WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, mapped out strategy with Republican leaders Tuesday, launching a fierce confirmation battle that could remake the court for decades and roil the midterm elections in the meantime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kavanaugh, a favorite of the GOP establishment, first huddled with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Joining him were Vice President Mike Pence and former Sen. Jon Kyl. He also met for roughly 30 minutes with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee that is taking the first close look at the nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Republicans have set a goal of confirming Kavanaugh this fall, Grassley said speed isn\u2019t the goal. The vetting process, he said, is \u201cgoing to be thorough and going to be done right.\u201d He did not offer a timeline for confirmation hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans have reacted positively to Trump\u2019s pick, but McConnell has little margin of error for the final vote unless a few Democrats can be brought onboard. Republicans hold a slim 51-49 Senate majority, but they hope to gain support for Kavanaugh from a handful of Democrats who are up for re-election in states where Trump is popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McConnell called Kavanaugh \u201cone of the most thoughtful jurists\u201d in the country and blasted Democrats as \u201ceager to try and turn judicial confirmations into something like political elections.\u201d The GOP leader warned against engaging in \u201ccheap political fear-mongering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll hear all kinds of fantastic stories about the pain and suffering that this perfectly qualified, widely respected judge will somehow unleash on America if we confirm him to the court,\u201d McConnell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pence called Kavanaugh a \u201cgood man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats are uniting behind a strategy to turn the confirmation fight into a referendum on conservatives\u2019 efforts to undo abortion access and chip away at other health care protections under the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York is vowing to fight the nomination \u201cwith everything I have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schumer warned, \u201cIn selecting Judge Kavanaugh, President Trump did exactly what he said he would do on the campaign trail \u2014 nominate someone who will overturn women\u2019s reproductive rights and strike down health care protections for millions of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democrats have turned their attention to pressuring two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, to oppose any nominee who threatens the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. The two have supported access to abortion services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some due diligence that we\u2019ve got to do,\u201d Murkowski said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Collins said Kavanaugh is \u201cclearly qualified\u201d but other issues also will come into play for her, specifically \u201cjudicial temperament\u201d and \u201cjudicial philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kavanaugh in the past has made statements about respecting precedent that could help in winning over Murkowski and Collins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his 2006 confirmation hearing to become a federal judge, Kavanaugh said, \u201cI would follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully\u201d because it\u2019s \u201cbinding precedent\u201d that has been \u201creaffirmed many times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet there\u2019s little doubt that Kavanaugh, a solidly conservative, politically connected judge, would shift the nation\u2019s highest court further to the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A product of the Republican legal establishment in Washington, Kavanaugh, 53, is a former law clerk for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Like Trump\u2019s first nominee last year, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Kavanaugh would be a young addition who could help remake the court for decades with rulings that could restrict abortion, expand gun rights and roll back key parts of\u201d Obamacare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a prime-time televised announcement Trump called Kavanaugh \u201cone of the finest and sharpest legal minds of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBrett Kavanaugh has gotten rave reviews \u2014 rave reviews \u2014 actually, from both sides,\u201d Trump said Tuesday as he left the White House for a weeklong overseas trip. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s going to be a beautiful thing to watch over the next month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Kavanaugh, Trump is replacing a swing vote on the nine-member court with a staunch conservative. Kavanaugh, who serves on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, has taken an expansive view of executive power and has favored limits on investigating the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at the White House, Kavanaugh pledged to preserve the Constitution and said that \u201ca judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some conservative and libertarian-leaning activists were disappointed by the pick and doubted it would provide Republicans with the midterm election boost they are looking for to motivate voters to the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is going to give heartburn to some conservatives,\u201d said Brian Darling, a former Republican counsel to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the pick conservatives had hoped for,\u201d Darling said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul was among some Republican senators who had favored other options. But the senator tweeted after the announcement that he looked forward to meeting Kavanaugh \u201cwith an open mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like the other eight justices on the court, Kavanaugh has an Ivy League law degree, spending his undergraduate and law school years at Yale. Since 2006, he has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during Starr\u2019s investigation of President Bill Clinton, worked on behalf of George W. Bush\u2019s campaign during the election recount in 2000 and served in the Bush White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kavanaugh\u2019s many written opinions provide insight into his thinking and also will be fodder for Senate Democrats who will seek to block his confirmation. He has written roughly 300 opinions as a judge, authored several law journal articles, regularly taught law school classes and spoken frequently in public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Mark Sherman, Laurie Kellman and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While Republicans have set a goal of confirming Kavanaugh this fall, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said speed isn\u2019t the goal. The vetting process, he said, is \u201cgoing to be thorough and going to be done right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":38,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[38,106,31,33,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5577],"class_list":["post-15499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"F7BOIM7XRNG2VM5KZTXTMKOW4A","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/congress\/2018\/07\/10\/supreme-court-nominee-kavanaugh-begins-making-his-case-to-senators\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n