What we know so far about the Kavanaugh confirmation battle
It’s the latest sign that the Trump administration is struggling to find its footing after the Senate failed to pass the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
While the president’s decision to replace the Supreme Leader has been widely reported, the details surrounding the process and its timing have been scant.
That’s why we decided to put together a summary of what we know about the confirmation battle and what we might learn from the public hearings.
Read on to find out what we learned.
1.
The nomination was approved by the Senate on March 12, the day before the Senate was set to hold its first confirmation hearing.
But that date was not the same as the actual confirmation vote that took place.
While Trump was still at the White House at the time, he was not allowed to participate in the Senate’s proceedings.
That meant that the Senate, which was holding hearings about his nomination, could not vote on the nominee as scheduled.
That means the Senate could not pass the confirmation bill.
Instead, the Senate decided to vote on its own version of the confirmation package on March 14.
2.
The Senate voted 98-0 on the version of Kavanaugh’s confirmation package that the Whitehouse initially had proposed.
That included the nomination for a lifetime appointment, which is the standard that most Supreme Court justices are nominated to be. 3.
The package included language that would have allowed the Senate to reject Kavanaugh’s nomination if he was found not to meet the criteria for a Supreme Court appointment.
The Supreme Court has never rejected a nominee for a seat on the court who was not confirmed.
But the Senate bill would have removed that provision.
4.
It also included language requiring the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote to confirm Kavanaugh as a lifetime Supreme Court justice if it was not satisfied with the Judiciary Committee’s report, which could result in a confirmation vote not being taken.
That vote was scheduled to take place on April 6.
The bill was later amended to exclude the report requirement from the vote, but it still could have resulted in a vote to reject the nomination.
5.
The final bill contained language that made it easier for Trump to block the nomination from the Senate.
That language was designed to make it easier to block Kavanaugh’s appointment from going forward.
6.
In fact, a key provision of the Senate version of its nomination bill included language to prevent the Senate from voting on the nomination if the Judiciary Panel did not certify that Kavanaugh met the criteria.
The proposal in question had been included in the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, which the WhiteHouse had nominated.
7.
The subcommittee was scheduled for confirmation hearings on April 14, and it was then expected that it would hold its hearings.
But it instead scheduled a hearing on April 19.
8.
When the hearing was scheduled, the Judiciary panel announced that it had been unable to certify Kavanaugh’s qualifications.
This meant that Senate Republicans could have voted to confirm him to the high court even though they could not meet his qualifications.
9.
That delay in the hearing triggered an outcry from Democrats and civil rights groups.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., led the charge to block confirmation hearings from happening, and on April 20, he tweeted: “If confirmed by the @Senate, Brett Kavanaugh must immediately withdraw from the Supreme Courts race.
The confirmation hearings should be postponed until this delay is resolved.”
The Judiciary Committee eventually held a hearing the following day, but then withdrew its report from the confirmation process.
10.
Republicans were outraged.
On April 21, the committee held a second hearing.
It did not announce its findings and did not publicly disclose them, as Franken had asked.
But on that day, Franken also wrote a letter to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, demanding that the Judiciary report be released.
“I strongly urge you to do the right thing and not allow the Senate Committee to make a final report on Brett Kavanaugh’s eligibility for the Supreme Judicial Court before you make your decision on Kavanaugh’s replacement,” Franken wrote.
11.
The committee released its report on April 22, just days before the vote on Kavanaugh.
The report included a recommendation for Senate leaders to proceed with a procedural vote to remove the nomination and to confirm the nominee, but not to hold a vote on it.
That procedural vote could have included a procedural requirement that the committee hold a hearing in a bipartisan fashion.
The procedural vote was not held.
12.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D, did not vote to proceed to a procedural hearing.
Schumer also did not support the procedural vote.
But he later said he would support the nomination process in a hearing, and he did not take any action to stop it. 13.
But Republicans who control the Senate are still determined to block a vote.
The Republican leadership is holding a series of hearings, including one in the middle of April, to discuss the confirmation.
It is unclear when those hearings will occur, but there is no reason to believe that they will take place before the end of the month.
14.
Republicans