Monday round-up

On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee wrapped up its four-day hearing on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court with a day of testimony from witnesses, including former law clerks to Kavanaugh, two former solicitors general, a survivor of the Parkland school shooting, and John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel during Watergate. We live-blogged the session, and Jon Levitan rounded up early coverage and commentary for this blog. Amy Howe recaps the highlights of the day’s proceedings in a podcast at Howe on the Court; a Daily Journal podcast also has a rundown.

At NPR, Nina Totenberg reports that throughout the hearing, “President Trump’s pick for the high court successfully parried questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Democratic complaints that they had seen just 10 percent of his government record didn’t seem to raise much public ire.” For The Washington Post, Robert Barnes and Seung Min Kim report that “by the close of the four-day hearings, some Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee seemed resigned to Kavanaugh’s confirmation.” For The New York Times, Adam Liptak observes that “Judge Kavanaugh must have studied earlier confirmation hearings carefully, as he had absorbed all of their key lessons: Say nothing, say it at great length, and then say it again.”

In an op-ed for The New York Times, Katherine Stewart argues that “[i]f the Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh, it will be declaring that the United States is a nation in which one brand of religion enjoys a place of privilege; that we are a nation of laws — except in cases where the law offends those who subscribe to our preferred religion; and that we recognize the dignity of all people unless they belong to specific groups our national religion views with disapproval.” At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost maintains that “[p]olitical differences aside, a common-sense reading of Kavanaugh’s testimony shows that he is ready if confirmed to vote to overrule the abortion-rights decision Roe v. Wade and that he is an uncertain vote at most to uphold any investigative procedures directed at the president who nominated him for the Supreme Court.” At First Mondays (podcast), Ian Samuel and Leah Litman “discuss their favorite and least favorite moments of the … hearings.”

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