If the term “meaningful debate” confuses you, let me put it this way: Should the Senate read the FBI report, and allow Senators to express their conclusions based on that evidence?
Friday is the last day they can report. For all we know, they could come back tomorrow and say “we are done”. That would make a confirmation vote by the weekend.
Lindsay Graham has gone bananas. Now he says that if the vote falls short, then Kavanaugh should simply be re-nominated.
I predict the FBI report won’t come out until Friday.
He must have heard something about the votes that are on the fence, or the information being discovered by the FBI.
Or he wants that AG job bad, when he replaces Sessions during the lame duck session.
Or the Republicans will have the votes after the mid-terms. Flake will be gone, and they very well may pick up extra Senate seats.
That makes sense. Trump may have promised that to him if he gets Kavanaugh over the line.
For some reason the Republicans seem to be Kavanaugh or bust. No idea why.
I think it’s likely. I hope McConnell will file for cloture something like today or tomorrow, let the FBI finish their investigation, and vote shortly after that, perhaps Friday afternoon / evening or on Saturday.
Should Senators be allowed to express their conclusions drawn from the FBI evidence before a vote is taken?
Their vote is an expression of their conclusions. If that’s not sufficient, I suppose each one can issue a statement to the press outlining their feelings on the matter. Or tweet about it. I’m not sure if each Senator needs floor time to reiterate their positions. As noted, ~95 or so of them have already made up their mind. What good is accomplished by them restating their intention to vote for or against the nominee again? This sounds like just another attempt to delay the vote, but I’m open to hearing from you why it’s something more noble / worthy than that.
It doesn’t.
I see a few reasons:
(1) The GOP has a kind of honor culture such that losing this fight shames them and they believe their voters will punish them for it;
(2) Kavanaugh has now outed himself as an extreme partisan, likely a more solid vote for the GOP on the Supreme Court than Hardiman or ACB;
(3) Most of these dudes genuinely sympathize with Kavanaugh and see themselves in him and so emotionally want him.
Here’s my take on the situation. Senator Flake has already said he is a no if the FBI investigation shows that Kavanaugh lied under oath. It seems more and more likely that the FBI will find that to be the case. The question then is if Flake will stick to his word on this, and if he does will he be able to convince either Collins or Murkowski to join him in voting no. I expect that none of the Democrats will vote yes unless they already know that all the Republicans are a yes. I don’t think a 50/50 vote with Flake as the lone Republican no is likely, however, so IMHO at this point it seems that Collins and Murkowski are the swing votes. As far as knowing which way Collins and Murkowski are leaning, however, I wouldn’t even know where to start. I’ve always seen them as just a little to the left of Flake, but in this particular situation I just don’t know.
I think this is mostly wishful thinking on your part.
I guess we’ll know for sure later this week though.
Two reasons, one wrapped in the other; first, because he’s an extreme partisan. As he himself let show, he isn’t an impartial judge; if the matter before him is a political question that pits Republican against Democrat, he will side with the Republicans, no matter what the law says.
Secondly, but a part of that, is that Trump desperately wants him because he will make rulings that shield Trump from legal action. That is a result of point 1, above. Kavanaugh doesn’t REALLY think that Presidents should be protected from legal action; he thinks Republican Presidents should be protected from legal action. Trump, for obvious reasons, wants that on the Court, and so he’s on Congress’s back to make it happen.
The reason it’s confusing is that if you just wanted a conservative justice, there’s lots of them just as smart as Brett Kavanaugh who’d probably be hostile to abortion rights or Muslims or whatever. Kavanaugh is special because he’ll shield Trump from his crimes.
Could be, but from what I’ve read the initial order from Trump was to conduct that sort of investigation but then Flake insisted that it be a true investigation. Maybe I’m just interpreting those reports in the best possible light, but I think Flake wanted a serious investigation and not just a he said she said report, and that he was leaning toward voting no if the results were of that type. OTOH I seriously doubt he wants to be the only Republican no. If Collins and Murkowski vote yes, he will probably also vote yes to avoid that, and we will probably never know if he really wanted to vote no and was unable to convince Collins and Murkowski, or if he really wanted to vote yes.
Here’s what the FBI will “report”. The FBI will give summaries of the all witnesses’ interviews (called a 302) to the White House, who presumably will give them to the Senate. It’s not a transcript (the interviews are not even recorded which is a separate debatable issue), but a summary of the interview by the FBI agent. It’s very common to leave unimportant/non-material matters out of the 302.
The Senate should have time to read and draw their own conclusions from the all the 302’s. The Senators could reasonably draw different conclusions from the same 302 or all of them collectively (just like I could watch Kavanaugh’s testimony and think one thing, and someone else could reasonable think something different). Practically speaking, only a few Senators will read the 302’s to actually inform themselves and proceed to make a up/down vote based on the information - whether it be did Kav commit the alleged assualt(s), or did Kav lie - you can use the information in any way you want. The rest of the Senators will use them to convince those select few Senators and for talking points, etc. There’s no expectation the public would see the 302’s (especially if the witness said they’d prefer it remain confidential which is their right).
Here’s how the NYT describes it:
I’d also expect FBI Director Wray to add a memo qualifying the investigation and putting into context what the FBI did, and did not do. I’ll be reading this part with a close eye to determine how much was left undone, if anything.
Every time a Trump fan mentions delaying the vote we should all just reply “Merrick Garland”