The Atlantic

The Precedent That Democrats Want Brett Kavanaugh to Break

Modern Supreme Court nominees never discuss how they feel about specific cases. Chuck Schumer believes that should change when President Trump’s pick faces the Senate.
Source: Alex Brandon / AP

Democrats want to know, Judge Kavanaugh: How will you rule?

For at least 25 years, it’s been the closest thing to an off-limits question at any Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Knowing a presidential nominee will never answer, senators almost never explicitly ask how he or she would decide a specific case that could come before the high court.

But as President Trump’s pick, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, prepares to go before the Senate, Democratic leaders are signaling that that norm—like so many others in the increasingly partisan Supreme Court nomination process—is no longer operative.

In a speech on Monday, delivered hours before Trump , Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared that whoever the president selected to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy “has an obligation—a serious?

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