Civil Rights Coalition Calls for Second Kavanaugh Hearing
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 4/27/2006
As White House staff secretary, federal judicial nominee Brett Kavanaugh has intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Bush administration, a fact that has become increasingly important as new revelations about the Bush administration's policies come to light.For this reason, civil rights organizations are urging Congress to hold a new hearing on Kavanaugh's pending nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Kavanaugh was first nominated to the court in July of 2003, but his nomination stalled after his hearing in March 2004. The Bush administration renominated him in February 2006, shortly after Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In recent months, however, the Bush administration has come under increased fire for some of its more extreme antiterrorism policies, including the wiretapping of American citizens without a warrant, denying detainees some protections under the Geneva Conventions, and authorizing torture as a method of interrogation.
An April 25 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, joined by 25 other national organizations, argues that a second hearing is necessary because the committee "has yet to explore whether Mr. Kavanaugh played a role in helping to formulate or defend any of these policies."
Civil rights groups point to the fact that in his current job, Kavanaugh was tasked with vetting judicial nominees, including controversial nominees Priscilla Owen, Dennis Shedd, Janice Rogers Brown, Miguel Estrada, and William Pryor. Kavanaugh refused to answer 20 questions on this topic in his first hearing, according to the letter.
Senate Democrats have called for another hearing twice. In their March letter to Sen. Arlen Specter, R. Pa., they said that Kavanaugh "had failed to provide meaningful and substantive responses" in his 2004 hearing.
The D.C. Circuit is considered to be the second most influential court in the country, following the U.S. Supreme Court, because it has jurisdiction over many government agencies.
