Following the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford hearing on Thursday, America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, published a piece titled, “The Editors: It is time for the Kavanaugh nomina
Following the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford hearing on Thursday, America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, published a piece titled, “The Editors: It is time for the Kavanaugh nomination to be withdrawn.”
In the piece, the editors state that while they previously endorsed Brett Kavanaugh based on his strong textualist viewpoint and solid “legal credentials,” the allegations against the SCOTUS nominee have led them to withdraw their endorsement:
The editors continue, noting that if this were simply a legal or moral issue, Kavanaugh’s presumption of innocence “might settle the matter in his favor, absent further investigation and new evidence.” However, this nomination, they argue, has a wider scope:
Further, the editors state that because the role of the court has changed, becoming a near-political body, the nomination process has evolved – it’s no longer about simple capability, but about ideology (a fact they lament). After mentioning the way Senate Republicans treated the Merrick Garland nomination, they write:
The editors continue, claiming that because Ford’s “accusations have neither been fully investigated nor been proven to a legal standard, but neither have they been conclusively disproved or shown to be less than credible,” the Kavanaugh nomination should be withdrawn:
The editors conclude by noting that if Senate Republicans want to move forward, they must seek further investigation or risk confirming an individual who would cast a shadow over the court.
The nomination of a textualist judge is the proper move in order to potentially reverse decisions like Roe v. Wade and hand the abortion issue back to the states “where it belongs given the Constitution’s silence on the matter,” according to the editors. They add, however, that Brett Kavanaugh is not that judge, given the current circumstances.
