starr report'' that argued that President Clinton deserved to be impeached because of how he dealt with his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, a one-time White House intern.
Is Kavenaugh inevitable, or if he were to fail, would the next pick just be worse? Back in 2003, I urged against a Democratic response of "capitulate and embrace":
Instead of capitulate and embrace, and hold the conservative jurists to their promise of more great rulings restricting Congress and the federal courts, we advise the democrats to filibuster, early, loud and often. The only way to prevent these right wing jurists from imposing their narrow and unjust views on the rest of us is to keep them from attaining the bench in the first place.
Take note of political action alerts, write your elected officials and tell them to oppose the nomination, and remember, grass roots efforts can be successful. A Senator can serve his or her constituents only if he or she knows their position on issues. By writing to them, you become heard, and your opinion counts. We neither need nor want another Scalia, Kennedy or Clarence Thomas.
I'm not doing any of things with respect to Kavenaugh. He doesn't strike me as the worst of the worst and I'm more concerned about who Trump's next pick might be if Kavenaugh fails. The issue of whether he'd give Trump a pass on a Mueller subpoena pales in comparison to the issue of how he'll rule on matters of import from crime to the economy to the environment and immigrant rights over the 30 years.
What will I do instead? Hold my nose at the rotten smell emanating from the White House and everyone aligned with Donald Trump.
