page_title: Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination
section_title: Opposition
hierarchical_section_title: Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination / Responses to the nomination / Opposition
caption_attribution_description: English: A protest against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as Associate Justice of the United States was held in Seattle, Washington on 6 October 2018.
context_page_description: On July 9, 2018, President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. When nominated, Kavanaugh was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a position he was appointed to in 2006 by President George W. Bush.
  The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Judge Kavanaugh and heard witness testimonies concerning his nomination to the Supreme Court over the course of a four-day hearing, September 4–7, 2018. Several days later, it was revealed that Christine Blasey Ford had written a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein in July accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault while they were both in high school in 1982. The Committee postponed its vote and invited both Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford to appear at public hearing. In the interim, two other women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, accused Kavanaugh of separate past instances of sexual assault.
  Both Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford testified before the Committee on September 27; the following day the nomination was forwarded to the full Senate on an 11–10 vote.
context_section_description: A number of Senate Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, stated their intent to oppose Kavanaugh's confirmation shortly after his nomination was announced.
  A progressive group, Demand Justice, pledged $5 million to block the nomination.   Demand Justice is a Sixteen Thirty Fund initiative.  It purchased ads on Twitter, Facebook, and TV.
  It was reported by Vox that some social conservatives were disappointed that Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh. The American Family Association, a socially conservative organization founded in 1977, immediately called on its members to rally against Kavanaugh. March for Life also expressed concerns that Kavanaugh's leadership bore similarities to that of Vice President Mike Pence, saying that the judge lacked the "backbone" to overturn Roe v. Wade.
  An open letter rebuking Yale Law School over a press release celebrating Kavanaugh's nomination was signed by over 600 of its alumni.
  The American Civil Liberties Union stated that Kavanaugh's record "demonstrates hostility to international law as a constraint on government action as well as an unwillingness to hold the government to account when it violates the constitutional and human rights of U.S. citizens and noncitizens" and that his "approach would give the president exceedingly broad and dangerous powers".
  A number of progressive groups joined together to launch a campaign known as #WhipTheVote to rally opposition to Kavanaugh's nomination, aimed particularly among moderate and conservative Democrats. "Democratic senators should be united in opposition to Kavanaugh, instead of letting Republican senators ram through the confirmation of a nominee who was selected to protect the president from prosecution,” read a statement from the effort's website. An open letter from Native Americans called upon Senators to closely examine Kavanaugh's record regarding Native peoples, and felt he had failed to acknowledge the sovereignty, natural resources, and history and heritage of native people.
  Benjamin Wittes, an official at the Brookings Institution and the Hoover Institution and a vocal critic of Donald Trump, initially expressed support for Kavanaugh but said that he would be confirmed "for all the wrong reasons" in an article attacking partisanship surrounding Supreme Court nominations. Wittes withdrew his support after Ford and Kavanaugh's testimony before the Senate, finding Ford "wholly credible" and Kavanaugh's account not credible on his drinking habits, and his performance improper and "unacceptable in a justice."
  More than 2,400 American law professors signed a letter opposing Kavanaugh's confirmation on the basis of his "intemperate, inflammatory and partial manner" during his congressional testimony, without referencing any of the accusations about his behavior decades earlier.
  Former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, 98 years old at the time, stated on October 4, 2018, that he previously thought Kavanaugh "had the qualifications for the Supreme Court should he be selected," but "his performance in the hearings ultimately changed my mind."
  Between September 10 and 16, 2018, Kavanaugh had the highest opposition (42%) of any of the eleven Supreme Court nominees Gallup has polled about since Robert Bork in 1987.
  The interdenominational National Council of Churches, which represents 100,000 congregations and 45 million churchgoers, released a statement on October 3, saying that Kavanaugh "possesses neither the temperament nor the character essential for a member of the highest court in our nation.”
  On October 4, a Washington Post editorial came out opposing Kavanaugh's confirmation, their first opposition to a nominee since Robert Bork, citing his "hyperpartisan rhetoric" that "poisoned any sense that he could serve as an impartial judge."
  That same day, three of Kavanaugh's Yale "drinking buddies" published an opinion piece opposing his confirmation, asserting he was dishonest in his sworn testimony and in a Fox News interview, without referencing any of the sexual abuse accusations against him.
caption: Following Kavanaugh's confirmation, several protests were held around the United States by women's rights activists.
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