Out of all the terrible things the 45th president has done, nominating Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court due to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement is the worst for its potential long-term impact on our lives. It’s particularly important for voters who live in these states to contact their senators, who have not yet publicly confirmed how they will vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, to urge them to vote NO:
Alabama — Doug Jones (D), Alaska– Lisa Murkowski (R), Arizona– Jeff Flake (R), Indiana– Joe Donnelly (D), Florida — Bill Nelson (D), Maine– Susan Collins (R), Angus King (I), Missouri– Claire McCaskill (D), Montana — Jon Tester (D), Nevada- Catherine Cortez Masto (D), North Dakota– Heidi Heitkamp (D), West Virginia — Joe Manchin (D).
Over the course of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, more than 20 groups came to the U.S. Capitol to protest and visit their senators. There were more than 200 arrests. I was arrested three times alongside the brave, fierce, smart women and allies from Arkansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Nevada, Illinois, Tennessee, of all races, ages, classes, sexual identities.
Had we not been there, almost everyone in the confirmation hearing would have been a white conservative Kavanaugh supporter.
The Senate could vote as early as Sept. 12 to confirm Kavanaugh.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants him confirmed before the Supreme Court term starts October 1, 2018.
To be confirmed, he needs 51 votes.
Judge Kavanaugh is only 53.
If he is confirmed, he will be the fifth conservative justice on a court of nine that makes decisions by majority vote.
He could easily serve 30 years on the highest Court in our country, a court whose decisions affect every aspect of our lives: who controls our reproduction, who can marry, who can protect themselves from what forms of discrimination, what guns are allowed and banned, whether police are held accountable when they kill unarmed Black people. Our voting rights, educational rights, civil rights are all on the line.
According to Vox, as of Sept. 6, 2018, 11 senators have not said how they will vote, 48 have said they support Kavanaugh, and 41 have said they oppose Kavanaugh.
If there is a tie, Vice President Pence could cast the deciding vote.
We must secure 51 firm NO votes to stop this confirmation.
The National Rifle Association and shadowy groups likely funded by the Koch Brothers are spending millions of dollars to get Kavanaugh confirmed, targeting Red states served by Blue senators with ads like this:
Brett Kavanaugh knows where his bread is buttered:
Decent Americans everywhere: we must demand our senators vote NO on confirming Kavanaugh.
I urge everyone reading this to contact both your senators, even if they are on record as opposing or supporting, to urge them to oppose.
The Senate’s main number is 202–224–3121.
You can also write a letter to your senator, or tweet, or IG.
It is especially important that voters in these states reach out to their senators, who are neutral or waffling in their support of Kavanaugh:
Here is a great letter that a friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous wrote to her senator, Joe Donnelly (D-IN).
I encourage you to copy and paste, edit as you see fit, and send to your senator:
“Senator Donnelly,
The current administration is under investigation for colluding with an enemy government.
The current administration has shown a remarkable contempt for the rule of law.
The current administration has displayed unprecedented levels of incompetence, nepotism, cronyism, and corruption.
The current administration may be in office only because of foreign interference with our electoral system.
The current administration placates and emboldens white supremacists, confederate separatists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK, home-grown terrorist organizations that threaten the safety and security of our citizens.
The current administration has demonstrated a complete disregard for women, with the president himself admitting to multiple counts of sexual assault.
The current administration has demonstrated an inability to put children’s welfare above corporate greed, having endorsed an admitted pedophile for public office and having torn asylum-seeking children out of their mothers’ arms to put them in cages and sell them to private enterprises run by corrupt members of the same administration.
The current administration fosters views that are outside the mainstream of American public opinion, that are antithetical to the ideals of our forefathers, and that are insulting to good people everywhere.
The current administration enjoys the luxury of a rubber-stamp Congress that will not hold them accountable for their incompetence, their corruption, or their crimes.The Supreme Court is our last line of defense against the tyranny of a corrupt and morally bankrupt Executive branch. Kavanaugh has given us every indication that his views are outside the mainstream of American politics and values. He has given us every indication that he will not provide the essential “checks and balances” that the Constitution of the United States established for the security of our great nation.
When Congressional Republicans refused to hold a hearing on former President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, they broke with longstanding tradition of our legislative norms. When they continue to block, stonewall, and withhold key information about Kavanaugh, with the hopes of forcing a rushed vote, they further erode legal and procedural precedent. Indeed, Republicans are making a mockery of our very way of life by constantly putting party over country, ideology over policy, and self-interest above national interest.
I understand that there may be political ramifications for a Democratic senator from the state of Indiana for standing up to this attempt at a wholesale power grab by the Republican administration. I’m asking you, not as a fellow Democrat, but as a fellow American, to take a stand for decency. Vote NO on Kavanaugh.
Thank you,
Voters of color, progressive whites: WE are the majority of the electorate. We sent President Obama to the White House twice! It is completely unfair for the Senate to confirm a Supreme Court justice who will go against everything we believe in.
Please watch Senator Hirono, Senator Harris, Senator Leahy, Senator Booker, and Senator Whitehouse’s excellent questioning of Kavanaugh which demonstrate that Kavanaugh is a right wing extremist whose views are antithetical to most Americans.
Most imperatively, Kavanaugh believes presidents should be exempt from “time-consuming and distracting” lawsuits and investigations, which “would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.”
The decision of whether Mueller can lawfully indict a sitting president cannot rest in the hands of someone who would owe Trump for being nominated and is already on record as supporting presidential exemption from civil and criminal prosecution.
If Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court, he will join four other conservative justices on a court of nine who make decisions based on the majority.
Conservatives have strategically worked for a long time to have a five justice conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and will in a short time get cases before the court that will remake America to favor the rich, powerful, religious right, National Rifle Association, police, and Border Patrol even more than it does now.
Women, people of color, children and young people, LGBT, immigrants, people who are overpoliced, people with preexisting conditions, unions, poor people will all bear the brunt and become even MORE marginalized if Kavanaugh is confirmed.
2. Kavanaugh’s confirmation process is a sham.
Foremost, because President Trump is not a legitimate president.
Four of his closest associates who worked on his campaign have pled guilty or been convicted of serious crimes: Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Richard Gates and George Papadopoulos, and Trump himself is the subject of six separate investigations and lawsuits.
President Trump won because of illegal Russian hacking of our election aided and abetted by Facebook.
Americans who disagree with Kavanaugh’s extremist views vastly outnumber those who agree, and no modern nominee to the Supreme Court as unpopular as Kavanaugh has been confirmed.
It’s just plain wrong for an illegitimate president to make a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, especially of a judge whose views are so far outside the mainstream.
Secondly, Republicans sped up the confirmation, not allowing senators nor the public sufficient time to review Kavanaugh’s vast public record before the confirmation hearings started on September 4, 2018.
Republicans know their time is limited, and Kavanaugh is extremely unpopular. According to CNN, “No nominee who was as unpopular as Kavanaugh is currently has been confirmed in the modern era.”
They want to sneak this nominee through before the American people speak out about why they oppose him.
On November 6, 2018 Americans go to the polls. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as are 35 of the 100 seats in the US Senate.
Republicans realize that Trump could be gone very shortly. With impeachment becoming more likely with each passing day, President Trump could well be gone before his first term comes to an end.
3. Kavanaugh is untrustworthy.
Significant evidence shows that Kavanaugh repeatedly lied under oath.
In the words of the New York Times Editorial Board, “He misstates facts under oath, and Republicans cover for him by making it hard, if not impossible, to get the documents proving it.”
In the words of my friend Deborah: This is a position of integrity, and if Kavanaugh had any integrity, he would withdraw his candidacy himself.
Folx, the stakes could not be higher!
All Americans, especially people of conscience in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Florida, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and West Virginia, please speak up now before it’s too late.
Tell your senators to do the right thing and #StopKavanaugh!
202–224–3121
Karen Fleshman, Esq. is an attorney, activist, and a nationally recognized expert on racism, feminism, workplace fair practices, police brutality, and politics. Working in nonprofits and local government, Karen came to understand that racism is the underlying problem in our society. In 2014, Karen founded Racy Conversations, a training company, to inspire the first antiracist generation.
She gives talks and facilitates workshops at companies throughout the United States on unconscious bias, micro aggressions, sexual harassment, and raising antiracist children. Her clients include the Sierra Club, the Wikimedia Foundation, Yahoo, Sony, Xero, Salesforce, and KARGO. She blogs for Medium, LinkedIn, Huffington Post, Moguldom, and Blavity. Karen dedicates much of her time to police accountability activism and serves on the workgroup overseeing implementation of the United States Department of Justice recommendations on ending bias at the San Francisco Police Department. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, the University of Texas at Austin, and New York Law School, and is admitted to practice law in New York.
