Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Impeccable Record of Constitutional Conservatism

The stakes in filling the Supreme Court vacancy are high. This is no time for a gamble.

Social conservatives understand the stakes in filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. President Trump, who has excelled in his judicial nominations to date, has the opportunity to transform the Court for a generation to come. This is no time for a gamble. As social conservatives know from bitter experience, a judicial record is the best — really, the only — accurate predictor of a prospective justice’s philosophy on the issues that matter most to us. On the vital issues of protecting religious liberty and enforcing restrictions on abortion, no court-of-appeals judge in the nation has a stronger, more consistent record than Judge Brett Kavanaugh. On these issues, as on so many others, he has fought for his principles and stood firm against pressure. He would do the same on the Supreme Court.

Start with a case argued before the D.C. Circuit this March, a case still under submission. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (i.e., the Metro) bans “issue-oriented advertising,” which it interprets to include religious ads. So when the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington wanted to run an ad with the words “Find the Perfect Gift” and an image of shepherds following a star in the sky during the Christmas season, Metro vetoed the ad. The archdiocese sued Metro for violating the First Amendment speech and religion clauses, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The district court ruled for Metro, and the archdiocese appealed to the D.C. Circuit, where the oral argument pitted Paul Clement (representing the archdiocese), a solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, against Donald Verrilli (representing the Metro), a solicitor general under Obama. Kavanaugh hammered Verrilli with what the Washington Post called “unrelenting” questioning about the Christmas-ad ban, which the judge described as “pure discrimination” and “odious to the Constitution.”

More