Jeff Flake's Support Likely Means Kavanaugh Will Be Confirmed

It is no surprise that Jeff Flake would vote to send Kavanaugh’s nomination out of the Judiciary Committee if only to guarantee a vote by the full Senate. But his stated intention to vote for Kavanaugh there as well indicates that Kavanaugh will be confirmed. If Collins and Murkowski were both going to vote no to Kavanaugh, then I would have expected Flake to join them to at least give them some cover, especially considering he really has nothing to lose as he is retiring. His support of Kavanaugh, then, indicates that Murkowski and/or Collins will also vote to seat Kavanaugh.

With the reality that Kavanaugh will be seated, I then expect Joe Manchin to take the easy vote to join Flake and Murkowski/Collins in order to provide some “bipartisan” sheen to the proceedings and score some points with Trump. Harry Reid always said that Manchin was there for him on every vote he really needed, but went his own way when he wasn’t. This will be one of those case where Manchin’s vote really means nothing other than protecting himself in West Virginia. It wouldn’t be surprising to see at least one other red-state Democrat make the same decision.

This, rightly, will infuriate the Democratic base but we really need to focus that righteous anger where it should be appropriately directed, at the Republicans who will put a man on the Supreme Court who has, at minimum and just like their President, shown he does not have the temperament for the job and is simply just a partisan hack using a deeply flawed and partisan process. It will also mean that two of the nine justice will now be credibly accused sexual harassers/abusers and four of the nine will have been appointed by a President who did not initially win the majority of the vote.

The Supreme Court has been broken for some time. Confirming Kavanaugh will only make that issue strikingly clear to all. As Yglesias points out, “In Bush v Gore, Citizens United, Shelby County, throwing out Medicaid expansion, etc the 21st Century SCOTUS has mostly been an accelerant of democratic decline rather than a safeguard and the sooner people realize that the better.” While the left continued to believe in some kind of mythical independent judiciary and Supreme Court, conservative have long recognized the importance of the judiciary, and the Court in particular, and worked to fill it with right-wing ideologues.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation will be a prime example of GOP’s dominance politics and will presage the ending or curtailing of the Mueller investigation after the midterms as well as other potentially damaging attacks on our democracy. That is especially true if the Democrats win the House, because eliminating the only independent investigation of Russian hacking of our election will allow Trump and the GOP to turn the expected House investigation into just another partisan attack, just like they have done with Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford.

Any full investigation of the claims against Kavanaugh by a Democratic House, which will absolutely be required, will be similarly attacked. And Republicans know that, even if the House finds substantial evidence that Kavanaugh has lied beyond what we already know, and I expect they will, the chances that he will be convicted of impeachment in the Senate are virtually nil. But Republicans have destroyed any remaining shred of confidence that Americans have in the Court, not that they care as long as it further cements their power.

Although this is a subject for a separate post entirely, it is time for Democrats to think about ways to either radically restructure our democratic processes to more full represent the will of the majority or, as a last resort, restructuring our Union entirely to accomplish something similar.

There is still time between now and the full Senate vote to influence the outcome and we must fight to the bitter end. Here are the relevant phone numbers: Susan Collins: 202-224-2523; Lisa Murkowski 202-224-6665. Call. And then vote in November.