… This nomination has managed to do considerable damage to all three branches of government. It made the presidency appear more petty than it already looked. The spectacle of Republican senators hiring a female prosecutor to speak to Ford rather than speak to her themselves, then dismissing and diminishing Ford once she was out of the room, and then approving an unpopular new justice on one of the narrowest confirmation votes in history while representing a minority of the population did much to undermine the Senate’s legitimacy. And this is on top of denying Obama a court nomination in the final year of his presidency. Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the damage done to the Senate as a democratic institution through the past two court nominations at the hands of Mitch McConnell and his colleagues.
Finally, this has done a great deal of damage to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, in no small part thanks to Kavanaugh’s conspiratorial, partisan, and vengeful tirade during his confirmation hearings. CONT.
Seth Masket (U. of Denver), Pacific Standard