Judge Kavanaugh is a principled choice for SCOTUS

A seat on the Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment – there are no mulligans. If the president and the Senate don’t get it right, we all live with the consequences. This makes it all the more important that when we evaluate Judge Brett Kavanaugh for such an appointment, we focus on the fundamental principles that he will bring to the court for a lifetime.

Too often when discussing the merits of a judicial nominee, the debate turns to politics and policy. What party does the nominee support? What policies are they itching to rewrite? Whose side are they on?

{mosads}Those questions may be pertinent when voting for political candidates, but they are precisely the wrong questions to ask about a judicial nominee. The role of a Supreme Court justice – in fact, any judge – is not to write the law or advance a political agenda. Rather, it is to stick to the meaning of the law as written and defend our constitutional rights from governmental encroachment.

Here are the kinds of questions we should be asking: Does the nominee have the proper experience, temperament and humility to warrant a seat on our nation’s highest court? When it comes to Judge Kavanaugh, the answer is a clear “yes.”

Judge Kavanaugh could hardly be more qualified. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, his lengthy legal career includes a clerkship for Justice Anthony Kennedy – the man he’s been selected to replace. Since 2006, Judge Kavanaugh has sat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, often considered second in importance only to the Supreme Court.

Over the last 12 years, Judge Kavanaugh has written hundreds of opinions that testify to his fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law. Thirteen times the Supreme Court endorsed positions laid out in his opinions on some very high-stakes issues.

But it’s Judge Kavanaugh’s commitment to following the text of the Constitution as written that really sets him apart. In a keynote address last year at Notre Dame Law School, Judge Kavanaugh affirmed Justice Antonin Scalia’s conviction that “the judge’s job is to interpret the law, not to make the law.”

“I believe very deeply in those visions of the rule of law as a law of rules, and of the judge as umpire,” he said. “By that, I mean a neutral, impartial judiciary that decides cases based on settled principles without regard to policy preferences or political allegiances or which party is on which side in a particular case.”

To you, that may seem the obvious role for a federal judge. But there are many in Washington who view that impartiality with horror. These folks have come to rely on the judiciary to win for them in the courtroom what they cannot win through the legislative process. Thankfully, Judge Kavanaugh won’t play that game.    

Given his background, Judge Kavanaugh should sail through the nomination process. Unfortunately, lawmakers in Washington all too often put politics over principle, as when a majority of Democrats in the Senate voted to filibuster the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

If politicians once again engage in this kind of cynical obstructionism it would be a mistake, says Professor Akhil Reed Amar, who taught Judge Kavanaugh while he was a student at Yale Law School. In a New York Times op-ed – “A Liberal’s Case for Brett Kavanaugh” – Amar calls Judge Kavanaugh a “superb nominee” who “commands wide and deep respect among scholars, lawyers and jurists.” He urges Senate Democrats not to stand in the way of his nomination by attacking him or dragging out the proceedings.

As his confirmation hearing will no doubt make clear, Judge Kavanaugh is a principled and eminently qualified pick for the Supreme Court. Senators of all stripes should give him a swift confirmation and help deliver the “neutral, impartial judiciary” that Americans deserve.

Sarah Field is the vice president of judicial strategy of Americans for Prosperity.