Exposing Kavanaugh's history on race could cost him a Republican vote—Tim Scott's

Gov. Nikki Haley (R) announces selection of Rep. Tim Scott (R) to replace resigning Sen. Jim DeMint (R).

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has only had to withdraw two appellate nominees. The second, Ryan Bounds, got booted on the basis of his racist past after Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) made clear he wouldn’t vote for him. Given Republicans’ tenuous margin in the Senate, Scott’s willingness to vote on principle bodes poorly for SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose troubling history on racial issues, from affirmative action to racial profiling, is about to come to light.

Just the first round of documents disclosed by Senator Cory Booker in an act of civil disobedience revealed Kavanaugh referring to “a naked racial set-aside.”

Among the leaked material this email from #JudgeKavanaugh calls an affirmative action program a“naked racial set-aside.” pic.twitter.com/pk7F5eoiPe

— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) September 6, 2018

Kavanaugh seems to be fond of that phrasing, as in 1999 he described “a government program for Native Hawaiians as a ‘naked racial-spoils system.’” Never mind how he’s fond of quoting the late Antonin Scalia’s one-race notion. 

Given Booker is backed by the other Judiciary Committee Democrats, and they’ve only had since early Tuesday to review 42,000 additional pages, we can expect more questionable Kavanaugh snippets to come to light. What’s available should already be enough, of course, to make voting for Kavanaugh an impossibility for Scott, who was willing to go against McConnell to sink a judicial nominee.

If Democrats succeed in shaking the additional documents Republicans are trying to hide free? Forget about it.