By Ameara Ditsche
Staff Writer
On Saturday Oct. 6, Brett Kavanaugh was officially confirmed to the supreme court. Kavanaugh was nominated by Donald Trump and has since had trouble garnering public support.
In the wake of his nomination, Dr. Christine Blaisey Ford allegated that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school.
After Dr. Ford’s accusations, a woman by the name of Deborah Ramirez—Kavanaugh’s former classmate at Yale University— also came forward and claimed Kavanaugh inappropriately exposed himself to her at a party in college.
The Senate seemed very divided on whether or not they’d vote to confirm. The final vote was 50-48.
The Supreme Court is the highest judicial power in the country. It is irresponsible to put someone who is an alleged criminal in this position.
Regardless of lack of conviction, there should be an investigation happening, and the confirmation of his nomination pending whilst doing so.
Someone who possibly has criminal tendencies is definitely biased on a board often responsible for handling judicial issues, possibly criminal ones.
The fact that there is a possibility that Kavanaugh is a rapist, basically gives rapists an advantage at the level of government.
The Senate had a hearing where Dr. Ford was able to give a testimony and Kavanaugh could provide defense. His main piece of evidence was a calendar from 1982, the year of Ford’s accusations.
He used the calendar as a poor attempt at allbi. He claimed he was too busy to have time to go to parties. He also constantly talked about lifting weights and beer.
In a drunken assault case, “I like lifting weights and beer” is probably not the best statement in your defense.
The final vote was 50-48. Two senators were absent from the vote. Since each state has 2 senators regardless of population, this often is an uneven distribution of power as the population in the United States is not evenly distributed.
The house of representatives works to balance this by assigning representatives based on population, but SCOTUS confirmations are not required to go through the house.
Since Kavanaugh’s views are very conservative, he attracted support from senators from conservative areas.
The areas in the United States that are most conservative, usually happen to be the ones with lower populations. Some of the least populous states like Wyoming or Montana, tend to provide the most conservative senators
The 50-48 vote represented an unproportionate amount of the American people.
With the 50 “Yes” votes representing approximately 143 million people and the 48 “No” votes representing 181 million people.
Being a supreme court justice is a lifelong term. It gives one immense power over the judicial rule of the United States.
The president and congress may implement policy, but the supreme court has possibly the biggest hand at enforcing those policies.
It is responsible and wrong to allow someone like Brett Kavanaugh to have this power.
He is a threat to women everywhere. His beliefs are outdated and sexist. His confirmation is a prime example of not only how broken our political system is, but how our society is regressing back to discriminatory views under the disguise of “tradition.”
