The problem and solution to the politicization of Supreme Court confirmations
The battle to confirm Brett Kavanaugh in the fall of 2018 showed that the Supreme Court is now part of the same toxic cloud that envelops all of the nation’s public discourse. Ironically, Kavanaugh was nominated in part because he was thought to be a safe pick, with a long public career that had been vetted numerous times. He was firmly part of the legal establishment, specifically its conservative mainstream, and had displayed a political caginess that still make some on the right worry that he’s too much like John Roberts rather than Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas.
As it turned out, of course, 11th-hour sexual assault allegations transformed what was already a contentious process into a partisan Rorschach test. All told, Kavanaugh faced a concerted opposition campaign unlike any seen since Robert Bork in 1987.
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Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
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