MAENNER: Kavanaugh must be denied for SCOTUS
Amid a period of American politics where polarization of ideological identities has run rampant upon our national mindset, the Supreme Court has remained the purveyors of truth and reason within American governance. Yet, with the legislative branch now seemingly at a perpetual political deadlock and the limited authority possessed by the executive branch to bring about wide-sweeping changes, all eyes have now settled on the Court as the decider of these political disputes, and thus it has become subject to the whims and pressures the founders intended to keep it quarantined from.
And therein lies the main problem behind Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. The testimonies given by Kavanaugh and the woman accusing him of sexual assault, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, could not have been more polar opposites. It was Ford who spoke with a calm demeanor and illustrated her great integrity and character by being honest about when she was not sure, while Kavanaugh acted no better than an entitled and spoiled, petulant child lashing out about not getting his way. Surely any unbiased observer could tell you that Kavanaugh’s behavior was unbefitting of a justice on the highest court in the land. But, his actions and the supportive Republican response show that this nomination has nothing to do with respecting one of our most sacred institutions and everything to do with advancing political goals through an apolitical establishment.
Take for instance Kavanaugh’s inability to keep his story straight throughout this entire confirmation process. His original defense against the drunken sexual assault charge levied against him was that he was not a drinker, nor did he have sex until well after high school and college. Yet, his high school yearbook entries and conversations with Yale classmates paint a picture far different than his choir boy claims. Once the truth about his adolescent transgressions became public, he resorted to justifying his heavy drinking by saying that the “seniors were legal” at the time of these parties. This line conveniently leaves out the fact that he was never a senior during this time, and that by the time he did turn 18, the drinking age had already been raised to 21 in Maryland. Furthermore, Kavanaugh has also decried the lie-detector tests during this process as “not reliable,” a sweeping 180-degree switch from his support of their use as an “important law enforcement tool” in a 2016 decision. The worst of all has been Kavanaugh’s incessant assertions that the witnesses implicated by Ford have all denied the party in question, claiming that it never even happened — an ignorant misunderstanding at best and a blatant misrepresentation at its worst.
As we move back to the implications of Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, we would be wise to heed the warnings set forth by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78. He wrote that because of “the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed or influenced by its co-ordinate branches.” Recent events have proven that the lack of the power of sword and purse has resulted in the Court’s fragility, which can only be pacified by the absence of direct influence of political forces. While the founders believed that lifetime terms would distance the Court from the political passions of the time period, in modern practice, it has only made it more critical for the political arms within our society to install judges, not for their integrity and capability to fairly interpret the law, but for their own personal biases and deep-seeded beliefs as to what the law should be. If the duty of a Supreme Court justice is truly to be “a neutral and impartial arbiter” of the law like Kavanaugh has said, how can we possibly trust a man who has no problem playing loose with the facts, and who clearly holds a raging partisan animus, to make decisions based solely on reason and the law.
Without impartiality, the Supreme Court’s legitimacy no longer rests as a product of the institution itself, but on the individuals who serve on it. If we continue down the road of further politicizing the Supreme Court, we run the risk of its pull and stature within society crumbling as it becomes more of an extension of the political realm than an independent arbiter of disputes within it. While Kavanaugh is not at the root of this issue, his appointment and continued support by Senate Republicans are clear indications of the extent to which traditional procedures and basic levels of decorum and decency have fallen by the wayside with regard to the Court. For this reason, it is crucial that Kavanaugh’s nomination be rejected, lest we reach a point of no return on the path to delegitimizing the highest court in the land.
Hunter Maenner is a School of Arts and Sciences junior majoring in criminal justice and political science. His column, "Maenner's Musings," runs on alternate Mondays.
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