10-6-18
Brett Kavanaugh's Confirmation Vote Is The Most Partisan In Modern History
Breaking Newstags: SCOTUS, Brett Kavanaugh, Confirmation
The Senate's confirmation vote of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to become the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court was the most partisan in modern history. The 50-48 tally continues a trend in which confirmations have devolved into strict party-line votes.
While political pundits spent months pondering over whether centrist or independent-minded Republicans--Maine's Susan Collins, Arizona's Jeff Flake, Tennessee's Bob Corker, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski--would vote against Kavanaugh, only Murkowski broke ranks by abstaining. Things were no different on the opposite end of the aisle. Of the Red-State Democrats--Montana’s Jon Tester, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, and West Virginia's Joe Manchin III--thought to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis, only Manchin, up for election in a state that gave Donald Trump his second largest margin of victory in the 2016 presidential election, switched sides.
The party-line votes are the culmination of a trend begun in 2005 when 22 senators broke ranks to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Of the five subsequent nominations, no more than nine senators have voted against their party's position.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- SPLC: Over 160 Confederate Symbols Were Removed in 2020
- Lawrence Otis Graham, 59, Dies; Explored Race and Class in Black America
- How Negro History Week Became Black History Month and Why It Matters Now
- A Harvard Professor Called Wartime Sex Slaves ‘Prostitutes.’ One Pushed Back
- African-American Sacrifice in the Killing Fields of France
- A Chapter In U.S. History Often Ignored: The Flight Of Runaway Slaves To Mexico
- For Many, an Afro isn’t Just a Hairstyle
- With Free Medical Clinics and Patient Advocacy, the Black Panthers Created a Legacy in Community Health That Still Exists Amid COVID-19
- With a Touch of Wisdom: Human Rights, Memory, and Forgetting
- New Exhibit Reckons With Glendale's Racist Past as ‘Sundown Town'