President Bush?s long-stalled nomination of a White House aide to serve on a federal court in the District will be resurrected Tuesday in a Senate hearing that could reignite the debate over filibusters.
White House Staff Secretary Brett Kavanaugh will make his second appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since being nominated by Bush in 2003. Republicans grudgingly acceded to Democratic demands for a second hearing in exchange for assurances that Kavanaugh would not be filibustered.
The White House is bracing for Democrats to use the hearing as an opportunity to grill Kavanaugh about the administration?s terrorist surveillance program and whether terrorism suspects are tortured. Democrats also are expected to probe for possible White House links to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges in January. “It?s a staging event,” said Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. “I don?t know how sincere it is.”
The White House agreed to the second hearing after Democrats spent nearly three years blocking Kavanaugh from an up-or-down vote by the Judiciary Committee or a floor vote by the full Senate.
“This is not our first choice,” Perino said. “We would have preferred for Brett to be able to go straight to the floor. But if a second hearing will help Brett get confirmed, then by all means.” Moreover, by re-engaging Democrats on the issue of judicial nominations, the White House hopes to energize the Republican base in advance of November?s congressional elections. A similar strategy paid dividends in 2002, when Bush led Republicans to congressional victories in part by telling audiences that Democrats were obstructing his judicial picks.
“If he said ?judges,? people cheered,” recalled Bush?s top political strategist, Karl Rove. “They didn?t know exactly what it was, but they?d know that something was fundamentally flawed with the courts.” He added: “There was something stinky about how all these people were being held up.”
Democrats have long opposed Kavanaugh because he once worked for special prosecutor Kenneth Starr on the Monica Lewinsky investigation, which led to President Clinton?s impeachment. “Kavanaugh?s career is distinguished only by its partisanship,” said a report by the liberal group Alliance for Justice. “The White House appears to have chosen Kavanaugh only because of his partisan loyalty on some of the most ideologically charged issues of the past decade.”
The White House counters with scores of endorsements from legal scholars, both Republican and Democratic. And the American Bar Association has rated Kavanaugh as qualified to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District.
