Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Washington Insider Kavanaugh Has Been A Conservative Powerhouse As A Judge
The New York Times: Brett Kavanaugh, A Conservative Stalwart In Political Fights And On The Bench
Brett Michael Kavanaugh was just 38 when he was first nominated to a federal appeals court in Washington. But he had already participated in an extraordinary number of political controversies, attracting powerful patrons and critics along the way. He served under Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, examining the suicide of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel, and drafting parts of the report that led to Mr. Clinton’s impeachment. He worked on the 2000 Florida recount litigations that ended in a Supreme Court decision handing the presidency to George W. Bush. And he served as a White House lawyer and staff secretary to Mr. Bush, working on the selection of federal judges and legal issues arising from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. (Liptak, 7/9)
Reuters: Washington Insider Kavanaugh Boasts Conservative Credentials
Brett Kavanaugh, the consummate Washington insider picked by President Donald Trump on Monday for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, has viewed business regulations with skepticism in his 12 years as a judge and taken conservative positions on some divisive social issues. He joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2006. Appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, Kavanaugh, 53, on several occasions ruled against regulations issued under Democrat Barack Obama, who succeeded Bush in 2009. Kavanaugh faulted Obama-era environmental regulations, including some aimed at fighting climate change. (Hurley, 7/9)
Modern Healthcare: Trump Selects Kavanaugh To Be Next Supreme Court Justice
On the Affordable Care Act, Kavanaugh authored a ruling on the individual mandate from the D.C. Circuit that observers claim set the stage for the Supreme Court to uphold the law through the mandate, which Chief Justice John Roberts defined as a tax. Kavanaugh also sided with the Obama administration in Sissel v. HHS on upholding the ACA as a House-authored bill even though the case argued that the law did not appropriately originate in the House because the Senate had substituted its own language. (Luthi, 7/9)
CQ: Kavanaugh's Health Care Positions Hint At Future Views
The prior positions on health care cases by Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, hint at his potential future positions if confirmed to the court. Kavanaugh, a conservative judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has the support of anti-abortion groups and could play a key role in attempts to limit or overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade case, as a number of abortion cases make their way through the lower courts. Roe v. Wade upheld the constitutional right to an abortion, with the court finding that a right to privacy extended to a woman’s right to an abortion. (Raman, 7/9)
The Washington Post: Who Is Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's Nominee?
Brett M. Kavanaugh, the federal judge nominated by President Trump on Monday to the Supreme Court, has endorsed robust views of the powers of the president, consistently siding with arguments in favor of broad executive authority during his 12 years on the bench in Washington. He has called for restructuring the government’s consumer watchdog agency so the president could remove the director and has been a leading defender of the government’s position when it comes to using military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects. (Marimow, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal: Brett Kavanaugh Has Shown Deep Skepticism Of Regulatory State
Like Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Judge Kavanaugh has questioned whether courts are giving administrative agencies too much latitude in disputes over statutory interpretation. Judge Kavanaugh’s vantage point—a bench with caseloads packed with challenges to federal agency authority—has allowed him to become an influential umpire of the administrative state. (Gershman, 7/9)
The Washington Post: Kavanaugh Supreme Court Nomination: Conservative Pick Will Need Senate Confirmation
Kavanaugh is likely to be far more conservative than Kennedy, who was known as a swing vote on the court. These ideological estimates of the current justices and Kavanaugh are based on the Judicial Common Space system developed by political science researchers Lee Epstien, Andrew D. Martin, Jeffrey A. Segal and Chad Westerland. The scores take into account the voting patterns of Supreme Court justices and a combination of factors for judges of lower courts, including clerkships and the political affiliation of the nominating president. Based on these scores, Kavanaugh would be on par with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas at the conservative end of the court. That’s assuming he’s confirmed by the Senate, which can be a long process. (7/9)
The New York Times: A Conservative Court Push Decades In The Making, With Effects For Decades To Come
President Trump’s selection of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court on Monday culminates a three-decade project unparalleled in American history to install a reliable conservative majority on the nation’s highest tribunal, one that could shape the direction of the law for years to come. All of the years of vetting and grooming and lobbying and list-making by conservative legal figures frustrated by Republican appointees who drifted to the left arguably has come down to this moment, when they stand on the precipice of appointing a fifth justice who, they hope, will at last establish a bench firmly committed to their principles. (Baker, 7/9)
The Wall Street Journal: Judge Brett Kavanaugh: In His Own Words
Judge Kavanaugh, a nominee of President George W. Bush, has penned notable rulings on a host of topics, including environmental regulations, guns, the Affordable Care Act and abortion. Many, but not all of his rulings, have tipped right-of-center. (Jones, 7/9)
The Associated Press: A Look At Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh's Notable Opinions
Here are summaries of some of [Kavanaugh's] notable opinions
ProPublica: Who Is Brett Kavanaugh? A Supreme Court Reading Guide
President Trump on Monday night nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court that Justice Anthony Kennedy will vacate at the end of the month. Kavanaugh is a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Below, we’ve gathered some of the best reporting on Kavanaugh. (MacDougall, 7/9)
