Justice Brett Kavanaugh Just Made History — And Not in a Good Way

After a lot of arrests, protests, lies and grandstanding, the inevitable happened: The GOP managed to push their chosen judge, former George W. Bush operative Brett Kavanaugh, onto the Supreme Court.

Kavanaugh now holds a lifetime appointment, and he will likely be making decisions about our country’s future for decades to come.

It was truly an historic moment — and not in a good way at all. Here are some of the ways that Kavanaugh has broken precedent, made history or otherwise changed the face of judicial nominations.

1. There’s never been a justice accused of so many improper sexual acts.

Sure, Justice Clarence Thomas had his Anita Hill moment, where the then-nominee had to answer to claims that he sexually harassed and otherwise acted inappropriately to his former assistant. But Brett Kavanaugh wasn’t just facing down one person’s accusations of harassment or assault. By the time he was sworn as the newest Supreme Court justice, there were three different public accusers – all from different times in his life — with a fourth claim never brought out of the judiciary committee.

2. No justice has ever had such a small win in the Senate.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Kavanaugh made it onto the bench by the skin of his teeth.

The final tally was a mere 50 votes in his favor, with 48 senators saying no. And it would have been 49 opposed if Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, a prior no vote, hadn’t agreed to vote present so Senator Steve Daniels didn’t have to skip his daughter’s wedding just to make a majority.

According to the Washington Post, it was the narrowest confirmation margin in history.

3. No justice has lied so blatantly under oath — or so frequently.

If Kavanaugh had a Pinocchio nose, well, it probably would have grown all the way from the Senate chambers to the Supreme Court itself by the time his actual hearings were finished.

Media Matters kept track, and by the time Kavanaugh was finally done with the judiciary committee, he had lied under oath a whopping 20 different times that could be proven. Even worse, his lies were even contradicted by the limited and entirely cursory FBI investigation conducted in the few days after Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, if Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is to be believed.

Those are some really blatant falsehoods.

4. No one was ever opposed by the biggest group of churches in the nation.

One reason the right was so gung-ho about putting Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court was because, of all of the potential nominees, he seemed the most likely to uphold “religious liberty” as the ultimate constitutional right. Yet when it came down to the vote, the biggest group of churches in the nation actually opposed Kavanaugh.

The National Council of Churches, which represents 100,000 churches in the U.S. and more than 45 million churchgoers, urged senators not to confirm Kavanaugh, maintaining that the judge showed “extreme partisan bias” in his testimony. But the GOP simply ignored the group’s pleas.

5. Or opposed by so many law professors.

By the time Kavanaugh was sworn in, almost 2,500 law professors had signed a letter stating that they opposed his nomination to the highest court in the land. The group cited his lack of judicial restraint at the Senate hearing, where Kavanaugh bullied and obfuscated through all of the Senate Democrats’ questions.

6. No justice had prompted the American Bar Association to reevaluate their ranking.

While the GOP touted the American Bar Association’s “well-qualified” rating of Brett Kavanaugh as an example of his fitness for the Supreme Court, the ABA soon had second thoughts.

The group sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee stating that they would re-open his evaluation in light of new information “about his temperament,” signaling that Kavanaigh’s “unanimous” rating likely wouldn’t be around for long.

7. A retired justice suggested that he isn’t fit for the court.

Retired Supreme Court justices usually stay out of any sort of political fray, but Justice John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford, just couldn’t stay quiet.

The 98 year-old Stevens explained:

[Kavanaugh's remarks] suggest that he has demonstrated a potential bias involving enough potential litigants before the court that he would not be able to perform his full responsibilities. And I think there is merit in that criticism and that the senators should really pay attention to it.

For the good of the court, it’s not healthy to get a new justice that can only do a part-time job.

8. No justice was followed into court with a mass of complaints against him.

The Washington Post reports

A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — the court on which Kavanaugh serves — sent a string of complaints to Roberts starting three weeks ago, according to four people familiar with the matter.

That judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, had dismissed other complaints against Kavanaugh as frivolous, but she concluded that some were substantive enough that they should not be handled by Kavanaugh’s fellow judges in the D.C. Circuit.

Of course, Chief Justice John Roberts ignored the complaints until Kavanaugh was sworn in, making him protected from accusations in the lower court. It just goes to show that the fear that the Supreme Court would become a partisan tool, rather than an independent branch of government, has become a reality.

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