MALDEF STATEMENT ON CLOTURE VOTE ADVANCING KAVANAUGH NOMINATION

MALDEF

October 5, 2018

Los Angeles, CA - Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), released the following statement in response to the procedural cloture vote that advances the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to a final vote before the full United States Senate:

“A rushed and woefully incomplete investigation whose results are not publically released in even redacted and abbreviated form. That is not the American way. It is emblematic of government by oligarchy, not of American democracy.

“Voters should hold accountable – whenever the particular senatorial election comes up – each and every senator who votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court because each would be complicit in an unprecedented undermining of democracy. History will not be kind in its assessment of these senators.

“No question that, even from the most conservative ideological vantage point, senators who vote to confirm Kavanaugh will have been sold – by huckster-in-chief Donald Trump – a pig in a poke. Kavanaugh would serve with a continual cloud of suspicion over his head, leading to broad-based second-guessing of every Court decision where his vote is decisive. He will be constantly subject to impeachment and removal for any of multiple instances of apparent lying to Congress. There will likely be additional accusations of sexual impropriety over years to come, a perpetual reminder to the American people of what senators who made themselves subservient to Donald Trump have done.

“All of this comes at incalculable cost to the nation. Confirming Kavanaugh sends an extremely disturbing message of disrespect and disaffirmation to survivors of sexual assault, including particularly those who face assault as minor children. Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence will confirm that the disrespect also sweeps in immigrants, people of color, workers, and the poor.

“Senators should attend to the overwhelming messages of disunity, injustice, exclusive privilege, and anti-democratic entitlement that they send if they vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.”

Founded in 1968, MALDEF is the nation's leading Latino legal civil rights organization. Often described as the "Latino Legal Voice for Civil Rights in America" MALDEF promotes social change through advocacy, communications, community education, and litigation in the areas of education, employment, immigrant rights, and political access. For more information on MALDEF, please visit: www.maldef.org.