California Sen. Kamala Harris has carved a reputation for incisive questioning of congressional witnesses, but that strength risks becoming a weakness during Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett‘s Senate confirmation hearings.
Harris is part of the Senate Judiciary Committee that confronted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 over a series of decadesold sexual misconduct allegations he denied.
Two years later, the panel is considering another controversial appointment 37 days before a general election. And Harris is on the ballot as the 2020 Democratic vice presidential pick on Joe Biden’s ticket.
Concerns regarding fellow California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 87, and whether the committee’s ranking member is up to leading the Democratic interrogation of Barrett have been met with suggestions Harris should spearhead the effort instead.
But some Democrats, including two-term Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler, are cautioning Harris to cede the spotlight when the 22-person panel opens the first of four days of hearings into Barrett on Oct. 12.
Gansler, who served alongside Harris when she was California’s top law enforcement officer from 2011 to 2017, said she should try to be as apolitical as possible during the process, concentrating instead on Barrett’s ideology. That contradicts advice given to President Trump to think of Barrett as his running mate based on how Republicans energize and organize around the issue of the Supreme Court.
“She’s no longer just a prosecutor and no longer just a senator, she’s a vice presidential candidate,” Gansler told the Washington Examiner of Harris, who was also San Francisco’s district attorney and an Alameda County line prosecutor.
He added, “It would behoove Sen. Harris to do the least amount of questioning that she can do in this case because she should not and does not want to appear to be political.”
For Gansler, Barrett’s nomination was “hypocritical and wrong on so many levels” after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked President Barack Obama from naming Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016 because it was an election year.
But the lawyer warned a political spectacle would likely distract from Democrats underscoring how Barrett could undermine Obamacare and abortion rights. The court is due to hear a case determining the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality on Nov. 10. Trump has alluded to the bench potentially overturning landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade as well, though Barrett has only mentioned the prospect of restrictions changing.
“The idea that this woman, this judge is going to be confirmed to the Supreme Court ought to be a lightning rod to motivate women to come out to vote to preserve the right to their choice,” Gansler said. “But I don’t think that Sen. Harris ought to get in the middle of that. There’s plenty of other Democrats that can make that case and ask those questions.”
He recommended not to reprise Feinstein’s inquiry into Barrett’s Catholic faith from her 2017 confirmation to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“That’s just stupid,” Gansler said.
Republican Chris DeRose, a former prosecutor himself, agreed Harris should avoid political scrummages, though he doubted she would heed his advice.
“This pandemic has made it difficult for the Biden campaign to get attention. So, expect Sen. Harris to be front and center during confirmation questioning,” he said.
DeRose believed Democrats wouldn’t be able to resist leveling the type of personal broadsides that first brought Barrett national attention.
“This ‘religious test’ they seek to apply is prohibited by the Constitution and will alienate millions of voters, but many Democratic senators seem unable to help themselves,” he said.
Harris has already indicated she’s leaning toward a politicized assault. She issued a statement through her Senate press office last weekend shortly after Trump tapped Barrett for the country’s highest court, the third vacancy he’s had to fill during his first term.
Prior to that, she’s repeatedly used language such as “fight,” while 2020 Democratic standard-bearer Biden has urged Senate Republicans to uphold their constitutional oaths of office.
“With the next Supreme Court Justice set to determine the fate of protections for those with preexisting health conditions, and reproductive health options, I will continue to fight on behalf of the people and strongly oppose the presidentâs nomination,” Harris wrote Saturday.
Democratic strategists insist the healthcare argument is more persuasive to voters than criticizing McConnell for being a hypocrite. But Harris deployed both arguments Monday during a Biden campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina. She argued, too, that Barrett threatened voting rights and âour ability to make a living, take care of our families, and dismantle systemic racism.”
“We will not let the infection that President Trump has injected into the presidency and into Congress, that has paralyzed our politics and pitted Americans against each other, spread to the United States Supreme Court,” she said.
