Vice President Kamala Harris’ past questions during judicial nomination hearings signal her top priority when selecting judges is ensuring they will advance left-wing goals, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
While serving as a California senator, Harris used nomination hearings to press Trumps’ judicial appointees with questions on climate change, abortion and their membership in faith-based groups. The sharp partisan slant of her questioning demonstrates she values judges who will score her political points with voters rather than those who will interpret the law and Constitution as written, experts told the DCNF.
“If you look at the type of questions she’s asking, she clearly misunderstands the role of the court,” JCN President Carrie Severino said.
During Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing, Harris asked whether Barrett believed that “climate change is happening and is threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink?” At Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing, Harris asked if he could “think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?”
Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court one year ago today. Here’s a question I’m still thinking about from his confirmation hearing: Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body? pic.twitter.com/JG4d03SJag
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 10, 2019
Harris also questioned U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska Judge Brian Buescher about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, which she described as an “all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men.”
“Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?” Harris wrote in her written questions.
Severino told the DCNF it’s disturbing Harris considers membership in a “longstanding Catholic fraternal organization” to effectively be “disqualifying for a judicial position.”
“That seems to play into a lot of the anti-Catholic rhetoric that has been, unfortunately, in vogue in some Democrat circles,” Severino said.
Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF that Harris’ questions “clearly reflect her view of a political judiciary in which judges make result-oriented decisions based on personal views.”
“The liberal view of the judiciary is political and their goal is to appoint judges who will reliably advance liberal political interests,” Jipping said. “Liberals believe that judges’ personal views, more than the law, drive their decisions and, therefore, press to uncover nominees’ personal views on particular issues.”
“Liberals are fostering a political view of the judiciary that not only conflicts with the [designs] of America’s Founders, but makes the ‘rule of law’ impossible,” he continued.
Barrett says “yes” when Kamala Harris asks if she accepts COVID is infectious & smoking causes cancer but doesn’t say if climate change is a threat, calling it a “contentious matter of public debate”
Harris: “You’ve made your point clear that you believe it’s a debatable point” pic.twitter.com/lYpBcDHjc3
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 14, 2020
Severino noted Harris has generally used nomination hearings “as an opportunity to grab the spotlight” while “trying to be as flagrantly liberal” as possible. She said her “performative” behavior raises concerns she will use judicial appointments in the same way: “to pander to left-wing dark money groups that are constantly calling for more radical nominees.”
Harris was among the Democratic senators who pressed Kavanaugh on allegations of sexual assault, which a Senate Judiciary Commitee report ultimately concluded there was “no evidence” to corroborate. She also called for an impeachment inquiry into Kavanaugh in September 2019.
Harris’ communications director, Brian Fallon, previously worked as the executive director for Demand Justice, a progressive court reform group he co-founded that advocates for packing the Supreme Court. The organization spearheaded the campaign for Justice Stephen Breyer to retire to allow Biden to appoint “the first-ever Black woman Supreme Court justice” and joined calls for an ethics investigation into Justice Clarence Thomas.
Demand Justice’s Supreme Court shortlist includes Democratic California Rep. Katie Porter, National Center for Lesbian Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter and ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project Deputy Director Brigitte Amiri.
The list also features Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Kristen Clarke, who has brought charges against a number of pro-life activists under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, who previously continued Harris’ prosecution of a pro-life journalist after taking her place as California Attorney General in 2017.
Harris also supports President Joe Biden’s recently announced plans for reforming the Supreme Court, which include imposing a code of ethics, enacting term limits on justices and passing a constitutional amendment that would reverse the Supreme Court’s recent decision on presidential immunity.
Harris individually interviewed Biden’s final three candidates for the Supreme Court before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was selected, and Biden later said he was “fortunate” to have her advice, according to CNN.
As California attorney general, Harris opened an investigation into Exxon Mobil Corp. to determine if it had misled investors about the risk climate change posed. She also filed lawsuits against energy companies like Chevron and BP.
Harris also defended a law as California attorney general that would require pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions, though it was later struck down by the Supreme Court.
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
(Featured image credit: Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)
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