Dear Senator Flake,
Thank you for your compromise regarding putting a hold on voting on Kavanaugh to allow for an FBI investigation. I was very disturbed when I heard the news that you would vote along party lines to confirm Kavanaugh. While I believe that his sexual assault of Ms. Ford (and lying about it) certainly disqualifies him as a Supreme Court judge, there are even more important reasons to reject the appointment.
One of the responsibilities of Congress is to act as checks and balances so no president has so much power that he is above the law. I follow the daily scandals and corruption in the Trump administration and it is appalling to me that President Trump has not been impeached. This alone has wrecked the integrity of the Republican party. But to push through a Supreme Court candidate while the president is under investigation for several crimes is clearly wrong. I don’t have to remind you that the Republican party denied President Obama his right to select a Supreme Court judge, and his choice was a good compromise (being much less extremely partisan than Kavanaugh).
In his law-review article, Kavanaugh proposed that “Congress might consider a law exempting a President—while in office—from criminal prosecution and investigation.”
The idea that a sitting president is above the law is against our Constitution and everything this country stands for. President Trump has done his best to dismantle the checks and balances by hindering the ability of the press to hold him accountable, so all we have to protect our democracy is Congress. Now this hyper-partisan Congress is trying to push through an ultra-conservative judge with values that most Americans don’t share.
During the trial, Kavanaugh demonstrated that he can’t be objective by blaming the Democrats and the Clinton’s for this “witch hunt.”
While I appreciate you compromising by giving the FBI time to investigate, I feel that you have not gone far enough. It appears that that investigation has been limited. Of course it is vitally important that we don’t have a Supreme Court justice that refuses to take responsibility for his past sexual predator actions. But even his feeling of victimization would negatively affect his decisions on cases with rape victims.
According to the research presented in the scholarly paper, Gendered Justice: Women in the Criminal Justice System by Stephanie S. Covington & Barbara E. Bloom. “ Of the women in state prisons in 1998, 28 percent had been incarcerated for a violent offense (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999). Many of the violent crimes committed by women are against a spouse, ex-spouse, or partner, and the women committing such crimes are likely to report having been physically and/or sexually abused, often by the person they assaulted.” Often the women who kill their abusers (even in self defense) are sentenced by male judges who discriminate against them. You need to ask yourself if Kavanaugh could be objective in a case where a women kills her abuser. I believe he would not.
As a member of Congress, you have been given the sacred responsibility of upholding our Constitution and preserving our democracy. Please, vote no on Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court and use any influence you have to convince the other Republicans (who aren’t blinded by party loyalty) to do the same.
Sincerely,
Jana Segal
#stopKavanaugh
Please, send your thoughts to Senator Flake before the vote on Friday.
https://www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-jeff
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