Kavanaugh’s record will be closely studied leading up to the hearings.
More will be known about his judicial positions then.
I disagree. Republicans don’t actually care about his record. They would vote for him no matter what kind of job he has done.
What’s your opinion on the Kelo decision?
Huh, really? I suppose there’s all kinds. Perhaps Souter Derangement Syndrome, to borrow a turn of phrase? Feeling so close to really undoing, not just Roe, but everything back to before the New Deal that they can taste it, and all that stands in the way of it happenning NOW!!! is the possibility of someone actually, well, conservative, who may not believe that the answer to judicial activism past is reverse judicial legislation now.
Or maybethey can’t forgive him having given Roberts the “out” of calling the individual mandate a tax, or him being in the team that failed to oust Bill Clinton and in so failing ensured there’ll never be a President Newt (many thanks and credit to them for that, at least :D). Or maybe you have run into some types who have redefined right wing ideology as being about Trumpian temperament, by which anyone who is respectably presentable in polite society must be by definition “some kind of liberal”. (I suppose there’s people who want to see someone show up at the hearings and respond to the questions with the legal testimony equivalent of (pace, Arlo) “Senator… I wanna kill. I mean, kill, I wanna I mean, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies.”)
The only thing of substance in there was the supposed liberal opinion that gave Roberts the idea that the ACA could be upheld as a tax.
If you read the opinion, Kav did what Roberts should have done if he thought it was a tax and dismissed the suit and decided it later. Kav was careful to note that he suspected that the law could not be ultimately upheld as a valid exercise of interstate commerce, and also not as a tax because the law affirmatively prohibited not having health insurance in a section separate from the taxing section.
It was a pretty damned conservative opinion but because the Plaintiffs main complaint was the payment of the penalty, he punted. The dicta was very powerful, almost in line with the dissenters in the SC case.
Oh, absolutely. I get the feeling that some of the ultra-righties are now looking at Roberts himself as the New Kennedy, for that. Which overlooks that the SCOTUS does a lot of punting when they can get away with it regardless of the dominant leaning.
But if there are hard-righties who think Kavanaugh is not truly conservative, IMO that has as much “substance” to it as my other fanciful musings on what could possibly lead there. I have to conclude they will never find anyone conservative enough.
This.
The endorsement of President PantsOnHead is all the record they need to know.
And I’m sure that both of you withheld judgment until after the announcement last night, then read through all 300 of Kavanaugh’s opinions and came to a reasoned decision to oppose him.
I’m seriously trying to understand, though. How is Kavanaugh not conservative “enough”? I understand the worry about Souter, Kennedy, O’Connor, and how Republican presidents screw up sometimes while Democratic presidents are perfect at picking justices, but where is the evidence that Kav is a closet Souter?
Did Souter write conservative opinions before being appointed to the Court? Did he ever use the phrase “abortion on demand” in an opinion? (And that’s a bonus hint to those on the left: anyone who uses that phrase will overturn Roe tomorrow).
I disagree with Kelo v. New London. I don’t think that the takings clause should, or can, be fairly read to permit taking of property for private ownership. I think “public use” is essentially meaningless if it includes private ownership.
Eventually SCOTUS will take up another 2nd Amendment case. When that happens it looks like Kavanaugh is the man to have there.
Because of course that means letting the Republicans and the Republicans alone decide what to do with Trump, which means he can break the law with impunity.
Kavanaugh is like any other Republican; he’ll pick whichever option favors his party the most and enables the most corruption.
Kavanaugh made this statement in 2009. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which party was in charge of Congress and the Presidency.
I’m hopeful that’s true, but also a bit skeptical. If you read the dissent in Heller II that he wrote, he essentially abandoned the 1st amendment analysis analogue that other circuits used and relied almost solely on history, long standing laws, etc. He got the result right, but his reasoning says that machine gun bans are okay because 1986 Hughes is long standing. Wut? His read of Heller was in my view way way off base.
With that kind of squishy reasoning, he could go either way on reciprocity, concealed carry, etc. At least with the other person, Hardigan , i think, he wrote the dissent in The NJ carry case, Filco. He would have been better. Sykes wrote the opinion in Ezell which is an excellent analysis of 2nd amendment jurisprudence that I hope the court eventually adopts.
So yeah, he’s not a liberal, but I wouldn’t think a slam dunk at this point. SCOTUS hasn’t granted cert on any gun cases really, if they start doing so with Kavanaugh there then it was Roberts and Kennedy that fell away from the Heller 5. If that’s so, having Kavanaugh there to grant cert but not having Roberts vote could be disastrous.
So yeah, Ginsburg can retire any time now and that’s be fine by me 
Some of his writing is discussed in this article.
I like this position that administrative agencies should be kept in check.
I feel that’s a common misreading of the decision. A lot of people read about the case and decided that this was an issue of judicial overreach - the court stepping in and taking people’s property. But the Supreme Court didn’t take Kelo’s property; the City of New London did. The decision did not endorse New London’s law or condemn it. They said it wasn’t unconstitutional. And therefore, the decision over what was reasonable public use was better made by elected legislators in New London - and thousand of other towns and cities - who were answerable to local voters than by nine judges sitting in Washington. The majority didn’t say yes and they didn’t say no; they said it shouldn’t be our decision. It was pure judicial restraint. Or as you put it “That’s what I want judges to do: render under Congress what is Congress’.”
Considering what I know of the others on the list and the leftovers from the last list; he’s about the best I see happening. I’ll wait and see what comes out of the hearings.
I say since (IIRC) Trump has officially registered for 2020, the campaign is technically in progress and so the Senate should wait until the next Presidential election…
Brian
Extrapolate much?
I did not express an opinion about Kavanaugh in that statment.
I actually remember somewhat the controversy surrounding him circa 2006, when Republicans were threatening to invoke the nuclear option to get him and several other judges confirmed.