In 2018 during the contentious Senate confirmation hearing of Brett Kavanaugh, a man credibly accused by several women of sexual assault or misconduct, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said he told the beer-aficionado and nominee to the nation’s highest court he had to meet just one condition to gain his support: “he smokes a pipe during his confirmation hearing like the late Justice Scalia.”
The following month Cotton issued a press release demanding Democrats “END THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION” of Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh did not smoke a pipe, although he did threaten Democrats. Cotton voted to confirm him anyway.
Fast forward to today.
Four years after his pipe-smoking demand Senator Cotton has expanded his list of conditions for supporting the nation’s first Black woman nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I want to be clear about what would convince me to support any Supreme Court nominee,” Cotton on Monday told Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge more qualified than any of the current justices when they were nominated to the nation’s highest court. “I’m looking for a justice who will uphold the Constitution, not use it to invent so-called rights.”
“I’m looking for a justice who understands the Constitution means what it says, and does not mean what it doesn’t say. Someone who understands that is not up to nine unaccountable, unelected politicians black robes decides on some new meaning of the constitution based on public opinion polling, or views of the legal elite,” Cotton, a Harvard Law School grad announced.
“I’m looking for a justice who realizes that a so-called ‘living Constitution’ really means that the Constitution is dead. Instead, we should have an enduring Constitution, as Justice Scalia contended.”
Justice Scalia did not write the Constitution, and experts say the Constitution was written to be interpreted in the modern day, and originalism “doesn’t hold up to scrutiny,” is a “scam,” and even “Bullsh*t.”
The Constitution that Justice Scalia “intended” is not the Constitution the founders intended. The founders intended for the Constitution to be interpreted in current times. In fact, one researcher says basically the ink was barely dry on the Constitution when its meanings were immediately debated.
“I’m looking for a justice you understand there’s a process for updating the Constitution. And that process is by amending the Constitution. I will not support anyone who seeks to rewrite the Constitution from the bench rather than through our constitutional amendment process,” he added, apparently unaware that that is exactly what the conservative extremists are doing right now on issues like abortion and other civil rights.
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