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The 53-year-old judge who grew up in the Washington Beltway will succeed retired California-centrist conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has ensured that the majority bloc does not pull the law and the American law too far right .
Nothing in Kavanaugh's record or days of testimony suggests that his approach would fluctuate like Kennedy's. It is unlikely that President Donald Trump's nominee will be the only Conservative, as Kennedy has often done, to join the four Liberals for a majority decision on women's reproductive rights, same-sex marriage or marriage. other social policy conflicts.
While taking care not to reveal his points of view, Kavanaugh nonetheless reinforced the key themes of his almost quarter-century lawyer in Washington. Yale's law graduate has made rapid progress, standing out among ambitious young conservatives, making friends through ideological division and fostering relations with the press and law school deans.
Below are five points from his record and presidency before senators indicate how Kavanaugh would join the other eight judges of the highest court in the country:
- It would have an immediate impact. Not only would Kavanaugh secure the Conservative block, but he would be ready to play an active role. Retired justice David Souter, who served from 1990 to 2009, commented that it took him nearly five years to feel comfortable and confident in the high court. (The former Attorney General and New Hampshire Judge served only briefly on a federal bench.) Kavanaugh, a 12-year veteran of a major Washington court of appeal, has already shown comfortable with the federal issues of the Supreme Court. his people. As assistant to President George W. Bush, Kavanaugh participated in the selection of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005 and Associate Judge Samuel Alito in 2006. Kavanaugh also taught with Judge Elena Kagan, appointed by the President Barack Obama in 2010. who had been dean of law from Harvard. Kavanaugh dropped his name throughout the Senate hearings.
- Kavanaugh is also assured in his conservatism, particularly his tendency to be suspicious rather than deferential to federal regulatory interpretations of the laws. "It's the law you're writing," he told Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, noting that it would not impose new requirements, for example on businesses , which the Congress had not explained. As noted by Klobuchar, this view can limit workplace regulatory safeguards, environmental rules and consumer protection.
- Kavanaugh would vigorously engage with lawyers who appear in court and with fellow judges. During his testimony, he showed his ability to control issues and take advantage of rhetoric. In the past two years, Kennedy has been casual in argument. A Kavanaugh judge will likely be a more active participant in the oral argument. This means that Chief Justice John Roberts, who is already working as a traffic officer with loquacious colleagues, could have a harder job. It also means, as noted by former Solicitor General Paul Clement in his testimony in favor of Kavanaugh Friday, a "particularly hot bench".
- Kavanaugh is required to try to demonstrate that he agrees well with his colleagues. In an opening statement and throughout his testimony, he referred to "the team of nine people" to which he would join. Kavanaugh would try to bridge the substantive differences between the five Conservatives (Roberts and Alito, with judges Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, the first appointed by Trump). It is also unlikely that Kavanaugh could evade certain judicial traditions or immediately withdraw from the "pool" system by which most judges assign their clerks to appeals, as Gorsuch did last year. Kavanaugh also suggested that he would be willing to rely on the attitudes of his new colleagues regarding live audio recordings or cameras in the audience room. "I know that the candidates who have sat in this chair in the past have expressed the wish that cameras be placed in the audience room, only to go to the Supreme Court and change their positions fairly quickly", he declared. "So it gives me a certain humility about confident assertions about it."
- As he did at the hearings, a Kavanaugh judge would probably try to balance his own independence from the chair who appointed him. He declined to give his views on the executive power or protections afforded to a president likely to be the subject of an investigation and subpoena to testify. Unlike Gorsuch when he was a candidate, Kavanaugh refused to implicitly criticize Trump for his ongoing attempts to undermine the integrity of federal justice. When asked for his opinion on Trump's denunciation of Judge Gonzalo Curiel of the US District Court, with references to his Mexican ancestry, or to Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg after criticizing his candidacy, Kavanaugh is opposed. He did not want to "enter the three postal codes" of such political controversies.
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