Vox - Senate votes on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2019-09-15T11:51:33-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/176714452019-09-15T11:51:33-04:002019-09-15T11:51:33-04:00Impeaching a Supreme Court justice, explained
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<figcaption>Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh waits in the Capitol Rotunda in December 2018. | Jabin Botsford-Pool/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>It works just like impeaching a president.</p> <p id="NUcUbA">Now that two New York Times reporters have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/sunday-review/brett-kavanaugh-deborah-ramirez">extensively corroborated a key sexual assault accusation</a> against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and surfaced another previously unreported accusation of sexual assault against him, a big question looms: Can a Supreme Court justice be <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/5/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained">impeached</a>?</p>
<p id="Eocyai">The answer is yes.</p>
<p id="jbJDMa">Kavanaugh faces <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/22/17886814/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-deborah-ramirez">three</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/24/17895740/new-yorker-jane-mayer-yale-university-emails-brett-kavanaugh-deborah-ramirez">named</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/26/17905908/julie-swetnick-michael-avenatti-twitter-brett-kavanaugh">accusations</a> of sexual assault and misconduct, all of which he has denied. The accusation of his Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez has gained new weight due to the Times’ reporting, as well as the paper’s new report of an eyewitness account of another alleged assault at Yale by Kavanaugh.</p>
<p id="XvIeqT">But even before the allegations surfaced in the midst of Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation process, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Graves <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/judge-brett-kavanaugh-should-be-impeached-for-lying-during-his-confirmation-hearings.html">called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment</a> about an entirely different matter: She accused him of lying under oath about stolen memos the Bush White House and congressional allies used in early 2000s judicial confirmation fights. </p>
<p id="CDEXc4">While the Republican Senate is unlikely to vote for Kavanaugh’s removal, the Democratic-run House could nonetheless pursue charges related to both alleged sexual wrongdoing and lying about the memos.</p>
<p id="rIxx5B">Kavanaugh is not the only jurist facing such calls. Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, in February called for an impeachment inquiry against Justice Clarence Thomas for <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/the-case-for-impeaching-clarence-thomas.html">lying about his sexual harassment of Anita Hill</a>. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/09/23/650956623/anita-hill-testimony-the-witness-not-called">Other women</a> have accused Thomas of sexual harassment as well; one of them, Angela Wright-Shannon, recently <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-wright-shannon-clarence-thomas_us_5a8b4b2ae4b0a1d0e12c3095">called for his impeachment</a>, too.</p>
<p id="j5U8Cl">Impeachment and removal of a federal judge, including a Supreme Court justice, requires meeting a high political bar. Just as with <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15615066/impeachment-trump-process-history">presidents</a>, a majority of the House must approve an indictment to impeach, and a two-thirds supermajority of the US Senate must convict for the judge or justice to lose their office.</p>
<p id="jUQsh7">There is considerable precedent for impeaching and removing lower-level federal judges. For Supreme Court justices, the number of precedents is much smaller: There is one case in which a Supreme Court justice was impeached but not removed, and no other examples.</p>
<p id="UMwrT3">Here is how the process works and what previous efforts have taught us about it.</p>
<h3 id="m7eust">How impeaching judges works</h3>
<p id="gSdY5O">As a <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-186.pdf">2010 report</a> by Elizabeth Bazan for the Congressional Research Service explains, Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides for the removal of “the President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States … on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”</p>
<p id="dSsZz6">The term “civil officers” is not defined in the Constitution, and Bazan notes that with one exception (US Sen. William Blount, one of the first two elected from Tennessee in 1796) every person impeached so far has been an executive or judicial branch official. The Senate ultimately decided that Blount was not a “civil officer” and acquitted him on that basis.</p>
<p id="Q3H4OM">By contrast, Bazan writes, “the precedents show that federal judges have been considered to fall within the sweep of the ‘Civil Officer’ language.” The House has, in the course of federal history, impeached 13 judges, and the Senate has convicted and removed eight. Of those convicted, seven were district judges. The other was Robert Archbald, who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the now-defunct United States Commerce Court until his 1913 removal.</p>
<p id="eBdAz4">The four acquitted included three district judges and Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Chase. Chase, a Federalist appointed by George Washington, was the only Supreme Court justice to be impeached, in a <a href="http://www.rutgerslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/vol62/Issue3/Perlin_vol62n3.pdf">highly politicized attempt by Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans to take out a political enemy</a> (albeit an enemy who was himself highly partisan, and the charges against whom weren’t wholly baseless).</p>
<p id="hBIw5c">The 13th judge, Samuel Kent, of the District Court for the Southern District of Texas, resigned before he could be convicted.</p>
<p id="OFVHta">As Bazan notes, this is something of an undercount. She lists 23 other judges who have had “impeachment resolutions, inquiries, or investigations … that, for various reasons, did not result in articles of impeachment being voted by the House.”</p>
<h3 id="EaMvH0">What judges get impeached for</h3>
<p id="4wi5fg">Focusing on the five most recent cases in which judges were impeached, from 1986 to present, impeachment and removal typically comes in cases of clear, criminal wrongdoing. That makes sense given the incredibly high bar in the Senate required for removal; accusations perceived as partisan are unlikely to reach 67 votes.</p>
<p id="gYfSnk">Harry Claiborne was impeached and removed in 1986, two years after <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Impeachment_Claiborne.htm">receiving a two-year prison sentence</a> for falsifying income tax returns. Alcee Hastings, who has since become a representative from Florida, was removed in 1989 for receiving a $150,000 bribe to reduce prison sentences for members of the mob. He had been acquitted of this charge in normal criminal court, but a special committee of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Impeachment_Hastings.htm">Hastings had committed perjury and tampered with evidence</a> in the case to secure his acquittal.</p>
<p id="0i1vld">Walter Nixon was removed in 1989, three years after receiving a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/04/us/senate-convicts-us-judge-removing-him-from-bench.html">five-year prison sentence for perjury</a>. Both he and <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/802/490/1650372/">Hastings</a> challenged the procedures for their impeachments in Court, but in the case of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1992/91-740"><em>Nixon v. United States</em></a>, the Supreme Court concluded unanimously that it had no authority to review the impeachment process, as impeachment trials are the sole province of the Senate.</p>
<p id="LFrFIi">Before his impeachment in 2009, Samuel Kent pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and sentenced to 33 months in prison for lying about <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/perversion-of-justice/">his sexual abuse of female employees</a>. G. Thomas Porteous, alone among the recent impeachment cases, was not criminally convicted in federal court before his 2010 impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate. </p>
<p id="Nl2pfb">After an FBI and federal grand jury investigation, the Department of Justice had declined to press charges for, among other reasons, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/13/judge.impeachment/index.html">concerns about statutes of limitations</a>. He stood accused of accepting bribes from lawyers with business before him, and of failing to recuse himself from cases involving people who allegedly bribed him.</p>
<h3 id="NlyFDk">These are all very different from the Kavanaugh case</h3>
<p id="0SCA58">If one takes the five impeachment cases in recent decades as a model, Kavanaugh’s conduct (and Thomas’s) does not appear similar. While Kent’s case involved sexual misconduct, he had also already been criminally convicted, whereas Maryland prosecutors have not pursued charges against Kavanaugh in the case of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17910214/christine-blasey-ford-senate-testimony-brett-kavanaugh-hearing">Christine Blasey Ford</a>. There is little indication that federal prosecutors believe he committed perjury in his statements about the judicial memos.</p>
<p id="aLwTGe">These five most recent cases involved judges whose wrongdoing was recognized by both political parties in Congress and who had few if any defenders in the Senate. Kavanaugh and Thomas both have enthusiastic supporters in the Senate, and it’s doubtful that enough Republicans would defect to make removal viable.</p>
<p id="JTlzcU">That said, there is no clear definition of a “high crime or misdemeanor.” </p>
<p id="T9d4Sg">“The precedents in this country, as they have developed, reflect the fact that conduct which may not constitute a crime, but which may still be serious misbehavior bringing disrepute upon the public office involved, may provide a sufficient ground for impeachment,” Bazan writes, citing the case of Judge John Pickering, who was convicted on charges including mishandling cases in his capacity as a judge. That’s not a criminal offense, but the House and Senate considered it sufficiently serious to justify impeachment.</p>
<p id="upUoZ2">“What constitutes an impeachable offense,” Bazan concludes, “is less than completely clear.” The best answer might be that an impeachable offense is whatever the House and Senate think it is.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17910524/supreme-court-impeach-impeachment-brett-kavanaughDylan Matthews2018-11-08T17:40:03-05:002018-11-08T17:40:03-05:00Christine Blasey Ford has a security detail because she still receives threats
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<img alt="Christine Blasey Ford answers questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 27, 2018" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CkQ-7uBH2M8_3n--E-gq37n_nm8=/0x0:5081x3811/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62241043/GettyImages_1042093610.1541714884.jpg" />
<figcaption>Christine Blasey Ford answers questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 27, 2018. | Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The Palo Alto University professor hasn’t been able to go back to work since testifying that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her.</p> <p id="tYPOCW">More than a month after testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/7/17940822/brett-kavanaugh-senate-vote-christine-ford">Christine Blasey Ford</a> is still getting death threats.</p>
<p id="5wFoJQ">Ford told the committee that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when the two were in high school in the 1980s. Now, her lawyers said in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665407589/kavanaugh-accuser-christine-blasey-ford-continues-receiving-threats-lawyers-say?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=202908">a statement to NPR</a> on Thursday, “Justice Kavanaugh ascended to the Supreme Court, but the threats to Dr. Ford continue.”</p>
<p id="CqugZI">Because of the abuse she’s receiving, Ford has had to move <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/help-christine-blasey-ford">four times</a>. She can’t go to work as a professor at Palo Alto University, and it’s unclear when she’ll be able to return, according to NPR. She needs a private security detail.</p>
<p id="I2vtUo">Like so much about the hearings and their aftermath, the threats send a message to survivors, especially if they are women: If you speak up, you will be punished. It’s an old message, but one that’s just as powerful in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/sexual-harassment-assault-allegations-list">#MeToo era</a> as it was for years before. The only thing more powerful might be the voices of survivors themselves.</p>
<h3 id="2f6ElQ">The threats against Ford are about silencing survivors</h3>
<p id="x2dNXs">Brett Kavanaugh has been sitting on the Supreme Court since October 9. On Thursday, the president and first lady were present at his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-goes-to-supreme-court-for-formal-kavanaugh-investiture/2018/11/08/a6a4dc32-e373-11e8-b759-3d88a5ce9e19_story.html?utm_term=.49e41ed77b5e">formal investiture ceremony</a>, during which Kavanaugh sat in a special mahogany chair once used by Chief Justice John Marshall. For him, the fight is over; his lifetime appointment to the highest court in the country has begun.</p>
<p id="5ZiCYR">But for Ford, the battle continues. She has been getting threats since she spoke about her experiences <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.08c6f13df672">to the Washington Post</a> in September.</p>
<p id="LHpIbr">“I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable,” she <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17909932/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh-emotional-opening-statement">said in her Senate testimony</a>. “People have posted my personal information on the internet. This has resulted in additional emails, calls, and threats. My family and I were forced to move out of our home.”</p>
<p id="lru1fW">And according to her lawyers, those threats haven’t stopped just because Kavanaugh was confirmed.</p>
<p id="vXSUsG">Threats like those Ford received — especially those posted publicly online — aren’t just a crime against her. They also serve to keep other survivors quiet. In some ways, they resemble the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/9/6/6111065/gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting">Gamergate</a> campaigns against women who spoke out about sexism in video games — public harassment directed at those who challenge the established order can be a way of discouraging future challengers and keeping that order in place. </p>
<p id="QbSEQD">In the case of Gamergate, to some degree, it worked — <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17805606/massachusetts-democratic-primary-2018-brianna-wu-gamergate">Brianna Wu</a>, a game developer who was targeted by Gamergate harassers and later ran for Congress, told me in September that many women in the video game industry chose not to speak publicly about Gamergate for fear that their children would be targeted for harassment. Threats like the ones Ford is getting, then, are not only a way of punishing her for the past — they’re also about ensuring the future the threateners want.</p>
<p id="al1ZwW">The threats are just one way Ford was made to suffer for coming forward with her allegation against Kavanaugh. She had to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing that pitted her against Kavanaugh with no additional witnesses or FBI investigation — and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940738/fbi-investigation-kavanaugh-thorough-limits">the investigation that followed the hearing</a> was so limited in scope that it was essentially doomed from the beginning. She was <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17932024/trump-brett-kavanaugh-christine-ford-julie-swetnick">mocked by the president</a> in front of an audience of thousands. Before, during, and after the hearing,<strong> </strong>Senate Republicans essentially <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/1/17914710/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-fox-news-trump-democrats">erased Ford</a>, spinning her allegations as a plot by Democrats.</p>
<p id="IWM9HT">Before going public with her allegations, Ford said she asked herself, “Why suffer through the annihilation if it’s not going to matter?”</p>
<p id="loHG1Z">The question has <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/the-annihilation-of-christine-blasey-ford-1829386112">become famous</a>, in part because it was so prescient — in many ways, Ford was annihilated, and in many ways, it didn’t matter.</p>
<p id="QKpSQx">The threats, the mockery, the way Republicans treated Ford as though she didn’t even exist, the fact that Kavanaugh sits in a mahogany chair at the Supreme Court while Ford can’t even go to work — all send a message to other survivors that if they come forward, they risk being annihilated too.</p>
<p id="i8Ray4">But there’s one group sending the opposite message — that Christine Ford matters, that she’s not invisible, that she can’t be erased. Survivors and their allies have been sending messages of support to Ford since she first came forward. These messages, she testified in September, outnumbered the threats. </p>
<p id="dC3xDp">Two GoFundMe campaigns set up during her testimony raised more than $800,000 (some questioned whether the money would be better spent on other, needier survivors, but Ford’s lawyers told NPR that she would donate any money she didn’t use on security and housing to survivors’ organizations). And some supporters <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/11/17961486/christine-ford-brett-kavanaugh-metoo-movement-thank-you-letters">sent Ford thank-you notes</a> through her university or her Congress member’s office.</p>
<p id="X0BAZD">“I wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone up there,” writer Elliott Holt, who sent a letter to Ford, told Vox in October. “I didn’t want her to think it was all for naught.”</p>
<p id="2OxQ0Z">To some degree, the threats Ford is receiving now are a grisly reminder of how consequential her testimony actually was. It came very close to keeping a powerful man from becoming even more powerful. </p>
<p id="M7byva">If Ford had truly been annihilated, if she’d had no impact, then she might be allowed to fade into obscurity. But those threatening her likely know that, even with Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, Ford has set an enduring example to survivors, who stand with her even now. </p>
<p id="3IlN69">All those harassing, mocking, and erasing Ford are telling other survivors that speaking up isn’t worth it, that they should keep quiet or risk having their lives destroyed. The only ones sending a different message are the survivors and others who have come forward to support Ford. They are not in the Senate or the Oval Office, and they don’t decide who gets to be on the Supreme Court. But they are the ones with a <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/sexual-harassment-assault-allegations-list">movement</a> behind them, and they are the ones who are growing in their power.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/11/8/18076154/christine-blasey-ford-threats-kavanaugh-gofundmeAnna North2018-10-08T10:56:42-04:002018-10-08T10:56:42-04:00Susan Collins’s 2020 challenger already has a $3 million campaign fund, thanks to Collins’s vote on Kavanaugh
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<img alt="Sen. Susan Collins on Capitol Hill after announcing she would vote yes on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/h3Rsx0rlGBC7Cd9Q0ZqF2K0QL5k=/23x0:2986x2222/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61676295/1046193134.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Sen. Susan Collins on Capitol Hill after announcing she would vote yes on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>A crowdfunding campaign on Crowdpac is raising money from thousands of people to oppose Collins.</p> <p id="Jv9hWk">Whichever Democrat runs against Republican Sen. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/5/17941352/susan-collins-brett-kavanaugh">Susan Collins</a> in Maine in 2020 already has <a href="https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/387413/either-sen-collins-votes-no-on-kavanaugh-or-we-fund-her-future-opponent">millions of dollars</a> in donations to his or her campaign fund, thanks to Collins’s vote on Supreme Court nominee <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/5/17941312/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-legitimacy">Brett Kavanaugh</a>. </p>
<p id="mQD4Qm">A <a href="https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/387413/either-sen-collins-votes-no-on-kavanaugh-or-we-fund-her-future-opponent">crowdfunding campaign</a> that hinged on her vote has raised upward of $3 million for her eventual Democratic opponent when her term is up in 2020. Hosted on the crowdfunding site <a href="https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/387413/either-sen-collins-votes-no-on-kavanaugh-or-we-fund-her-future-opponent">Crowdpac</a>, the campaign experienced such an influx of donors as Collins spoke about her decision to back Kavanaugh on the Senate floor on Wednesday that the website <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/susan-collins-brett-kavanaugh-vote-maine-senator-donations.html">briefly crashed</a>. A parallel crowdfunding effort was launched on the progressive campaign fundraising platform <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/replacecollins">ActBlue</a> in the interim. </p>
<p id="GoWUgP">The team behind the campaign calls the trend “rage donating,” Liz Jaff, the president of <a href="https://www.beaherofund.com/about/">Be a Hero PAC</a>, told me. </p>
<p id="wFzHE7">Jaff’s group, which was founded by ALS patient and activist <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/19/16778600/activist-ady-barkan-republican-tax-bill-als">Ady Barkan</a>, launched the Collins-related crowdfunding campaign on Crowdpac earlier this year alongside the grassroots community action organization Maine People’s Alliance, and the activist and watchdog group Mainers for Accountable Leadership. The campaign was meant to encourage Collins to vote against Kavanaugh’s nomination.</p>
<p id="tNIuYK">The proposition was simple: Donors made “pledges” to the crowdfunding campaign. If Collins voted against Kavanaugh, they wouldn’t be charged. But if she voted for him, the funds raised would go to her Democratic opponent when she is up for reelection in 2020. </p>
<p id="kq2mQv">“If Susan Collins votes to betray millions of Americans and Mainers, we’re going to convert those pledges to donations,” Jaff said.</p>
<p id="RKkYtH">The campaign has been gaining steam for a while — by September, it had raised more than $1 million in pledges. And after Collins’s speech Friday, donations soared. Thus far, more than $3.5 million have been pledged. Once Collins cast her vote on Saturday, those pledges became donations to her eventual Democratic opponent.</p>
<p id="VHPCwe">Once that individual is identified in 2020, that money will go straight into his or her account. The campaign’s organizers have set out to raise $4 million, but they’ll take more if they can get it.</p>
<p id="tDN9Bn">“If this thing goes up to $6 million, I’m not going to say no,” Jaff said.</p>
<p id="MmOmuR">She told me more than 100,000 Americans have donated to the crowdfunding campaign across Crowdpac and ActBlue thus far, and the average donation size is about $25. Once Maine’s 2020 Senate Democratic nominee is identified, he or she will also get the email addresses of all those who pledged and donated — also valuable assets in politics.</p>
<p id="lbfPLb">“There has never been this kind of starting capital for any Democrat in Maine. It’s unheard of,” Jaff, who previously headed business development and campaigns at Crowdpac, told me. “That means you’re going to have a bunch of people running for office.”</p>
<p id="hrW1w6">Who exactly will be the beneficiary in 2020 of that isn’t clear. Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser under President Barack Obama, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/05/susan-rice-susan-collins-2020-876185">seemed to suggest</a> on Twitter on Friday that she might be up for running for the state’s Democratic nomination. </p>
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<p lang="und" dir="ltr">Me <a href="https://t.co/93qNxN7Ky9">https://t.co/93qNxN7Ky9</a></p>— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmbassadorRice/status/1048305496732491777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2018</a>
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<h3 id="nqt7na">These types of fundraising campaigns are gaining steam on the left</h3>
<p id="x6UDds">The Collins crowdfunding campaign has captured a lot of media attention, especially after she <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/susan-collins-brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court/2018/09/10/id/881082/">complained</a> in September that it was an attempt to “bribe” her vote on Kavanaugh and said she wouldn’t be the target of “quid pro quo fundraising.”</p>
<p id="9Mfq0E">The campaign’s creators, however, say what they’re doing is aboveboard: Collins was never offered money in exchange for her vote, and if she voted no, no one would be charged. In an emailed statement to Vox last month, Crowdpac spokesperson T.J. Adams-Falconer said the response to the Collins campaign had been “incredible.”</p>
<p id="gkZu8L">“What we are seeing is tens of thousands of people expressing their political speech in a new, powerful, and transparent way, counteracting the dark money that has poured in from big corporate groups behind the scenes for years,” he said.</p>
<p id="vFHsDd">Opponent pledge campaigns such as these could gain more traction among progressives. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/27/17783590/michael-cohen-go-fund-me-lanny-davis">Small-dollar donors are eager to jump in on campaigns</a> in 2018, and past November, as they contemplate 2020, this might be an appealing way to do it.</p>
<p id="pTVqrp">ActBlue had donation accounts open for every eventual Democratic nominee challenging a House Republican in 2018, and after the midterms, they’ll set up similar accounts for eventual Democrats challenging incumbent House Republicans in 2020. </p>
<p id="cETquS">On the Senate side, they’re even further ahead: ActBlue already has accounts set up for the eventual Democratic nominees challenging incumbent Republican senators in 2020. After South Carolina Republican Sen. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/28/17911784/lindsey-graham-brett-kavanaugh-trump">Lindsey Graham’s angry rant</a> during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Kavanaugh and Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, ActBlue tweeted out a link for people to give to whoever winds up running against him when his term ends in 2020.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">A lot of people are asking where they can donate to Lindsey Graham's opponent today. Here's a page where folks can donate now to support the eventual Democratic nominee who will run against Graham in 2020: <a href="https://t.co/H66cb5DJau">https://t.co/H66cb5DJau</a></p>— ActBlue (@actblue) <a href="https://twitter.com/actblue/status/1045392358701969408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2018</a>
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<p id="ySJJZE">“People are pissed,” Jaff said, “and we’re going to channel that rage.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/6/17945900/susan-collins-speech-crowdpac-susan-riceEmily Stewart2018-10-07T10:02:41-04:002018-10-07T10:02:41-04:00Susan Collins says she doesn’t think Kavanaugh was Ford’s assailant
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<img alt="Sen. Susan Collins leave the Senate floor after a speech announcing her support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Kbwy49LJ1ZJh_airZSGh-rskNMc=/333x0:3000x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61680973/1046193682.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) leave the Senate floor after a speech announcing her support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. | Alex Wong/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>After Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation, more Republicans say they believe he didn’t assault Christine Blasey Ford.</p> <p id="Bwy54K">Now that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/6/17942468/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-partisan">Brett Kavanaugh</a> has been confirmed to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/6/17915854/brett-kavanaugh-senate-confirmed-supreme-court-legitimacy">Supreme Court</a>, some Republicans seem to feel freer saying what they really think about the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/16/17867706/christine-blasey-ford-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assault-allegations">sexual assault allegations</a> against him brought by Palo Alto University professor <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17910214/christine-blasey-ford-senate-testimony-brett-kavanaugh-hearing">Christine Blasey Ford</a>: They don’t believe them.</p>
<p id="y3iPMp">Maine Republican Sen. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/5/17941352/susan-collins-brett-kavanaugh">Susan Collins</a>, an important swing vote on Kavanaugh who ultimately supported him, said in an appearance on CNN’s <em>State of the Union </em>aired on Sunday that she found Ford’s testimony to be “heart-wrenching, painful, compelling.” adding, “I believe that she believes what she testified to.”</p>
<p id="ioRapZ">Collins, however, did not. </p>
<p id="nbnQPz">“But we also had a case where Judge Kavanaugh came forward and said, ‘I’m 100 percent certain that this did not happen,’” Collins told CNN’s Dana Bash. “So here you have two people, who are each 100 percent certain of what they’re saying, under pain of perjury, so then I had to look at the other evidence, and was there corroborating evidence, and that’s why I pushed hard for the FBI to do a supplemental background investigation.”</p>
<p id="yE9dbt">When asked directly by Bash whether it’s possible Kavanaugh had assaulted Ford, Collins was more direct. “I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh was her assailant,” she said. “I do believe she was assaulted. I don’t know by whom. And I’m not certain when.”</p>
<p id="UVhzIR">Ford alleges that in the early 1980s while they were both at a high school party, Kavanaugh pinned her down, tried to take her clothes off, and covered her mouth when she screamed while one of his friends, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/17/17870642/mark-judge-brett-kavanaugh-friend-christine-ford">Mark Judge</a>, looked on. During her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, she said she was absolutely certain it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her, and described the boys’ “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/09/28/christine-blasey-ford-and-the-dark-side-of-laughter/?noredirect=on">uproarious laughter</a>” during the incident. Kavanaugh denies the allegations.</p>
<p id="tRdJdL">The assertion that it wasn’t Kavanaugh who assaulted Ford coming from Collins is jarring — she’s considered one of the most moderate lawmakers in the Senate and is generally concerned about women’s issues. But she’s not the only one to make such an argument: Was Ford assaulted? Maybe. But was it Kavanaugh? No. </p>
<p id="Jshb3B">Conservative activist <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/20/17885050/ed-whelan-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-accusation">Ed Whelan</a> in September went so far as to lay out a theory of who else might have assaulted Ford, using Zillow and old pictures and tweeting out his case. (He later apologized.) As <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/1/17914526/ford-kavanaugh-scotus-conservatives-doppelganger">Vox’s Jane Coaston</a> wrote, a sort of Kavanaugh “<a href="https://twitter.com/TheViewFromLL2/status/1045753791864131584">doppelgänger</a>” theory emerged on the right, with many conservatives arguing Ford must have been confused.</p>
<p id="IcWZCi">Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) ahead of the judiciary panel hearing said Ford must have been “mixed up” and “mistaken” about who assaulted her. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said something similar.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana says he believes something very very bad happened to Dr. Ford and he’s sorry, but he says he does not believe Brett Kavanaugh was involved and will vote yes. Another Whelanite.</p>— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1045717402359615493?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 28, 2018</a>
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<h3 id="88A450">Trump says he’s 100 percent sure it wasn’t Kavanaugh</h3>
<p id="Wf3heN">President Donald Trump, when Ford initially came forward, was unusually quiet — to the point that aides told reporters they were surprised at his demeanor. But at a rally earlier this week <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/2/17930636/trump-mississippi-rally-mock-christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh">he openly mocked Ford</a>, joking that she insisted she only had one beer and didn’t remember anything else about the alleged incident.</p>
<p id="o9hIZ0">Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday while flying to a campaign rally in Kansas, Trump softened his tone slightly but stood by Kavanaugh, saying he is “100 percent” sure Ford had named the wrong person. </p>
<p id="VLW36X">“This is — one of the reasons I chose him is because there is no one with a squeaky clean past like Brett Kavanaugh,” Trump said. “He is an outstanding person and I’m very honored to have chosen him.”</p>
<p id="aN8SSN">After the Senate vote on Saturday, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) told <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/7/17946218/brett-kavanaugh-senate-confirmation-senators">Vox’s Li Zhou</a> that memory can be a “tricky thing,” even though Ford’s experience was “traumatic” and her memory of it was “genuine.”</p>
<p id="pKbFz2">“Kavanaugh was very unequivocal in his categorical denial of this or anything like it,” Blunt said. “He went a lot further than he would have needed to go if he had ever been involved in anything like this, because anybody could have come forward. But that doesn’t belittle her trauma, I don’t think, in any way.”</p>
<p id="HhRssx">Of the message this gives to American women, Blunt said it should be “that you’re not guilty just because somebody says you’re guilty.”</p>
<p id="Icw20K">Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) made a similar assertion when speaking to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/7/17946218/brett-kavanaugh-senate-confirmation-senators">Vox’s Ella Nilsen</a>. “Anyone, whether it’s a woman or a man, can hopefully trust that their reputation will not be destroyed by one, uncorroborated allegation,” Cassidy said.</p>
<p id="oNa191">The message from some Republicans seems to be: Believe women, but only the parts of what they say that are convenient.</p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/7/17947734/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-reaction-susan-collins-fordEmily Stewart2018-10-07T09:00:01-04:002018-10-07T09:00:01-04:00Christine Ford’s story isn’t over
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<img alt="Protestors against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are arrested as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27, 2018." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ecb7z9EJjSlOmfWtn37PZBgqGBo=/349x0:4368x3014/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61677149/GettyImages_1041986100.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Protesters against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are arrested as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018. | Sarah Silbiger/CQ Roll Call</figcaption>
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<p>The cost of coming forward with her allegations against Brett Kavanaugh was enormous. But it won’t be in vain.</p> <p id="xH7P8D">“Why suffer through the annihilation if it’s not going to matter?” </p>
<p id="LcFlsH">Christine Blasey Ford said <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.54780b77383d">she asked herself that question</a> this summer, when she decided not to come forward publicly to say that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were in high school. </p>
<p id="NFosd1">She ultimately reversed her decision, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.54780b77383d">speaking to the Washington Post</a> about her allegations (which Kavanaugh denied) and then <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17910214/christine-blasey-ford-senate-testimony-brett-kavanaugh-hearing">testifying at a hearing last week</a>. But throughout that process, her question to herself <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-ford-kavanaugh-hearings-will-be-remembered-for-their-grotesque-display-of-patriarchal-resentment">has</a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-metoo-hasnt-changed-for-christine-blasey-ford">resonated</a>. After the hearing, <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/the-annihilation-of-christine-blasey-ford-1829386112">Katie McDonough of Jezebel</a> wrote of “the sensation of Ford receding from view — her hours of testimony, another woman publicly reopening wounds out of a <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/the-cruelty-of-a-womans-civic-duty-1829368855">sense of responsibility</a> and a fragile belief that it might actually mean something — obliterated by the rage of powerful men.”</p>
<p id="j4K9iu">“Ford,” McDonough wrote, “had predicted that future and called it by its name: annihilation.”</p>
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<img alt="Valerie Ploumpis watches the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford on Capitol Hill on September 27, 2018." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Iv-NVdtj1i8pDfIDuxrN9xrdy5M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13222859/GettyImages_1042242524.jpg">
<cite>Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Valerie Ploumpis watches the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford on Capitol Hill on September 27, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="q7h0Kf">Ford is a careful speaker. In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, she spoke with the precision of an expert — she is a psychology professor — and the thoroughness of someone who has been forced to go back over her memories again and again and again. It’s significant, then, that she chose the word “annihilation,” and not mockery or stigma or threats or harassment, all things she’s faced in the weeks since she came forward. </p>
<p id="XndOGF">Christine Ford was afraid of being reduced to nothing.</p>
<p id="h5xuOw">Now, after a few days of testimony and investigation, during which survivors took to the streets and the halls of Congress to add their own stories to Ford’s, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/6/17942468/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-partisan">the Senate voted 50-48</a> on Saturday to send Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.</p>
<p id="jdzhT3">It’s a story that has played out again and again over the past year, as Americans — most of them women — open up about some of the most painful events of their lives in the hopes that maybe, finally, something will change. In this case, the cost has been immense: a woman forced to relive her trauma on a national scale, only to be mocked by the president of the United States. Others have come to lend her support, only to be condemned by senators as bullies or children. Women have bared their souls and in return have been scoffed at, threatened, insulted, and disbelieved. And now, a man accused of sexual assault has a lifetime appointment to the country’s highest court.</p>
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<img alt="Christine Blasey Ford is greeted by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), left, during a break in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eRWqq9f8vPfNC0A0K1JqUZrFpc0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13222885/GettyImages_1042080298.jpg">
<cite>Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Christine Blasey Ford is greeted by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), left, during a break in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="g6RRlU">It’s not surprising that Ford feared annihilation. Every day we see high-profile men climbing back to positions of power and influence after a few token months out of the public eye, almost as though women had never come forward to report that those men had groped and hounded, assaulted and abused them. Almost as though those women never existed.</p>
<p id="x5SKU1">But they do exist. One of the most striking things about the <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/sexual-harassment-assault-allegations-list">#MeToo movement</a> has been its longevity. In a time when our attention span for news seems as short as the blink of an eye, our national sickness around sexual harassment and assault has come to the fore again and again. This won’t be the last time. </p>
<p id="d4h8Gi">In the past week, Ford and many others have added their voices to a growing chorus of Americans calling those in power to account for the sexual harassment and assault of those less powerful than they are. That chorus is growing louder, not softer. It will not be reduced to nothing.</p>
<h3 id="rJrKdt">Christine Ford’s experience revealed the cost of #MeToo</h3>
<p id="msbC2v">“I am here today not because I want to be,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17909932/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh-emotional-opening-statement">Ford said</a> as she began her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I am terrified.”</p>
<p id="nz4bNN">She was right to be afraid. Senators treated her with more respect than <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17906778/brett-kavanaugh-hearing-christine-ford-anita-hill">the Judiciary Committee had shown Anita Hill in 1991</a>, mostly ceding questions to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/26/17905270/who-is-rachel-mitchell-maricopa-county-prosecutor">Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell</a>, who focused on minutiae. But in the days leading up to the testimony, Ford and her family were forced to leave their home due to death threats — the home that, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/27/17909932/christine-blasey-ford-kavanaugh-emotional-opening-statement">Ford testified</a>, she had remodeled with a second front door to help her cope with fears stemming from her assault. Media outlets and congressional staffers began digging through her past, bringing up references to drinking and sex in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17909644/brett-kavanaugh-hearing-christine-ford-yearbooks">her high school yearbook</a> in an attempt to discredit her.</p>
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<img alt="Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZXUuy4QEtGMXa57_Kw-xyQIaizE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13222961/GettyImages_1041759264__1_.jpg">
<cite>Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="TAgpkE">After she testified, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/02/records_raise_questions_about_fords_double-door_story__138225.html">the digging continued</a>. Then <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17932024/trump-brett-kavanaugh-christine-ford-julie-swetnick">President Donald Trump</a> mocked Ford for being unable to remember certain details in her testimony. </p>
<p id="lK5hbW">“Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs? Downstairs? Where was it — I don’t know. But I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember,” he said as a crowd of thousands laughed and cheered.</p>
<p id="MJ9w35">Trump also appeared to call Ford and her supporters “evil people,” blaming them for leaving Kavanaugh’s life “in tatters.” Later, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940706/trump-soros-kavanaugh-twitter-vote">Trump insulted</a> the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/28/17913762/jeff-flake-kavanaugh-ford-sexual-assault-survivors">assault survivors who had confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)</a> in an elevator after he announced he would vote to advance Kavanaugh’s confirmation out of committee, tweeting, “the very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad.”</p>
<p id="vObXWc">Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/4/17936878/trump-mississippi-rally-brett-kavanaugh-bret-stephens">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell</a> described assault survivors and others opposing Kavanaugh’s confirmation as bullies who didn’t care about facts: “I want to make it clear to these people who are chasing my members around the hall here or harassing them at the airports or going to their homes, we’re not going to be intimidated by these people. There is no chance in the world they’re going to scare us out of doing our duty.” <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/5/17940724/kavanaugh-protesters-trump-mcconnell">Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)</a> told a group of protesters to “grow up.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">WATCH: <a href="https://twitter.com/senorrinhatch?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@senorrinhatch</a> tells a group of women and survivors to “grow up” as he laughs in their faces. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BelieveSurvivors?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BelieveSurvivors</a> <a href="https://t.co/ZMe4Rslret">pic.twitter.com/ZMe4Rslret</a></p>— #VOTEPROCHOICE (@VoteChoice) <a href="https://twitter.com/VoteChoice/status/1047932623014825991?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2018</a>
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<p id="KwCoE1">Messages like these are what keep so many women from reporting sexual assault when it happens: They’re justifiably afraid of being smeared, shamed, and disbelieved. For Ford, that happened on a national scale.</p>
<p id="y4IFRa">This is the cost of #MeToo: A woman had to relive a moment during which, she testified, she feared for her life — a moment that she says has affected her for decades, contributing to symptoms of anxiety and PTSD. And once that was done, she had to submit to public shaming by none other than the president of the United States, and watch her supporters endure the same. </p>
<p id="uBOrFv">It was a more public version of what too many survivors still have to go through when they report assault or harassment: the shaming, the blame, the disbelief, the character assassination. And, under all of it, the fear that nothing will really change.</p>
<h3 id="basupN">But the support Ford received also reveals the #MeToo movement’s power</h3>
<p id="Tt3FPh">The Monday after Ford and Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, about 1,000 people were <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17897296/believe-survivors-walkout-kavanaugh-ford-ramirez">arrested by Capitol Police while protesting Kavanaugh</a>, according to organizers. That same day, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17897296/believe-survivors-walkout-kavanaugh-ford-ramirez">Vox’s Tara Golshan reported</a>, women around the country held a national walkout in support of Ford and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17894618/brett-kavanaugh-deborah-ramirez-me-too">Deborah Ramirez</a>, who has said that Kavanaugh thrust his genitals in her face without her consent when they were in college. The protests dwarfed those held against the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first nominee to the Court.</p>
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<img alt="Hundreds of protesters rally in the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda while demonstrating against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill September 24, 2018." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IeZrPfvVo1PA9OEJfn3HVHaHyog=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13223431/GettyImages_1043778902.jpg">
<cite>Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Hundreds of protesters rally in the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda while demonstrating against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill September 24, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="OlolN5"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/4/17799842/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-confirmation-hearing-polls">Kavanaugh was historically unpopular</a> before Ford’s allegations became public, and many Americans were already protesting his confirmation because of fears that he could cast <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/7/17818458/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-nominee-abortion-confirmation">the deciding vote to overturn <em>Roe v. Wade</em></a>. But since Ford came forward, the protests have grown in scale and become more personal, as survivors spoke not just about the nominee but about their own experiences.</p>
<p id="gxFK0N">“I had not planned to share my story,” wrote Ana María Archila, one of the women who confronted Flake, in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/29/brett-kavanaugh-jeff-flake-elevator-confirmation-blasey-ford-column/1459239002/">an op-ed in USA Today</a>. “I hadn’t shared it for three decades because I wanted to protect my parents from my pain. But Christine Blasey Ford told her story to protect our country and, in solidarity with her and as a way to thank her, I decided to tell mine.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">PART 2: <a href="https://twitter.com/AnaMariaArchil2?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AnaMariaArchil2</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CPDAction?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CPDAction</a> and hero Maria shared their powerful personal stories with <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffFlake?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JeffFlake</a> to demand that he vote no on Kavanaugh. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StopKavanaugh?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StopKavanaugh</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/KavanaughHearings?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#KavanaughHearings</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/BeAHeroTeam?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BeAHeroTeam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AdyBarkan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AdyBarkan</a> <a href="https://t.co/6b0xF9VNZX">pic.twitter.com/6b0xF9VNZX</a></p>— Make the Road Action (@MaketheRoadAct) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaketheRoadAct/status/1045676207403134976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 28, 2018</a>
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<p id="nOkIJy">Archila knew the cost of speaking up about her assault. The potential cost to her family had kept her silent for decades. She had seen what happened to Ford when she agreed to testify. And yet Archila decided to add her voice to Ford’s anyway.</p>
<p id="2tTV2X">This is the power of #MeToo — it’s baked right into the name. Nearly every time someone has made the difficult decision to open up about harassment or assault, others have been there to say, “We support you. We believe you. It happened to us too.”</p>
<p id="mejkZo">Women who come forward about sexual misconduct have always been at risk of, as Ford put it, annihilation. They have always faced the possibility that their words will be disbelieved, their pain disregarded, their lives upended — that they will be reduced to a mere footnote in a man’s life.</p>
<p id="kjSKYw">What’s different now is that, more than ever before, Americans are coming together to resist this annihilation. It may be easy to erase one woman — it’s a lot harder to erase thousands.</p>
<p id="IxGxD4">Ford’s testimony didn’t stop Kavanaugh from being confirmed. But what she started when she agreed to speak to the Washington Post won’t end today. The midterm elections are coming, and with them the possibility that Republicans at all levels of government will have to reckon with the Senate’s vote. </p>
<p id="2Kind7">More broadly, a time is coming when powerful people and the institutions that support them are no longer insulated, as they once were, from the voices of those whom they’ve assaulted or harassed. That time has been a long time coming — since 1991, at least, if not before that — and maybe it’s not quite here yet. But it’s closer than ever before.</p>
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<img alt="Protesters rally against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building October 4, 2018." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bVVcZvNjxR8q8HLbS1EklsP-vX4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13223451/GettyImages_1045676134.jpg">
<cite>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Protesters rally against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building October 4, 2018.</figcaption>
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https://www.vox.com/2018/10/7/17940822/brett-kavanaugh-senate-vote-christine-fordAnna North2018-10-07T06:30:01-04:002018-10-07T06:30:01-04:00Kavanaugh’s confirmation sets even higher Supreme Court stakes for 2020
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<figcaption>Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks at a “people’s filibuster” to protest the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. | Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle will make the Supreme Court a pivotal issue in 2018 — and 2020.</p> <p id="H9ItU4">Brett Kavanaugh’s narrow confirmation on Saturday sets up huge Supreme Court stakes for the 2020 presidential election.</p>
<p id="f0WmmW">The new Supreme Court justice — confirmed by a 50-48 vote in the Senate after a bitter past few weeks — will replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, widely regarded as an important swing vote on the court. Kennedy, though considered a conservative, has sided with liberal and moderate justices in the past to uphold such key decisions as <em>Roe v. Wade </em>and affirm parts of the Affordable Care Act. </p>
<p id="8Vycgg">But a looming question remains as to whether another seat could open before<strong> </strong>2020, giving President Donald Trump the chance to nominate yet another justice and fully solidify a conservative Supreme Court for decades to come.</p>
<p id="7cEtbj">Some Senate Democrats widely viewed as 2020 presidential contenders made it clear this weekend they are fully committed to the fight to try to make sure that doesn’t happen. Even as some of these Democrats, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), are stoking speculation they are readying to run against Trump in two years, they are first focused intently on the November midterms.</p>
<p id="ZZ8Wnw">“May our outrage get us out working. #midterms,” <a href="https://twitter.com/CoryBooker/status/1048671204184391685"><strong>Booker tweeted</strong></a>, just hours before he <a href="https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/09/08/cory-booker-2020-preparation-senator-headline-iowa-democratic-dinner/1239323002/"><strong>headed to Iowa</strong></a> to headline the Iowa Democratic Party fall gala. <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1048664632817274880"><strong>Harris</strong></a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/SenGillibrand/status/1048665855771496449"><strong>Gillibrand</strong></a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1048664639364587520"><strong>Klobuchar</strong></a><strong>, </strong><a href="https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1048379040489463808"><strong>Sanders</strong></a><strong>,</strong> and other Democrats also tweeted and spoke about the importance of women and Democrats showing their anger by heading to the polls. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">We can't stop fighting. Progress doesn't happen overnight. It can be painful. It can be slow. But now is the time to roll up our sleeves, knock on doors, and register people to vote. In one month we have the chance to vote and stand up for the country we love.</p>— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1048664632817274880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2018</a>
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<p id="iFAFVJ">Warren — one of the few Senate Democrats who has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-2020.html"><strong>explicitly said she’s considering a 2020 run</strong></a> — spoke at an anti-Kavanaugh protest in front of the Supreme Court on Saturday, encouraging voters to head to the polls in 30 days and “vote Democrat up and down.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’m about to go vote against Brett Kavanaugh. But first, I want to tell everyone who fought with us what comes next: <a href="https://t.co/4NgWnpObfx">https://t.co/4NgWnpObfx</a></p>— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1048643570645835778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2018</a>
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<p id="H5eTDf">“This hurts, but I want to be clear: I am not sorry I got in this fight,” Warren said. “I’m telling you why I’m not sorry: because when we fight, we get stronger.”</p>
<p id="ZQUgxH">As Warren spoke in front of the Supreme Court about the importance of voting in 2018, some in the crowd clearly had another election in mind. One woman in the crowd yelled, “Run for president!” Warren had to briefly pause her speech as the crowd cheered. </p>
<h3 id="ZcWI7p">Struggling with defeat on Kavanaugh, Senate Democrats are focused on the midterms</h3>
<p id="6WQCXf">Even though 2020 may be on their minds, many Senate Democrats are much more focused on the 2018 midterms, which are just a month away.</p>
<p id="mkUbYa">Current polls are showing Democrats with a decent chance of retaking the US House of Representatives, but the Senate flipping blue is considered much more of a long shot. Democrats are hoping the raw anger of women and sexual assault survivors after Kavanaugh himself was accused of sexual assault (which he has denied) will be enough to take Republican seats in the Senate. </p>
<p id="EQaKRx">“It’s a sad day. But the recourse will have to be on election day,” Klobuchar told <a href="https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/1048653273224400897"><strong>BuzzFeed’s Paul McLeod</strong></a> as she headed into the chamber to vote against Kavanaugh’s nomination.</p>
<p id="TMYUYC">Nearly every other Democratic senator had the same message on Saturday as they left Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote. Many seemed distraught, some on the verge of tears. </p>
<p id="sFQov0">Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told Vox that Saturday was the “angriest and saddest time” for him in his nine years in the US Senate. But Blumenthal, like other senators, encouraged voters to turn that anger into civic action at the polls. </p>
<p id="w5jivS">“For folks that are anguished or angry at this day, my urging is vote,” Blumenthal said. “Vote, and take three people to the polls.”</p>
<p id="CzuVtX">There is a question of whether the Kavanaugh controversy will also motivate Republicans to go to the polls in November, in a year where they have appeared to lack the same enthusiasm of Democratic voters, until very recently. </p>
<p id="5QeNmz">When Kavanaugh’s nomination appeared to be in real trouble last week, it had the effect of revving up the Republican base in a way pollsters haven’t seen all election cycle. An <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/654015874/poll-amid-kavanaugh-confirmation-battle-democratic-enthusiasm-edge-evaporates"><strong>NPR/Marist poll released on Wednesday</strong></a> showed that 80 percent of Republican voters polled said the midterms were “very important,” basically on par with Democratic voters, who were at 82 percent. In July, Republican voters lagged 10 percentage points behind Democrats when asked how important the midterms were.</p>
<p id="96Y1os">But now that Republicans managed to narrowly confirm Kavanaugh, Democratic voters have more reason to be angry — which could add extra incentive to go for the polls.</p>
<p id="M0h8VE">“I’ve never seen so much pain in any political situation, and I believe that pain is going to manifest itself in electoral fury,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told Vox on Saturday.</p>
<p id="rziMq2">Given the heightened stakes if Trump — or a future Democratic president — has the opportunity to fill another Supreme Court vacancy, the next 30 days until November 6 are pivotal for Democrats.</p>
<p id="rd6xK2"></p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/7/17945960/kavanaugh-confirmation-supreme-court-2020Ella Nilsen2018-10-07T06:00:01-04:002018-10-07T06:00:01-04:0012 senators on what message Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation sends to America’s women
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<img alt="Judge Brett Kavanaugh Awaits Senate Vote On Supreme Court Nomination" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Pkua1K2vF5zZawGTEAlgeUfPoew=/0x0:1833x1375/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61677605/1050431846.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Win McNamee/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Several said not enough has changed since Anita Hill’s testimony in 1991.</p> <p id="bWdteM">It was a sharp contrast in moods at the US Senate following Supreme Court nominee <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/6/17941524/kavanaugh-confirmation-takeaways"><strong>Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote</strong></a> on Saturday. </p>
<p id="W7w6GB">Democrats, by and large, were somber, withdrawn, and almost tearful, while Republicans appeared positively ebullient. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) quipped to reporters that the divisiveness of this fight is just something to put up with: “What’s our choice? I mean, we can’t get a divorce.”</p>
<p id="ZRyxT1">Republicans — alongside lone Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia — elevated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after he had been accused of sexual misconduct and assault, prompting painful echoes of Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings in 1991. Kavanaugh has unequivocally denied the allegations.</p>
<p id="yR1pxs">Kavanaugh is expected to reshape the Court for decades to come, but to millions, his confirmation also says that women — at the end of the day — still shouldn’t be believed. </p>
<p id="vIOVYr">Here’s what 12 senators had to say about the message Kavanaugh’s confirmation sends to women in America. </p>
<h3 id="6zFMwC">Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): “This is the ‘sit down and shut up’ message. But I got news for them: That’s not going to happen.” </h3>
<h4 id="7sDmOQ">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="xIVQ4Z">What message does Kavanaugh’s confirmation send to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="AWeZCm">Elizabeth Warren</h4>
<p id="TGUOMj">This is the “sit down and shut up” message. But I got news for them: That’s not going to happen. One of the things that’s come out of this fight is that millions of survivors of sexual assault have lifted their voices, and millions of women have said, “I’m not sitting down and shutting up for nobody.”</p>
<h4 id="xMX9VX">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="s86eRv">Do you feel like things have changed since Anita Hill?</p>
<h4 id="Bie9aQ">Elizabeth Warren</h4>
<p id="SFWzwB">Not nearly enough. Just not nearly enough. </p>
<h3 id="fBRnZe">Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO): “There’s a lot of research and writing on this, but memory is a very complicated thing”</h3>
<h4 id="OQtH8Z">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="wnNhgr">I was wondering what message you think this vote sends to the women in America?</p>
<h4 id="fogRd2">Roy Blunt</h4>
<p id="JSPK4K">I would think: One, in the last three weeks, that millions of conversations have been had that have not been had before about sexual assault. Two, I believe that Dr. [Christine Blasey] Ford was treated with respect and listened to with respect, and I hope the message is that these things need to be talked about, these things should be talked about. But the message should also be that you’re not guilty just because somebody says you’re guilty. </p>
<p id="ARTYqY">There needs to be some understanding of memory and how complicated memory is, and I’m hopeful that the question of assault and women coming forward is a discussion we continue to have. </p>
<h4 id="9evIvY">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="flaplS">Did you believe Dr. Ford’s testimony? </p>
<h4 id="hh5yOw">Roy Blunt</h4>
<p id="j8r4o8">I did, I did. </p>
<h4 id="cbmldg">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="zK5fnv">Do you think that the fact that — </p>
<h4 id="Tp951P">Roy Blunt</h4>
<p id="ueUWYq">I just … I believed that she had a traumatic event and that her memory of it was genuine. And like I said, there’s a lot of research and writing on this, but memory is a very complicated thing. And I think you can believe she had a traumatic event that has impacted her life and also believe Judge Kavanaugh when he says he was not involved in that event. </p>
<h4 id="GSWhr9">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="a6EhAD">Do you find the two to be somewhat incompatible? In that, if you believe her, you believe that she has the right guy. She remembered things correctly, she testified that she was 100 percent sure, all of that.</p>
<h4 id="FZ2mPJ">Roy Blunt</h4>
<p id="F80Hzj">Well, like I said. There’s been a lot of research on this and memory is a tricky thing. He was very unequivocal in his categorical denial of this or anything like it. He went a lot further than he would have needed to go if he had ever been involved in anything like this, because anybody could have come forward. But that doesn’t belittle her trauma, I don’t think, in any way. </p>
<h3 id="e42nRa">Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): “This day is the angriest and saddest time for me in the United States Senate”</h3>
<h4 id="oKmg4x">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="oy1K4b">Hi, Senator. I just wanted to get your thoughts on what this vote today means for women in America?</p>
<h4 id="RbDe3k">Richard Blumenthal</h4>
<p id="lzeNRD">This day is the angriest and saddest time for me in the United States Senate.</p>
<h4 id="esF1bT">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="WvNBlX">In your entire tenure here?</p>
<h4 id="EGcmke">Richard Blumenthal</h4>
<p id="KnJHsm">Exactly. The Republicans have confirmed this dangerous and deeply flawed nominee only by breaking all the rules and norms, demeaning courageous survivors of sexual assault, and confirming a justice who poses an extraordinary threat to women’s reproductive rights, and health care, and other essential equal rights.</p>
<h4 id="xlXDUx">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="o96IJc">What stakes does this set up for 2018 and 2020, in terms of the Supreme Court?</p>
<h4 id="bNNNVe">Richard Blumenthal</h4>
<p id="tibI2y">Well, for folks that are anguished or angry at this day, my urging is vote. Vote, and take three people to the polls.</p>
<h3 id="Db5l3x">Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): “To make this about ‘one party cares about sexual assault and the other one doesn’t’ is disingenuous”</h3>
<h4 id="6f0909">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="Ayw0Nt">What message does today’s vote send to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="G9Ec33">Thom Tillis</h4>
<p id="UEZIrl">Well, hopefully, if they paid no attention in any detail to anything that’s occurred over the last six weeks, I hope they’ll pay attention to what Sen. [Susan] Collins said yesterday. As somebody on the Personnel Subcommittee, I’m moving with Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand sexual assault legislation in every single year that I’ve been on that committee. All of us know that it’s a concern. </p>
<p id="vzPmHc">I think this has heightened awareness, but I believe if people really listen to what Sen. Collins said yesterday, she really framed it better than anybody. </p>
<p id="9Twq7r">To make this about “one party cares about sexual assault and the other one doesn’t” is disingenuous, and they know it — based on the work that we do, in terms of moving legislation to this end.</p>
<h4 id="3dflaO">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="Aufsuc">What did you make of the protesters in the Senate today?</p>
<h4 id="k7FvlY">Thom Tillis</h4>
<p id="mvdOrK">Well, it was fully expected; if anything I thought it would be more disruptive. As somebody who sits on the Judiciary Committee, we’ve seen it on the front row, and it’s a lot of frustration. But if you see the information that many people are working on, I think they’re generally protesting because they believe what they’ve been lead to believe, whether by the way the press has covered it, or by the way various interest groups have covered it. </p>
<p id="VZqDUS">My heart really breaks for them, because I think they genuinely mean it, and I don’t think that it’s a fair representation of any of the priorities of the fathers of daughters and granddaughters. ... I mean, it couldn’t be further away from the truth.</p>
<h4 id="ybPsLp">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="ZmifSw">What special interest groups are you referring to?</p>
<h4 id="RX29Qz">Thom Tillis</h4>
<p id="7kXesJ">Well, I think MoveOn was advising people on how and where to protest, some of the various other groups. And I’m sure there were some pro-Kavanaugh groups that were doing the same. But I think they’ve chosen to have a very limited view of the issue. It’s really just to drive their agenda.</p>
<h3 id="Ky8amG">Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): “This place is stuck in another era, and it’s time to get it to the place where the rest of America is”</h3>
<h4 id="aPMFYy">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="5SWAI5">Could you talk a bit about what kind of message this vote sends to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="Rk7l0z">Amy Klobuchar</h4>
<p id="FIWBiH">Well, it’s just — I’m just — it’s just so sad to talk about it. I think that women and men have, now they have to speak. The Senate spoke. This was their view. They didn’t do a thorough investigation, they’re putting someone on the Court who has extremely conservative views even outside of his whole hearings last week. And so now the people are going to have to decide. </p>
<p id="S5oGy6">And as I looked over at them, at all of them hanging out, practically celebrating, I thought, Well, let’s see how you feel the day after the election.</p>
<h4 id="fg7sF0">Reporter</h4>
<p id="OA4QtQ">Do you think this is going to encourage Democratic voters to turn out?</p>
<h4 id="PshsPV">Amy Klobuchar</h4>
<p id="K7zdLE">I think it is, and I think they were already pretty incentivized. I mostly think that when you looked at that chamber and you combine it with Sen. Grassley — well, he corrected his remarks very quickly — about there <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/6/17945182/grassley-republican-women-senators-judiciary-committee">not having enough women on the committee</a> because they didn’t want to work that hard. </p>
<p id="urnAyd">I think it’s been a hard week to explain to people, and I think you just explain it by: This place is stuck in another era, and it’s time to get it to the place where the rest of America is. </p>
<h4 id="yB6BVL">Reporter</h4>
<p id="QuAsNd">Sen. McConnell thinks that this energized his side.</p>
<h4 id="V2AAoE">Amy Klobuchar</h4>
<p id="IIvxK5">I’m not going to be a pundit. I just know that this was wrong. </p>
<h3 id="Nrh027">Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA): “I think it also shows that anyone, whether it’s a woman or a man, can hopefully trust that their reputation will not be destroyed by one, uncorroborated allegation”</h3>
<h4 id="EESnIY">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="Ms6iLM">What is the message that today’s vote sends to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="Z2mAmm">Bill Cassidy</h4>
<p id="Azhaqq">If there’s something positive that came out of this, it’s that there is an awareness that there are wounds we as a society have to look at, not only to help heal, but also to avoid future [wounds]. I think it also shows that anyone, whether it’s a woman or a man, can hopefully trust that their reputation will not be destroyed by one, uncorroborated allegation. Because that of course, is a threat to anyone, whether male or female.</p>
<h4 id="oPhwc6">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="dbmVnl">That’s what you think this process demonstrated?</p>
<h4 id="lctT0W">Bill Cassidy</h4>
<p id="1mHETd">I think clearly Dr. Ford’s allegations were taken quite seriously. But that fact that all four people whom she named as being there, including her best friend, said it didn’t happen, at some point there has to be the fairness for all parties concerned. And I think it was powerful that her best friend — again — said it didn’t happen. [<em>Ed.: A friend of Ford’s, Leland Keyser, </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/3/17932338/brett-kavanaugh-christine-ford-fbi-investigation"><em>said she had no recollection</em></a><em> of an event that could corroborate Ford’s </em><em>accusation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh</em><em>, but </em><em>said she believes Ford’s account.</em>]</p>
<p id="0hKiiM">But on the other hand, again, those allegations were received with great respect by Republicans. I will point out Democrats exploited them, exploited her desire for confidentiality. </p>
<h3 id="mPlREM">Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI): “This is a historic vote — not in a good way”</h3>
<h4 id="7QM8eW">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="I1TXc9">Senator, on today’s vote, what message does this send to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="lKGrgN">Mazie Hirono</h4>
<p id="pMHjsK">Not a good one. This is a historic vote — not in a good way, because we’re sending yet another justice to the Supreme Court with this huge cloud over him, not to mention his very partisan screed. He really ripped away the veil of nonpartisanship, which by the way, he wrote about as being really important for a judge to be nonpartisan. So that’s all out the window in his desire to get onto the Supreme Court. Of course, before Dr. Ford came forward with her report, I was very much against him for so many other reasons.</p>
<h4 id="aDLgbY">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="Lib1pm">Were you in the chamber today when protesters were being led out?</p>
<h4 id="eU35am">Mazie Hirono</h4>
<p id="m1i6OX">Yes.</p>
<h4 id="IWVQwa">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="qFOAVf">What was your reaction to that?</p>
<h4 id="57eirL">Mazie Hirono</h4>
<p id="jHqDGT">What’s happening all across the country is that people are paying attention, especially women. And all the victims — mainly women — the survivors that came forward by the thousands, this whole experience brought out their own painful experiences, which they hid from everybody, practically. They’re not going to forget this. There are lots of angry women out there, and I’m encouraging them to stay angry, but determined, and focus like a laser beam on the elections.</p>
<h3 id="MOWm5I">Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC): “We can send you our statement”</h3>
<h4 id="2xUKAP">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="akVkRg">Senator, I’m curious what message you think today’s vote sends to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="aYMaPs">Tim Scott</h4>
<p id="7XDVua">I think, ah — well, I guess it depends on how you look at it.</p>
<h4 id="geUA2k">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="Q1h47T">Well, how do you see it?</p>
<h4 id="HhB6Br">Tim Scott</h4>
<p id="4YEp65">Well, I mean —</p>
<h4 id="RS1yIh">Senator’s staffer</h4>
<p id="6YAMxr">We released a statement earlier on it.</p>
<h4 id="i5g8Bd">Tim Scott</h4>
<p id="zAMf52">Yeah, we can send you our statement.</p>
<h4 id="UX14M3">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="BNVjEJ">Sure. I’m curious what you made of all of the protests today in the Senate [during the vote], it seemed unusual.</p>
<h4 id="afqoOp">Tim Scott</h4>
<p id="UBajoQ">Not really, we’ve had this before. People are actively involved and engaged in the country, and they want their voices to be heard. Sometimes they do it constructively, and sometimes they don’t. I get the passion and the energy around the issue, and I think it’s important for people who have the right to engage fully to engage. That’s part of our democracy.</p>
<h3 id="ENFQTT">Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM): “I think it sends the message that if you come forward, you’re not going to be taken seriously”</h3>
<h4 id="O68pUt">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="aFVMBt">What message do you think this vote sends to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="XWKJYB">Martin Heinrich</h4>
<p id="biwfQo">Unfortunately, I think it sends the message that if you come forward, you’re not going to be taken seriously. And I think that’s an absolutely horrible message to send. </p>
<h4 id="T5O4Sp">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="8bPFFC">Were you in the Senate when protesters were being led out today?</p>
<h4 id="CHZSB1">Martin Heinrich</h4>
<p id="s80rE4">I was not. I think this will have implications for many, many years to come, and will really define both parties well into the future.</p>
<h3 id="sKslXk">Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI): “I’ve never seen so much pain in any political situation, and I believe that pain is going to manifest itself in electoral fury”</h3>
<h4 id="vO32nv">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="YRrbCk">What message does today’s vote send to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="NvymYU">Brian Schatz</h4>
<p id="4E52O8">I don’t want to speak for the other side. I don’t want to send the women of America a message on behalf of Republicans. But I’ve never seen so much pain in any political situation, and I believe that pain is going to manifest itself in electoral fury.</p>
<h4 id="zNv14h">Ella Nilsen</h4>
<p id="iBY9pm">What are the stakes you see for 2018, and even beyond to 2020, when it comes to the Supreme Court?</p>
<h4 id="lzncSf">Brian Schatz</h4>
<p id="Zl1r8J">Well, this is the most important midterm election in many, many generations. And if you don’t like what just happened, at this point there’s only one remedy, and that is to win on November 6.</p>
<h3 id="YsS6RY">Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI): “They have to pretend to believe women, and then turn around and without saying so, totally disbelieve them” </h3>
<h4 id="EUIlfM">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="3vGc51">What message does the outcome of this vote send to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="8weYaZ">Sheldon Whitehouse</h4>
<p id="ixpEvA">I don’t have a short answer.</p>
<h4 id="rTcE8x">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="dVsZJJ">Do you have a long one?</p>
<h4 id="cGZaED">Sheldon Whitehouse</h4>
<p id="XnilHx">Probably. But I’m not ready to deliver it yet.</p>
<h4 id="tCyogD">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="RValSH">Do you feel like things have changed since Anita Hill?</p>
<h4 id="umm8W0">Sheldon Whitehouse</h4>
<p id="iUGNZB">I wasn’t here then, so I don’t have a point of comparison.</p>
<h4 id="9Hi5Ti">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="LKsJGP">Just when it comes to believing women and believing their allegations and taking those into account in a nomination like this. </p>
<h4 id="EbhRmz">Sheldon Whitehouse</h4>
<p id="zIIEvo">Like I said, I wasn’t there then, so I don’t have a point of comparison. </p>
<p id="DKj8A5">What I do see is that at least they feel like they have to pretend to believe women, and then turn around and without saying so, totally disbelieve them. </p>
<h3 id="15ZVHm">Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): “Not enough has changed [since Anita Hill]”</h3>
<h4 id="JrgJCo">Li Zhou</h4>
<p id="K9Ysxg">What kind of message does this vote send to women in America?</p>
<h4 id="CnZ6Ll">Patrick Leahy</h4>
<p id="SYaZOY">The other side would disagree, but I think it sends a terrible, terrible message, amplified by what Donald Trump — in his statements deriding women, trying to shame women. Have we learned nothing?</p>
<h5 id="B3a0Yq">Li Zhou</h5>
<p id="MOMUTr">Do you think anything’s changed since the Anita Hill hearings?</p>
<h4 id="ZD7R4d">Patrick Leahy</h4>
<p id="53RcnT">Obviously not enough. I was there for both hearings, and I was one of the ones who said, “I believed Anita Hill.” But no, not enough has changed. </p>
<p id="O1BVmw"></p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/7/17946218/brett-kavanaugh-senate-confirmation-senatorsElla NilsenLi Zhou2018-10-06T17:12:43-04:002018-10-06T17:12:43-04:00“Nothing unifies Republicans like the courts”: Republicans celebrate Kavanaugh confirmation
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<img alt="Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ahead of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court vote in the Senate." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Rkv639E21d3KiDNad_IF5eJiRjw=/250x0:4246x2997/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61676409/1050410814.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ahead of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court vote in the Senate. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>President Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are taking a victory lap on Brett Kavanaugh.</p> <p id="leN4wz">Republicans are taking a victory lap after <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/6/17942468/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-partisan">Brett Kavanaugh</a> was <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/6/17941524/kavanaugh-confirmation-takeaways">confirmed</a> to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/6/17915854/brett-kavanaugh-senate-confirmed-supreme-court-legitimacy">Supreme Court</a> on Saturday.</p>
<p id="pCT9ha">The United States Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. It’s the closest vote on a Supreme Court nominee<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisgeidner/kavanaugh-vote-supreme-court-historic">since 1881</a> and brings to a close a bruising battle that entailed allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Kavanaugh, an FBI investigation, and intense inter-party fighting. </p>
<p id="HkFo6y">Kavanaugh is the <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/poll-kavanaugh-is-the-most-unpopular-court-pick-in-decades.html">most unpopular Supreme Court nominee</a> in decades and will be the least popular justice in modern history. Thousands of people protested outside of the Senate on Saturday before and after Kavanaugh’s confirmation, as Republicans celebrated their political win. </p>
<p id="C0fI2V">President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to applaud the Senate vote, saying he would sign his commission of appointment later in the day.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I applaud and congratulate the U.S. Senate for confirming our GREAT NOMINEE, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to the United States Supreme Court. Later today, I will sign his Commission of Appointment, and he will be officially sworn in. Very exciting!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1048668088059584512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2018</a>
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<p id="cuhDKb">Speaking with reporters on his way to a rally in Kansas before Kavanaugh was confirmed, Trump called the judge an “extraordinary person” and “great talent” who would “make us all very proud” on the court, according to the White House press pool. He also said that perhaps the fight over Kavanaugh over the past week — including <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940738/fbi-investigation-kavanaugh-thorough-limits">the FBI investigation</a> into allegations of sexual misconduct and assault against him (all of which he has denied) — were perhaps a good thing. </p>
<p id="c4dlWP">“I also feel very strongly that, in the end, maybe the process, it was really unattractive, but the extra week was something that I think was really good,” Trump said. “I thought it was really good. I think a lot of, a lot of very positive things happened in the last week. It didn’t look that way, but in the end that’s what happened.”</p>
<p id="MCCTGs">The Republican National Committee also celebrated the Kavanaugh vote. Chair Ronna McDaniel in a statement upon Kavanaugh’s confirmation said that the judge will make an “excellent addition” to the court and applauded Trump, who “kept his promise” with his nominee. </p>
<p id="q5b7wT">She also took a swipe at Democrats over their “shameful” tactics — that is, pushing for an FBI investigation into allegations that he had sexually assaulted a woman when they were both in high school. </p>
<p id="pjnyqk">“Unfortunately, their obstruction campaign has backfired. Republican voters are energized and the American people are ready and eager to hold obstructionist Democrats accountable for their reckless behavior in November,” she said. </p>
<p id="cMWKcl">Hours before the vote that confirmed Kavanaugh, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-calls-opposition-to-kavanaugh-a-great-political-gift-to-republicans/2018/10/06/761b8610-c988-11e8-9158-09630a6d8725_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3a7f229149f2">the Washington Post</a> that opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination had been a “great political gift” to Republicans ahead of the midterms. </p>
<p id="lG7Lca">“The tactics have energized our base,” he said. “I want to thank the mob, because they’ve done the one thing we were having trouble doing, which was energizing our base.”</p>
<p id="C1xoXI">McConnell praised Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who on Friday <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/5/17941352/susan-collins-brett-kavanaugh">announced</a> she would vote to confirm Kavanaugh in a speech on the Senate floor, calling her<strong> </strong>“very independent” and “very smart.” He said she went through the confirmation process “very thoughtfully.”</p>
<p id="1lsxq6">Trump also praised Collins. “She didn’t stop and she gave an impassioned, beautiful speech yesterday, and that was from the heart,” he said. “That was from the heart. I have great respect for Susan Collins and I always have. Thank you.”</p>
<p id="ZtGEGa">The president took a swipe at Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted “present” on Kavanaugh, in an interview with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-gop-sen-murkowski-will-never-recover-for-voting-no-on-kavanaugh/2018/10/06/31ee8164-c9a0-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html?utm_term=.7fc09876687b">the Post</a> after the vote. “I think she will never recover from this,” Trump said. “I think the people from Alaska will never forgive her for what she did.” </p>
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<h3 id="uMllTO">Will this help Republicans in November? It’s unclear.</h3>
<p id="G4G11w">There has been some <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-kavanaugh-helping-republicans-midterm-chances/">polling</a> to suggest that the battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination has energized Republican voters, but as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/4/17936810/2018-midterm-elections-brett-kavanaugh-senate-confirmation-polls">Vox’s Dylan Scott points out</a>, it’s complicated.</p>
<p id="9zYQQL">It might be good for the GOP’s prospects in the Senate, as many battles are being fought in red states, but in the House races, it’s a different story:</p>
<blockquote><p id="0g7bK8">Republicans might be improving <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/3/17800588/2018-midterm-elections-senate">their odds of keeping the Senate</a>, where the GOP base will be crucial — several vulnerable Democrats are up for reelection in states that Trump won in 2016 and where he still remains popular. But the Supreme Court fight might not help as much in <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/4/17923658/midterms-2018-vulnerable-republicans-house">the House elections</a>, where suburban swing districts — and swing voters, women in particular — will decide who controls the chamber.</p></blockquote>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Keep in mind, the Kavanaugh effect will likely be *VERY* different in the Senate (red/rural states where Dems have to vote on him) vs. the House (swing suburban CDs where Rs are already battling Trump's unpopularity).</p>— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) <a href="https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1047608783445397504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2018</a>
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<p id="RtHwDn">At the moment, Republicans appear to be quite confident that Kavanaugh’s confirmation will help, not hurt. </p>
<p id="diCUKq">“Nothing brings home the importance of the Senate like a court fight, and nothing unifies Republicans like the courts,” McConnell told the Post.</p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/6/17946176/brett-kavanaugh-vote-trump-tweet-mitch-mcconnellEmily Stewart