Brett Kavanaugh crossed a partisan line and the Supreme Court may never recover
“Over the last 50 years, we’ve increasingly turned the court into a second legislative branch,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute. Rosenzweig was once a senior counsel for the Ken Starr investigation into former President Bill Clinton, which Kavanaugh also worked for. Rosenzweig said he’s known Kavanaugh for decades. “We hope that most of the issues, the way they resolve it, they’re trying to do so neutrally and without reference to politics and partisanship. And increasingly it seems like it’s just power: Who’s got five votes? And that’s it. And it doesn’t matter right or wrong or lawful or unlawful or constitutional or unconstitutional.”
Rosenzweig, who declined to comment directly on Kavanaugh, pinned the blame for the devastating partisanship on the senators. “The process is not one that makes America proud or leaves anybody happy or reflects well on the Senate or the Court, which is damaged by this as well,” he said.
“I think that there’s some truth to the idea that the Democrats were going to try and defeat Kavanaugh no matter what,” Rosenzweig said. “It’s been partisan since the moment he was nominated. I think it got much worse yesterday, and that’s just deeply unfortunate.”
