Kavanaugh, in his remarks following Trump, thanked the president.
"Throughout this process, I have witness firsthand your appreciation for the vital role of the American judiciary," he told Trump. "No president has ever consulted more widely or talked with more people from more backgrounds to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination."
"I am grateful to you and I am humbled by your confidence in me," he said.
Trump called Kavanaugh on Sunday night to tell him he was the pick, a White House official told NBC News. Trump then informed White House Counsel Don McGahn and Vice President Mike Pence of his decision.
Kavanaugh serves on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which often rules on major challenges to federal laws and policies. If confirmed, he would make the Supreme Court solidly conservative, joining Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch in a potential five-vote majority.
He would be sure to join the conservatives more often than Kennedy, who sometimes voted with the court's liberals in cases raising hot-button social issues.
In his remarks, Kavanaugh discussed his guiding principles as a jurist.
"My judicial philosophy is straightforward. A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law," he said. "A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent."
"I will tell each senator that I revere the Constitution,” he added, referring to one-on-one meetings that will take place as part of the confirmation process. "I believe that an independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic. If confirmed by the Senate, I will keep an open mind in every case and will always try to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law."
Kavanaugh was nominated to the appeals court by President George W. Bush and confirmed in 2006 by a vote of 57-36. Four Supreme Court justices have come from the D.C. Circuit in recent years — Roberts, Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.
Reaction from Capitol Hill was swift, with many Democrats — including potential 2020 contenders Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey — announcing their intention to vote against Kavanaugh within minutes of Trump’s announcement.
"Judge Brett Kavanaugh represents a direct and fundamental threat to that promise of equality, and so I will oppose his nomination to the Supreme Court," Harris said.
Booker, citing the integrity of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 race, as well as abortion rights, added, "With all that's at stake, I will fight to stop this nomination every step of the way."
tubawhatever on July 10th, 2018 at 03:17 UTC »
For anyone who is in the know, what's his position on 4th Amendment issues? That's been my biggest complaint with the current court.
sock_whisperer on July 10th, 2018 at 01:23 UTC »
Some bullet points on his views:
2A Rights
Kavanaugh objected to a 2011 ruling that upheld Washington’s ban on semiautomatic rifles. Kavanaugh said the ban on semiautomatic rifles was unconstitutional because the weapons are in common use in this country. (Something that Heller established as a basis for being protected) “Gun bans and gun regulations that are not longstanding or sufficiently rooted in text, history, and tradition are not consistent with the Second Amendment individual right,” Kavanaugh wrote.Abortion
Kavanaugh dissented in the case that allowed undocumented minor to get an abortion. However, “unlike another conservative judge,” Kavanaugh “did not directly challenge her right to have an abortion under certain circumstances,” Kavanaugh “told senators during his DC Circuit confirmation hearing that he’d respect precedent on abortion and declined to share his views on Roe v. Wade,”Gay Marriage
While there isn’t any readily available information on Kavanaugh’s positions on LGBTQ issues, Justin Walker, a University of Louisville law professor, told the LA Times that, “There is no guesswork with Judge Kavanaugh. He is extremely predictable,” noting that he tends to uphold court precedent…which could potentially be a good thing in terms of upholding gay marriage.Obamacare Mandate
But Kavanaugh, while on the D.C. federal bench, is accused of helping to keep Barack Obama’s signature achievement alive in a 2011 case based on the law’s individual mandate. Kavanaugh detailed how he views the role federal courts should play, one that includes no oversight over Congress’s taxation powers. “For judges, there is a natural and understandable inclination to decide these weighty and historic constitutional questions,” Kavanaugh wrote. “But in my respectful judgment, deciding the constitutional issues in this case at this time would contravene an important and long-standing federal statute, the Anti-Injunction Act, which carefully limits the jurisdiction of federal courts over tax-related matters.”Environmental Protections
Kavanaugh dissented from denial of rehearing en banc in a case involving regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions. Kavanaugh resisted the agency’s attempt to adapt the language of a 1970 statute, the Clean Air Act, to permit regulation of an environmental problem that Congress did not anticipate when it enacted the statute, concluding that the EPA had “exceeded its statutory authority” when it issued the greenhouse-gas regulations. He argued that accepting the EPA’s approach would allow agencies to “adopt absurd or otherwise unreasonable interpretations of statutory provisions and then edit other statutory provisions to mitigate the unreasonableness,” and warned that “undue deference or abdication to an agency carries its own systemic costs.” Kavanaugh has not always ruled against the EPA, however. In National Mining Association v. McCarthy, in 2014, he wrote a panel decision upholding an EPA program aimed at addressing the environmental effects on waterways of mountaintop-removal coal mining. And in 2010, in American Trucking Associations v. EPA, he wrote an opinion upholding the EPA’s review of California’s limits on emissions from in-use non-road engines. On occasion, a Kavanaugh opinion siding with the EPA’s opponents has been a win for environmental interests, as in Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA, in 2014, in which he wrote an opinion that vacated an EPA rule establishing an affirmative defense for cement-kiln operators sued for exceeding emission limits.Originalism and Law interpretation
Kavanaugh has begun to spell out an approach to statutory interpretation, in what he explains as an effort to limit judicial activism. In a 2017 speech at Notre Dame Law School, Kavanaugh, like Roberts during his confirmation hearing, endorsed a “vision[] of the rule of law as a law of rules, and of the judge as umpire,” cautioning against allowing judges to import their policy preferences into their rulings Rather than trying to decide whether a statute is ambiguous, “judges should strive to find the best reading of the statute, based on the words, context, and appropriate semantic canons of construction."Quil0n on July 10th, 2018 at 01:10 UTC »
Kavanaugh is about as conservative as Gorsuch. I don’t think that’s too out there for Republicans.
Plus I think it’s a signal to Kennedy that two Supreme Court seats were replaced by his clerks.