https://socialistaction.org/2018/10/04/nationwide-protests-demand-stop-kavanaugh/
Nationwide protests demand: Stop Kavanaugh!
/ 14 hours ago
Oct. 2018 Kava (Michael Candelori:NurPhoto via Getty)By ANN MONTAGUE
Outrage continues to spread throughout the United States over President
Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh,
currently on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,
has been roundly criticized for his reactionary rulings against labor
and protections for the environment, and scorned for his opinions and
actions that denigrate women. Adding Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,
replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy, would move the Court further to the
right and drive its rulings to greater extremes.
Women and men began protesting the Kavanaugh nomination right after it
was announced on July 9. The looming anger that Roe v. Wade could be
overturned has energized women across the country to oppose his
confirmation. Polls showed that Kavanaugh was the most unpopular Supreme
Court nominee in history.
And then on Sept. 16, a bombshell fell when Christine Blasey Ford said
that Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when she was 15 and he
was 17. Protest rallies took place in all 50 states as well as civil
disobedience in the halls of the Senate office building. This created
pressure on the Senate Judiciary Committee to allow Dr. Ford to be able
to testify. Immediately, recollections came to the fore of Anita Hill
testifying against Clarence Thomas in 1991.
But times have changed, and while women who were watching Hill’s
testimony still had a feeling of isolation, women this time experienced
the collective support of millions.
As a result of the #MeToo movement, women have become empowered to tell
their story, and also to listen to others. One woman told CNN, “I knew
that if I watched Christine Ford testify it would trigger my own trauma,
but I was determined to watch.”
The nation was riveted to her testimony. Wherever you went, her
wrenching and authentic testimony was being heard on the radio,
television, or phone. The Capitol Police reported arresting 200 women
protesting the Kavanaugh hearings. At the same time women across the
country rallied and protested. Most of the signs said simply, “I believe
her.” One woman told a reporter, “This wasn’t really organized, I have
never done this before, but people need to see our faces.”Oct. 2018 Rape
culture (John)
As the full Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination neared, protest
demonstrations grew in size. On Oct. 4, thousands of protesters massed
in Washington, D.C., as the FBI presented to the Senate the report of
its investigations related to Ford’s charge that Kavanaugh had sexually
assaulted her. The protesters stopped traffic as they marched toward the
Supreme Court building and later to the Senate office building, where
some entered the doors. Signs and chanted slogans included, “Sham
process, sham court;” “Make integrity great again;” and “Women won’t be
quiet anymore.” At least 100 were arrested.
Kavanaugh on women’s rights
As the confirmation process played out, there were real concerns that
the preponderance of right wingers on the Supreme Court will lead to the
demise of Roe v. Wade and that ever tighter restrictions on the right of
women to control their own bodies will be enacted. Many fear a
resurrection of the era in which women were forced to go to illegal
back-alley parlors to obtain abortions. But a renewed mass movement for
women’s rights and reproductive justice can make sure that never happens.
One of Kavanaugh’s reactionary rulings on the issue occurred last year,
when a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant was arrested crossing the
U.S.-Mexico border and confined to a private detention center in Texas
that has a contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). She
was eight weeks pregnant and wanted to terminate the pregnancy. She had
the money to pay for the procedure, transportation, and the approval of
a Texas judge who stated that she was “mature and sufficiently well
informed to make the decision to have an abortion.” In Texas minors are
required to receive the approval of a judge if they are seeking an
abortion without parental consent.
Her only barrier was that the Trump administration would not allow her
to leave the detention camp for her appointment. Government lawyers
claimed that allowing her to attend her appointment would violate a
decree issued a few months earlier that said detention centers could not
take “any action to facilitate” an abortion without the specific
permission of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Director, E.
Scott Lloyd who is a Trump appointee and a militant anti-abortion
activist. Many argue that he is not qualified or prepared for his
current position as director of ORR. He claims there is “no
constitutional right” for an immigrant minor to have an elective
abortion while in federal custody.
ACLU lawyers sued the government on the girl’s behalf and the case,
Garza v. Hargan, ended up with a three-judge panel in the DC circuit
court. One judge did not believe the girl had any constitutional rights
because she was undocumented. The second judge said that she has
constitutional rights that were being blocked by the government.
The third judge was Brett Kavanaugh, who presented a solution that
trapped her in legal limbo for weeks as her pregnancy advanced towards
the Texas 20-week cut-off for all legal abortions. The full circuit
court eventually ruled with the ACLU, and the teenager was able to
obtain her abortion when she was more than 15 weeks pregnant.
Kavanaugh on the unions
Approving Kavanaugh as a justice will augment the anti-labor majority on
the Supreme Court. This year, in Janus v. AFSCME, the Court blocked all
public employee unions from collecting fair-share payments from
non-union workers. A similar ruling was made in the 2014 Harris v. Quinn
decision, which eliminated “fair-share” payments for Illinois home-care
workers—an attack on the rights of a workforce that is predominantly
female. Union workers in the private sector have been watching the
attacks on their sisters and brothers and wondering who will be next.
Documents that have been released to the public show that Kavanaugh’s
decisions from his time as a Bush-appointed judge on the U.S. Court of
Appeals reflect a long history of anti-working-class decisions. This
court regularly reviews suits challenging the decisions of
Washington-based agencies, in which he regularly wrote opinions
attacking the National Labor Relations Board.
In 2008, in Agri Processor Co., Inc. v. NLRB, the majority of the
appellate court ruled that undocumented workers have the same bargaining
rights as their co-workers. But Kavanaugh dissented, stating that
undocumented workers don’t count as employees under the National Labor
Relations Act. Undoubtedly, this issue will come up again.
He is a consistent opponent of collective bargaining rights and was
involved in reversing a lower court decision and affirming the decision
of the Department Of Defense to negate the collective bargaining rights
of workers.
One of Kavanaugh’s court rulings served to help Donald Trump directly in
smashing a unionization drive at one of his hotels. In 2012, Kavanaugh
was one of three judges who voted unanimously to set aside a National
Labor Relations Board order that would have allowed the United Auto
Workers union to represent workers bargaining with the Trump Plaza Hotel
and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. The hotel has since closed down.
In his highest profile case, Kavanaugh opposed the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA). In 2014, a case was brought against
the SeaWorld theme park in Florida when a killer-whale trainer died
during a live show in 2010. This was the second death at that location.
OSHA investigated and found that SeaWorld had willfully endangered its
workers, though it imposed only a $7000 fine. Kavanaugh disagreed,
saying that the workers had agreed to put themselves in danger, and
comparing their work to tiger taming or football.
He stated: “When should we as a society paternalistically decide that
the participants in these sports and entertainment activities must be
protected from themselves—that the risk of significant physical injury
is simply too great even for eager and willing participants?”
Kavanaugh on environmental regulations
Kavanaugh has changed his position on the Environmental Protection
Agency. In 2008, he wrote that the law is clear that it has the supreme
authority. But four years later, he changed his mind and joined the
majority opinion that struck down an EPA regulation seeking to place
limits on sources of downwind pollution. “Congress did not authorize the
EPA to simply adopt limits on emissions as EPA deems admissible,” he wrote.
His position generally boiled down to the allegation that the EPA needed
specific legislation from Congress to act, and could not rely on earlier
regulations that were not specific to the case at hand.
This position can have a bearing on any review of the landmark
Massachusetts v. EPA case, in which the Supreme Court affirmed in 2007
that greenhouse gases, the major factor in causing climate change,
qualify as air pollutants, and that the EPA therefore has the authority
to regulate them under the Clean Air Act.
Kavanaugh has expressed alarm over global warming, and has said that he
thinks Congress should do something to mitigate it. But in the meantime,
because of the “system of separation of powers,” he does not believe
that the EPA has the right on its own to act against it.
In his 12 years as a federal judge, Kavanaugh heard 26 cases involving
the EPA. He issued an opinion in 18 of those cases. He sided against
industry only twice and has never sided with a public interest group.
In almost every case, Kavanaugh seems to have found a way to side with
industry. For instance, he dissented in the case of Mingo Logan Coal Co.
v. EPA, which dealt with the EPA denial of a permit to a
mountaintop-removal coal-mining company that wanted to dump its waste
into West Virginia waterways. The EPA found it would destroy streams and
wildlife habitat. Kavanaugh argued that the agency had not focused on
the real costs of permit denial—the impact on stock prices that that
could result from denying the permit.
Kavanaugh took a similar stance in oral arguments in the Washington,
D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals concerning a 2016 Clean Power Plan case.
He stated: “This is huge case … it has huge economic and political
significance … it’s fundamentally transforming an industry by telling
existing units you in essence have to pay a penalty, a huge financial
penalty in order to continue to exist, in order to shift from coal
plants to solar and wind plants, at the same time the coal mining
industry is in essence greatly harmed, as well.”
Nature and purpose of the Supreme Court
Nothing could illustrate the essence of the Supreme Court more clearly
than Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony in regard to Ford’s charges and his
demeanor of arrogance and entitlement. In the Senate committee hearings,
he lashed out wildly at his perceived accusers: “This whole two-week
effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with
apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear
that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on
behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside
left-wing opposition groups.”
Kavanaugh has an elite background that is similar to all those who sit
on the Supreme Court. He attended Georgetown Preparatory School and then
was admitted to Yale University, as had his paternal grandfather. He
lied when he said he had no prior connections to Yale, where 25-30
percent of students are “Legacy Admissions.” Kavanaugh now finds himself
in excellent company, since every current Supreme Court Justice has
attended Harvard or Yale.
The selection of Supreme Court justices is inherently undemocratic. The
justices are not elected by voters but are appointed by a narrow body
representing the two ruling capitalist parties (nominated by the
president and approved by the Senate). In that task, the
politicians—Republican or Democratic—generally opt for the appointment
of justices who have proven themselves to be “conservative” in their
legal careers. They want a Court that will lean on the side of “law and
order,” rather than ruling on behalf of radical or “unconventional”
thought and action, or the expansion of free speech and workers’ rights.
This is a lifetime appointment, the closest thing we have to a monarchy;
the rulings of the Court cannot be appealed. The major function of the
Court is to safeguard the legal foundations of capitalist rule. The
bedrock of its decisions is supposedly the 18th-century U.S.
Constitution, as amended and adjudicated over the last two centuries.
But that is all subject to the majority interpretation of the nine
sitting justices, who themselves tend to reflect the ideology of the
more conservative wing of the U.S. capitalist class.
Street protests against Kavanaugh have involved thousands of women and
men who have real fears of his reactionary agenda—and who don’t want a
sexual predator on the Supreme Court. But Trump has ignored the
grassroots nature of these protests, and instead has regularly denounced
the opposition to Kavanaugh’s appointment as originating with the
Democratic Party. He told the crowd at a rally in Johnson City, Tenn.,
“The Democrats only know how to obstruct, demolish and destroy, as we’ve
seen in recent weeks. Democrats are willing to do anything and hurt
anyone to get their way, like they’re doing with Judge Kavanaugh.”
Reports have surfaced of right-wing advocacy groups, like Heritage
Action and the Judicial Crisis Network, spending millions to lobby
Democratic Party politicians in so-called “red states” to support
Kavanaugh’s nomination. Their targets include Senator Joe Manchin of
West Virginia, who has appeared to be leaning in favor of Kavanaugh. A
group of women, including some who identified themselves as sexual
assault victims, occupied Manchin’s campaign office to urge a rejection
of Kavanaugh. After about 11 hours, at around 1 a.m. on Oct. 2, the
campaign called in the police to remove the protesters, and nine women
were arrested.
“Even before the sexual assault allegations came out and his judicial
record was released, it was clear that [Kavanaugh] was anti-women and
anti-union and anti–working class,” one of the arrested women, Britt
Huerta, told the Huffington Post. “If Joe Manchin were to vote ‘yes,’ it
would really send a bad message to West Virginia women about their
autonomy over their own bodies and their right to make their own decision.”
Photos: Sept. 29 March to End Rape in Philadelphia. (Top: Michael
Canelori / NurPhoto; In text: John Leslie / Socialist Action)
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October 4, 2018 in Trump / U.S. Government, Women's Liberation. Tags:
Kavanaugh
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