Project 21 Press Release: Black Activists Call Second Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearing Excessive

Members of the black leadership network Project 21 protest the scheduling of a second confirmation hearing for judicial nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh, calling the action yet another example of obstructionist senators employing any and all tactics to delay or ultimately prevent confirmation votes on the President’s appointees.

“One can only wonder at what point the puerile vindictiveness of the liberal party will cease,” said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie. “Seven years of unrelenting obstructionism is a condemnable record.   It is well past time for Arlen Specter to show more resolve as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”

On May 9, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a second hearing on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Kavanaugh was nominated to the seat in 2003, and already had a hearing before the Committee in 2004. The Committee was supposed to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination on May 4, but that was delayed after Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) acquiesced to liberal demands for a second hearing. A new vote is scheduled for May 11.

“It is a contemptible display of spite and petulance; but obviously not out of character for the liberal party. A second hearing, is as everyone knows, is a charade to make it possible for them to deride honorable and exceptionally well-qualified jurists, who they promise to filibuster anyway,” Massie continued.

Kavanaugh currently serves as the staff secretary for the President, where he oversees the flow of documents in the White House. He is a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and two appellate court judges. He has held several positions within the federal government during his legal career, as well as a brief stint in private practice, and has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and many lower courts.

Former D.C. Bar president Mark H. Touhey III says Kavanaugh is “exceptionally well qualified” to serve on the D.C. Circuit.

Project 21 takes no position on the confirmation of any particular judicial nominee, but believes that it is in the best interest of the United States that judicial vacancies are filled with appropriate speed.

For more information, contact David Almasi or Peyton Knight at (202) 507-6398 or [email protected], or visit Project 21’s website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html. New Visions Commentaries can be found at https://nationalcenter.org/P21NewVisions.html.

-30-



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.