Kavanaugh case shows little has changed for Judiciary Committee
As the nation awaits the resolution of another woman confronting another Supreme Court nominee with sexual allegations from the past, another similarity has emerged: the credibility of the Senate vetting process may be shot.
In 1991, after the Senate Judiciary Committee faltered in its initial handling of Anita Hill's sexual harassment complaint against Clarence Thomas, it reopened the confirmation hearings. The result was a spectacle of senators' charges and cross-charges as they seemed locked in their partisan views without regard for the facts.
"Anita Hill will be sucked right into the very thing she wanted to avoid most," Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican who supported Thomas, warned when Hill's complaint first became public. "She will be injured and destroyed and belittled and hounded and harassed, real harassment, different than the sexual kind. Just plain old Washington variety harassment, which is pretty unique in itself."
Simpson likely was not referring to the Judiciary Committee on which he sat, or the grilling he would give Hill days later. But that's what many people made of the Hill onslaught and what became a defining cultural moment, leading to a record number of women elected to Congress a year later.
Now, as Christine Blasey Ford has alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers three decades ago, the committee's continued shortcomings are plain.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has given Ford, a Palo Alto University professor, until Friday at 10 a.m. to say whether she will testify to the committee. She has asked first for an FBI investigation of her claim. Senate Democrats are backing up that request and insisting, too, that other witnesses should be called.
Ford appears to be in a no-win situation.
"Dr. Ford was reluctantly thrust into the public spotlight only two days ago," Lisa Banks, her lawyer, said in a statement Wednesday night. "She is currently unable to go home, and is receiving ongoing threats to her and her family's safety. Fairness and respect for her situation dictate that she should have time to deal with this."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kavanaugh-case-shows-little-has-changed-for-judiciary-committee/ar-BBNzXaF?li=BBnbcA1