Blumenthal, Murphy Seek Delay Of Confirmation Hearing For Trump’s Supreme Court Pick

Connecticut’s two Democratic U.S. senators called Thursday for a delay of next week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they concede that Republicans will reject that notion.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy said Congress needs to see important documents from Kavanaugh’s tenure while working in the White House from 2001-2006 under Republican President George W. Bush.

“To simply rush to judgment on Brett Kavanaugh is a profound disservice to our American democracy and to the American judiciary,’’ Blumenthal told reporters Thursday at the state Capitol complex. “So this hearing ought to be postponed. So should the vote.’’

But both senators said they do not expect that Republicans who control the judiciary committee and the Senate will postpone the hearing. As a result, Blumenthal said he will be ready, as a member of the judiciary committee, to question Kavanaugh when the hearings are scheduled to begin Tuesday.

“I’m going to be tough on this nominee,’’ Blumenthal said. “I will be asking challenging questions. I can guarantee sparks are going to fly. I hope there is as much light as heat.’’

The Kavanaugh nomination is crucial, the senators said, because he could become the deciding vote on many key issues in potential 5-4 decisions on a closely divided Supreme Court. Those decisions could include whether insurance companies must cover pre-existing health conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and Parkinson’s Disease. Other major issues include abortion, gay marriage, presidential power and “whether Connecticut’s gun laws will continue to have effect,’’ Blumenthal said.

But J.R. Romano, chairman of the state Republican Party, said Blumenthal and Murphy should be more interested in fixing the problems of Connecticut instead of blasting Kavanaugh at a press conference.

“They’re more interested in getting in front of the camera and playing politics when this state is in desperate need of leadership, and it’s not coming from them,’’ Romano said. “Chris Murphy and Dick Blumenthal have no concept how bad things are in the state.’’

Blumenthal Seeks Documents From Kavanaugh’s White House Stint »

Despite complaints from some Democrats, many lawmakers have predicted that Kavanaugh’s nomination will be approved because Republicans hold a narrow majority in the Senate. It is unclear how many Senate Democrats will vote in Kavanaugh’s favor, but three Democrats voted in favor of Trump’s first pick for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch was eventually approved by a 54-45 vote. The three senators are under pressure because they are from West Virginia, North Dakota and Indiana — states where Trump won in 2016.

Murphy, who also expressed skepticism about Kavanaugh’s nomination, said he is concerned about his views on gun control.

“Kavanaugh is a Second Amendment radical,’’ Murphy said. “He likely believes that Congress can pass virtually no laws, that state legislatures can pass virtually no laws regulating firearms. … If that’s the case, then Connecticut’s background checks laws, our assault weapons ban, our permitting laws may be invalidated by this court.’’

While Democrats have pushed for the release of more documents, Republicans have pushed back on documents related to the three years when Kavanaugh served as Bush’s staff secretary. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, has said that the documents from those years “aren’t really his documents’’ because Kavanaugh was serving as “more or less a traffic cop” for the huge number of memos and documents that are routinely sent to the president in the Oval Office.

Overall, both Blumenthal and Murphy have expressed skepticism from even before Kavanaugh was nominated — when he was still on a list of finalists.

“This judge is outside the mainstream,’’ Blumenthal said Thursday. “He is extreme even by conservative standards. He is part of a concerted effort by right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society to remake the federal judiciary in the image of the far-right, extreme ideology of conservatives.’’

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