Republicans Could Pay Political Price For Cementing Conservative Supreme Court, History Shows

There's a track record in the nation's history of political backlash reflected in elected positions any time the court goes too far to one ideological side. Meanwhile, Democrats are digging in to possible ties between Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a judge forced into retirement last year over sexual harassment allegations.

The Associated Press: Could Hard-Right Supreme Court Haunt GOP? History Says Maybe

It's of little worry for Republicans or solace for Democrats bracing for battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Yet history suggests that if President Donald Trump cements an assertively conservative court for a generation, the GOP may ultimately pay a political price. When and how steep? That depends on how momentous the issues and how jolting the decisions, according to legal scholars who've studied the high court's impact on electoral politics. (Fram, 8/7)

Politico: Dems Zero In On Kavanaugh Ties To Judge In Sexual Harassment Scandal

Senate Democrats are gearing up to press Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his decades-long relationship with former Judge Alex Kozinski, who was forced into retirement last year by a mounting sexual harassment scandal. It’s not just what, if anything, Kavanaugh saw during his time as a Kozinski clerk in the early 1990s that’s on Democratic minds. They also want to know how President Donald Trump’s high court pick would address the judiciary’s ongoing internal reckoning with sexual misconduct that was sparked by Kozinski — one of Kavanaugh’s early mentors who introduced the younger appellate court judge at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2006. (Schor, 8/6)

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