On the third day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Democratic senators continued their probe to get the conservative judge’s stance on women’s reproductive rights—and a clue in one of his answers may say it all.
In an exchange with Senator Ted Cruz (D-Tex.), Kavanaugh referred to birth control as “abortion-inducing drugs,” a term many women’s rights advocates say is dog-whistle politics and a clear nod to pro-lifers who oppose abortion.
Kavanaugh’s calculated answer came when Cruz asked the judge about his dissent in the case Priests for Life v. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which involved an Affordable Care Act mandate that required employers to cover contraception for workers. Kavanaugh explained why he ultimately sided with the plaintiffs, who are an anti-abortion Catholic group.
“The question was first, was this a substantial burden on their religious exercise? And it seemed to me, quite clearly, it was,” Kavanaugh said. “They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to.”
For pro-choice supporters, the phrase “abortion-inducing drugs” is an alarm bell. Organizations such as the Center for Reproductive Rights pointed out that the verbiage is what many anti-abortion groups use to talk about contraception. “Saying ‘abortion-inducing drugs’ to describe contraception is straight out of the anti-choice, anti-science phrase book used to restrict women’s access to essential health care,” the Center for Reproductive Rights wrote on Twitter.
The wording is also just plain wrong. Contraception, which includes birth control and Plan B, does not cause abortions, despite the assertion of some organizations. Using contraceptive methods like birth control and IUDs can prevent fertilization from occurring, but it does not end existing pregnancies. But despite the facts, the concepts are often conflated among anti-abortion groups. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) reminded the public of the misconception by tweeting, “Newsflash, Brett Kavanaugh: Contraception is NOT abortion. Anyone who says so is peddling extremist ideology – not science –and has no business sitting on the Supreme Court.”
Kavanaugh’s stance on reproductive rights has been questioned by many pro-choice supporters since President Donald Trump announced his nomination. Although Kavanaugh has stated he will abide by precedent set in Roe v. Wade, his record suggests anti-choice leanings. In addition to his defense in Priests for Life v. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kavanaugh also dissented in Garza v. Hargan and argued that an undocumented minor in U.S. detention could not receive an abortion. More evidence mounted late Wednesday, when leaked emails showed that while serving as a lawyer in the Bush administration, Kavanaugh had offered advice about changing a description that said Roe v. Wade was “the settled law of the land.”
On Thursday, Kavanaugh was also grilled by Senator Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), who asked him about the reproductive freedom of men compared to women. Kavanaugh stumbled while answering some of the questions—marking just another example of why Kavanaugh may be a threat to Roe v. Wade and other important principles of women’s rights.
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids, so we’ll be here all to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
Did everybody you encountered on Thursday seem a little more energized than usual? Did your boss whistle on her way to her desk? Did you spot your UPS delivery man dancing down the street with a package? Did even your dog seem to trot with a little more pride, perhaps forgoing her typical shame-eyes while she watched you pick up her poop?
That’s because all of them saw Senator Cory Booker (D—New Jersey) lean over his mic at the Kavanaugh hearings and utter two words in response to Senator John Cornyn’s (R—Texas) threat to have him expelled from the Senate for leaking committee-confidential emails.
“Bring it,” Sen. Booker said. “Bring it.”
Somehow the day managed to have a perfectly bitchy tension, kind of like when you rent a house with friends and the trip goes on one day longer than it should.
It was a hell of a kickoff—and a fitting one. Day Three, given that we watched the same people open their mouths, over and over, should have had all the thrill of a slowly deflating balloon. And if we’re honest, it wasn’t some great success. Both Democrats and Republicans spent much of the session launching valiant attempts to get Kavanaugh to promise he isn’t beholden to the president and that he wouldn’t thwart investigations into him. Kavanaugh’s response to their 600 efforts? Guys, stop! I hate labels—“yes” and “no” are so limiting. Let’s talk about something else—have I mentioned my “four greatest moments in the history of the Supreme Court?” Oh, I have, and it’s really pissing you off that I’m saying it again? Shh—gonna do it anyway!
Yet somehow the day managed to have a perfectly bitchy tension, kind of like when you rent a house with friends and the trip goes on one day longer than it should have and you’re like, Wait, I think I hate my friends. That’s where we’re at. Senator Mazie Hirono (D—Hawaii) is glaring at Kavanaugh like he’s the guy who picked the house but hasn’t paid his share yet. Senator Orrin Hatch (R—Utah) is grumbling about protestors like they’re the loud new boyfriend no one knew was coming. And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D—Rhode Island) jaw is vibrating with that brand of fury specific to no one else but him ever taking out the goddamn trash.
Here’s your rundown of the best moments from the worst vacation ever.
Best 11th-hour sensation: Senator Kamala Harris (D—Calif.)
PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla
A mood.
Before we get to Day Three’s events, we need to talk about what happened at the end of Day Two—at least an hour after most of America had retreated from C-SPAN and rushed into the kinder arms of America’s Got Talent. As the eve wore on, Kavanaugh, too, looked like he was dreaming of getting home to his couch and his DVR pileup (Mentalist reruns in standard definition, I’d bet). Perhaps he was a little tired, and so he didn’t hear the bell ring when Sen. Harris took the mic. But soon enough, he realized: Night school was in session. She hammered him—watch the highlights here.
Fiercest ride-or-dies: Sen. Booker, Senator Dick Durbin (D—Illinois) and Sen. Hirono. After Sen. Booker’s “Bring it,” Sen. Hirono pointed out that she, too, leaked documents—come at her. And Sen. Durbin got all excited and said, “If there’s going to be some retribution against the gentleman from New Jersey, count me in.” Kinda love that Sen. Durbin’s rallying cry works equally well for Senate proceedings in 2018 and publick-house brawls in 1772.
Loudest dog whistle: In response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz (R—Texas), Kavanaugh used the term “abortion-inducing drugs” to refer to contraception. The language comes straight from the fiercest anti-choice advocates and is also inaccurate. Contraception is not abortion, signed millions of American women and all of our doctors.
Worst reverse age-shaming: Kavanaugh on Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of EducationSenator Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.) voiced the question that’s been making heads across America hurt this week: How does Kavanaugh define the difference between precedent and settled law when it comes to Supreme Court cases? In his answer, Kavanaugh said that Brown v. Board of Education is settled law because it’s “historical”—64 years old. Sen. Klobuchar grinned. “Roe is now 45 years old,” she said. “Why isn’t that a thumbs-up settled law?” Kavanaugh didn’t have a good answer for her.
Hypocrisy slay of the day: Sen. Hirono. Sen. Hirono, once again running low on f—s, went in on Kavanaugh’s record concerning reproductive rights, making the man wish he never met the phrase “undue burden.” See, in one case Kavanaugh ruled on, he said that people who opposed birth control on religious grounds shouldn’t have to fill out a form approving their employees’ health coverage of it. That, in his estimation, was “undue burden.” The phrase came up again in Garza v. Hargan, in which Kavanaugh’s decision sought to deny an immigrant minor an abortion. Kavanaugh wanted the procedure delayed until the girl found foster parents who could talk it through with her—letting her pregnancy tick on towards the 20-week deadline for abortions under Texas law. That delay, he argued then, did not constitute “undue burden.” Sen. Hirono scoffed at the irony laid out by the two cases: “So filling out a two-page form was too much,” she said. “But it was not too much for [Jane Doe] to wait around for foster parents to be found.”
Best circus advocate: Senator Lindsay Graham (R—South Carolina).
PHOTO: Drew Angerer
Send in the clowns.
After Sen. Hatch mumbled that the proceedings had turned into “a circus,” Sen. Graham quipped, “I wanna defend circuses. Circuses are entertaining and you can take your children to them.” An excellent line, but I wasn’t surprised—the last 18 months have afforded Sen. Graham plenty of chances to defend a clown.
Guy we’re most done with: Senator John Kennedy (R—Louisiana). Of all the whining the Republicans have done this week about protestors exercising free speech, Sen. Kennedy’s has been the whiniest. After Kavanaugh himself said, in the wake of a protestor’s shouting, that the students behind him were getting a chance to learn about democracy, Sen. Kennedy—who’s a dead ringer for this choir-boy doll my grandmother used to put out at Christmas, though that’s neither here nor there—looked down at the girls and snooted of the interruption, “It’s happened over 200 times in the last three days. It’s not really how democracy’s supposed to work.” Actually, girls, it is. If democracy needs less of anything, it’s old white guys looking down from on high, telling you what to think.
The detective drama spinoff I’d most like to watch:Klobuchouse.
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Nothing but respect for my Law & Order candidate.
She—Sen. Klobuchar is the unflappable good cop, smiling with catlike calm when a suspect spits her questions back in her face. He—Sen. Whitehouse—is the keyed-up bad cop, a cross between Statler from The Muppets and that one snappish teacher from high school who, looking back, probably had some stuff going on at home. They’re good cops on their own—but together, they’re great.
As a former prosecutor (and former attorney general of California), Harris has perfected her cross-examination technique, and it is quite a sight to behold. Watching her line of questioning in Senate hearings has become a thing to watch. But there was one question in particular that had many women across the country cheering from their living rooms.
“Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Harris asked Kavanaugh. When he offered to answer a more specific question, she clarified, “Male versus female.” Then she repeated the question.
Kavanaugh stumbled over his words and finally responded: “I’m not thinking of any right now, Senator.”
There it is, right there—the crux of the frustration for women (and men) who believe in reproductive freedom. There is no comparable situation where the government gets to make bodily decisions for men in this country.
His answer is one of concern for those watching to see how Kavanaugh handles questions about women’s reproductive freedom. In an interview with Glamour shortly after Trump announced his nomination, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand expressed her fears that women would seek illegal abortions if the conservative judge was confirmed.
“We are at the brink of not having reproductive freedom in this country, not having the ability to decide when and how many children we’re going to have,” Gillibrand told Glamour. “This nominee believes that a boss should decide whether I get access to birth control…. We should fight back with everything we have—because everything’s at stake.” And Washington Senator Patty Murray told Glamour that a Kavanaugh confirmation would create “a court [with] five men on it who will overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Kavanaugh continued to evade discussion of his views on Roe v. Wade when asked by Harris whether he believed that a woman’s right to privacy included her right to terminate a pregnancy. He danced around the issue of nominee precedent, saying that he should not comment on specific cases and the importance of judicial independence. (While Kavanaugh has been quoted as saying Roe v. Wade is “settled law,” a 2003 leaked email provided to The New York Times and published Thursday shows the judge challenging whether the case was “settled law of the land.”)
Harris didn’t just grill Kavanaugh on women’s rights; she also spent eight minutes on the Mueller investigation of possible collusion with Russia and asked Kavanaugh if he believed there was blame on both sides (referencing Trump’s response for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year during a white supremacist rally). He evaded concrete answers on both issues. “I am not here to assess comments made in the political arena, because the risk is I’ll be drawn into the political arena,” Kavanaugh said regarding Charlottesville.
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids—so we’ll be here all to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spent nearly all of Day One of his Capitol Hill confirmation hearings in rapt attention. Listening, listening, listening. Sitting, bearing fidgety witness to the drama as it unfolded on the dais. But here we are on Day Two, though, like a ubiquitous Real Housewives “friend” turned full cast-member, he twirled into the spotlight. And if he had a Housewives tagline, it’d be this: “Nothing but respect for my precedent.”
Yes, “precedent” was the word of the hour, all the hours—Kavanaugh’s career, mantra, and brand all in one. (At one point, he even said “precedent on precedent”—which is, trust me, the closest Brett Kavanaugh has ever gotten to a rap). Every decision he’s ever rendered? Based on precedent, he told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Every decision he intends to make in the future? Same. “Do you agree with Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor that a woman has a right to control her reproductive life?” asked Senator Dianne Feinstein (D—Calif.), the ranking Democratic member on the committee.
Kavanaugh paused. “Well, as a general proposition, I understand the importance of the precedent set forth by Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
“What would you say your position is today on a woman’s right to choose?” Sen. Feinstein followed up.
“As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court,” Kavanaugh said, leaving little doubt that he is, in fact, a scholar of Housewives in addition to constitutional law. These answers are nothing if not designed to be easily denied later—at the end-of-season reunion, or whilst striking down Roe v. Wade.
Later in the afternoon, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D—Conn.) arrived. He turned Kavanaugh’s love of a precedent reference against him! (Very Vicki Gunvalson!) Sen. Blumenthal proceeded to pull out an opinion of Kavanaugh’s in which he referred to Roe as “existing precedent.” Sen. Blumenthal insisted that he’d never seen precedent qualified like that before: “It’s a little bit,” he said to Kavanaugh, “like someone introducing you to his wife as ‘my current wife.’” Blumenthal tried to extract a guarantee from Kavanaugh that he’d never overturn Roe. That, as the pros put is, was a non-starter.
If he had a Housewives tagline, it’d be this: “Nothing but respect for my precedent.”
Kavanaugh’s marathon evasiveness was enough to make a gal wish for a guest spot from Andy Cohen, whose blithly exasperated, yet effective interview techniques were desperately needed here. I just get the impression that Andy would be able to get decisive yes-no responses on all the important issues—whether Kavanaugh would gut abortion rights, whether he believes Trump can be prosecuted, whether Ramona did attempt to go to Tom’s New Year’s Eve bash. (And then I’d like Sen. Blumenthal to take a crack at dissecting the Bethenny-Carole breakdown.)
Here are some more takeaways from a long, long-winded day:
Fastest turnaround: Zina Bash. We now know the name of the aide sitting over Kavanaugh’s shoulder like a Club Monaco-clad guardian angel. She’s Zina Bash, and she was much more subdued than we saw her on Tuesday. Having to debunk Twitter theories that you were throwing white-power hand signals will do that to a person. Today, Bash barely had hands. Mostly, they manifested as quick blurs whenever she had to scratch an itch or answer an urgent email. If someone handed her a beverage, I feel sure she would have accepted it with her teeth.
Biggest distraction: Silicon Valley celebs.
PHOTO: Drew Angerer
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Jack Dorsey’s community-Shakespeare-theatre beard were all on Capitol Hill this afternoon, too, talking about their platforms’ roles in 2016 election meddling. Somehow, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) even got into a fight in the hallway with a radio person. Can you imagine what it would have been like to attempt to concentrate on Kavanaugh while all that’s happening next door? It would be like that time you were in the class stuck making up a pop quiz while the rest of the school is at a pep rally—a pep rally where Marco Rubio, who was awarded “Crispest Khaki Creases” at graduation, is about to throw a punch!
Best successor to “moist,” the worst word on the planet: “Undergirds.” I’m not sure how many times Kavanaugh said the word “undergirds” today, but I know it was all the times too many.
Dad move of the day: Kavanaugh on Leahy’s emails. When Senator Patrick Leahy (D—Conn.), in an attempt to catch Kavanaugh in an alleged lie, showed him a printed-out email chain, Kavanaugh went into full-on naïve mode, blinking into the middle distance and repeating the name of a one-time Republican Senate staffer—“Mir-an-da?”—in the befuddled tone of a medium-developed toddler. Clearly, he’d practiced this response—but not in debate prep. Rather, it’s a move ripped from the official two-point fatherhood playbook.
When one of your daughters gets invited to a sleepover at the home of a friend you’ve deemed “fast,” here’s what you’ve got to do: Step one: “Lose” the invitation. Step two: When confronted, feign innocence: “An invitation from… who? Mir… an… da? The one who has her own vape pen and the boyfriend who drag races? Nope, I didn’t see it, sweetie! Let’s go hoop it up instead!”
Burn of the day: Senator Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.).
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Sen. Klobuchar is on a two-day winning streak for the best daily zing. Today, she grilled Kavanaugh on his established reluctance to investigate or prosecute sitting presidents. The exception to his opinion, Kavanaugh once said, would be if the president did something “dastardly.” But as Sen. Klobuchar pointed out coolly, “How do we know something is dastardly or not if we can’t even investigate it?” Klobes! Rip that teeny little mic right out of the podium, then go ahead and drop it.
Most hilarious tactic: The Tremendous, Stupendous Brett Kavanaugh Loves Women Parade! Senator Orrin Hatch (R—Utah) may have been shaken by women on Tuesday. But a new dawn broke, and on Wednesday, he was like, “You know what? Women are good!”
Sen. Hatch’s allotted time was spent hyping Kavanaugh’s deep commitment to gender equality. “They say that you are one of the strongest advocates… for women lawyers,” Sen. Hatch said, adding, “The majority of your clerks in your office have been—women!” You should know he said “women” there with such a pure sense of awe, it seemed like he might have been less shocked if the clerks had turned out to be goats.
Giver of fewest f—s: Senator Mazie Hirono (D—Hawaii).
PHOTO: Zach Gibson
Whether she was expressing frank skepticism at Kavanaugh’s inability to remember a raunchy office email chain at one of his former jobs (eyebrows at 30,000 feet), slicing through his verbosity (“I think that’s a complete answer, thank you”), or eviscerating his support of a parental consent requirement for a minor’s abortion in a specific case (“Her parents were beating her up! How could you expect parental consent?”), Sen. Hirono was not having the bullshit this eve. Her turn didn’t come until dinnertime, and while everyone else in the room looked beat, and Kavanaugh was probably desperate for his linguine alla Heinz at that point, Hirono must have had a well-timed protein snack, because she looked like she could have gone until the midterms.
Kavanaugh will see her and her brooch in his nightmares. You’re welcome, Brett. Good night.
Megan Angelo writes about TV and is the author of the novel Followers, which will be published in 2019. You catch her Kavanaugh recaps on Glamour.com all week.
Piper Perabo spent years portraying a CIA operative on Covert Affairs—but says this week was the first time she got busted in real life.
The actress, also known for her roles in Coyote Ugly and The Prestige, was among protesters who got hauled out of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s volatile Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday. And she’s damn proud of it, she tells Glamour.
“I felt like this was an opportunity for me to do something and stand up for all the women who have to be at work [or] take their kid to school [or] look after their elderly parents,” she says by phone, after she paid a fine to be released. “It was a privilege to get arrested [to] speak out against this and to stand up for women’s equal rights.”
President Donald Trump’s pick to replace retired swing Justice Anthony Kennedy has galvanized protesters who say Kavanaugh’s appointment would mean a titanic lurch to the right for the Supreme Court. The conservative jurist could not only roll back the abortion protections of Roe v. Wade, they say, but turn back the clock on health care, labor, and voting rights.
Kavanaugh, in his Tuesday opening statement, told lawmakers, “I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.” He has also called Roe a matter of “settled law.” That’s scant reassurance to his critics, especially because Trump has vowed to choose pro-life judges.
So, how’d it all go down for Perabo and the other women protesters who took a day off from their responsibilities to protest?
While many watched a livestream of the hearing on televisions and electronic devices, Perabo says she showed up early to get a seat in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing room. At times, she says, the protest scene got a little surreal: “I could see women who were dressed as the handmaids [with] the red cloaks and the white caps,” she recalls, referencing the dystopian Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale, whose first season was based on the Margaret Atwood novel about women living in subjugation under a patriarchal society.
At the hearing, “We took turns standing up and saying why we were protesting, and then we were arrested,” she says. Perabo’s line: “I said [the president is an] unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal investigation, and I don’t think a president should be able to appoint judges until that’s been resolved.”
Perabo hadn’t even finished her second line before the Capitol Police had her out the door. Officers took her belongings, cuffed her, and put her in a van with other demonstrators. “I wasn’t going to resist arrest. I’d never been arrested before. I was a little nervous,” she confesses.
“They kept bringing down elevators full of women into the basement where the white vans were [to take people] to the police station,” Perabo says. “One of the cops said, ‘Aren’t there any men coming down?’ And one woman said, ‘No! It’s all women, all day.'”
Perabo says she was charged with disorderly conduct and released after paying a $35 fine: “My mom texted me, and she was like, ‘I think people are getting arrested at the hearings. Could you call me and let me know you’re OK?’ and I was like, ‘This is a weird day,” she adds. “I called her right back and [told her], ‘I did get arrested, but everything’s fine.’”
Perabo says she had the chance to fly to D.C. for the protests because she’s between acting jobs and her husband is filming in Utah. For Jennifer Epps-Addison, demonstrating also meant time apart from her spouse—on their anniversary, no less—but much more than that.
“This is really personal for me. Three years ago, my husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Thank G-d for the Affordable Care Act [and] President Obama’s work,” says Epps-Addison, who’s president of the social justice group Center for Popular Democracy.
The couple had planned to take a trip together to mark their eighth anniversary. Instead, Epps-Addison ended up flying to D.C., disrupting the Kavanaugh hearing and getting “tackled pretty hard by four officers” as she was dragged out along with protesters, including Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour.
“It is life or death,” Epps-Addison, who is convinced if Kavanaugh makes it to the bench, her 40-year-old husband “will not have [the] same rights to the same quality of life that he deserves and that we have,” tells Glamour.
Heidi Sieck, founder of the civic platform #VoteProChoice, also agrees it was “absolutely” worth getting arrested to challenge Kavanaugh in defense of “reproductive freedom,” which she calls “a foundational issue” that affects “women and men and families and transgender folk” and is tied to racial and economic justice.
“There is so much to lose. And listen: I have no illusions that those men in power have every intention of winning,” Sieck told Glamour after the Senate demonstration. “They will not be deviated from their their path. [They] have the majority on their side. They have process on their side. And who are we if we don’t stand up?”
When it comes to Kavanaugh, she says, “it’s so clearly obvious that this man will roll back all of our reproductive rights” based on his past rulings.
“We did what we could to stand up and have our voices heard. I don’t know if they’re listening, but it’s one of those things that has to be done. We cannot just let this go by.”
“Even some simple reminder can cause more people to vote,” Perabo says. “Make sure you ask your co-worker if they’re voting, [and ask] your partner. Does an elderly neighbor need a ride? Can you watch your elderly neighbor while their kids go to vote? Let’s make it more of a conversation with our civic participation.”
The Kavanaugh hearings—and possibly the protests—continue Wednesday. Keep up with the latest on the confirmation hearings, here.
Celeste Katz is senior politics reporter for Glamour. Send news tips, questions, and comments to celeste_katz@condenast.com.
You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids—so we’re here to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
There’s a chance—if you were in your office, or at a doctor’s appointment, or on a treadmill—that you spotted some of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings on mute. If you did, then you saw a lot of white guys. And so perhaps you assumed that it was them who stole the show.
Not so. A chorus of women’s voices—those of the senators on the dais, and those of the protestors in the gallery—became the soundtrack of the day. Women spoke when they were called upon, and frequently when they were not.
That unfamiliar audio—the sound of women interrupting men—gave Day One of Kavanaugh’s grilling on Capitol Hill an unexpected vibe. An event that could have felt (and sometimes did feel, what with a group of Offred-themed protestors in the halls) like one step closer to life inside the Handmaid’s Tale, delivered occasional moments of triumph. Brave women delivered a flat-out, top-of-their-lungs refusal to let one more man bent on legislating their bodies breeze into power without a fight.
The battle began just seconds into the hearing. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee chairman, had barely finished clearing his throat when Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) jumped in.
“Mr. Chairman,” she said, “I’d like to be recognized for a question before we proceed.”
Harris went on to ask for a delay based on the late release of 42,000 pages of documentation related to Kavanaugh’s job in the administration of President George W. Bush. A lawyer for Bush released the papers to the judicial committee just last night. Yes, last night—as in the tail end of #ldw, as in 12 hours before the start of the hearings, as in barely enough time for these senators to digest their hot dogs and aloe their sunburns, let alone read the equivalent of the entire Lord of the Rings series 27 times. Harris’s peers on the Judiciary Committee (the Democratic ones, at least)—Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI)—picked up her lead, demanding that Sen. Grassley adjourn the session until they could review the material.
Sen. Grassley steadfastly denied the Democrats’ motions, but he couldn’t thwart the momentum of the women on the committee. There was the quiet swagger of ranking member, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), slyly rocking Planned Parenthood pink and giving Kavanaugh a taste of how she plans to come for him on his record on reproductive freedom. “The impact of overturning Roe [v. Wade] is much broader than a woman’s right to choose,” she said to him. “It’s about protecting the most personal decisions we all make from government intrusion.”
There was Sen. Klobuchar, who achieved the burn of the day while discussing Kavanaugh’s assertion that sitting presidents can’t be prosecuted. The question the hearings must answer, she said, is “whether this judge, at this time in our history, will administer the law with equal justice as it applies to all citizens, regardless of whether they live… in a small house or the White House.”
There was Sen. Harris, making her opening statement late in the afternoon, and commenting bluntly on the way the Supreme Court—Brown v. Board of Education, to be exact—has affected the arc of her own life. Without it, she said, “I most certainly would not be sitting here as a member of the United States Senate… So, for me, a Supreme Court seat is not only about academic issues of legal precedent or judicial philosophy. It is personal.”
And, every minute or so for much of the morning proceedings, there were the largely female protestors, each of them exacting their own tiny revenge against civilization’s long tradition of men talking over women. You know whom life did not prepare for this gender bender? One Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). He was visibly rattled as protestor after protestor screwed up his what-a-good-man speech about Kavanaugh.
(Side note: Don’t ask Orrin Hatch to be your best man unless you like such pillow-soft jokes such as: “You also apparently like to eat pasta with ketchup, but nobody’s perfect.” As far as I’m concerned, it’s marinara and bodily autonomy, or bust. That’s just a simple matter of good taste.)
After one too many ladies made themselves known, chin trembling, Sen. Hatch gathered himself and said, “I don’t know that the committee should have to put up with this type of insolence.”
Insolence—yes, that’s the word you were looking for, if you think that women concerned for their own liberty and mortality are just being brats.
Insolence—yes, that’s the word you were looking for, if you think that women concerned for their own liberty and mortality are just being brats. That’s the word you were looking for, if you think women exercising their right to free speech are the same as toddlers who refuse to hold your hand in the parking lot. That’s the word you were looking for if, despite your literal seat of power, you can’t help but feel—as Sen. Hatch so clearly seemed to—like you’ve never been closer to losing control.
So there’s the big takeaway from today’s episode of Who Wants to Revoke Reproductive Freedom? But there are little ones we need to discuss, too. A few distinctions from the day’s events:
Least effective prop: Big quotes.
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Some poor staffer was at the FedEx store all weekend, getting these big quotes just right, and it’s on his or her behalf that I beseech you, senators: For whom are the big quotes? For whom! They’re behind the rest of the people on the committee, and we at home can’t see them at all. Down with big quotes.
Best athletic performance: The aide behind Sen. Chuck Grassley. During the chaotic first hour of the hearing, this poor guy was out of his chair and squatting to whisper into his boss’s ear every 15 seconds. His quads had to be on fire.
Most sympathetic onlookers: Kavanaugh’s family.
PHOTO: Tom Williams
“My daughters, Margaret and Liza, thank the committee for arranging a day off of school today,” Kavanaugh quipped early into the proceedings. Good thing he made it clear that was a joke; otherwise I’d nail him for perjury. Nothing underscores how poorly this man understands women than the assertion that these two would rather be sitting here listening to politicians drone than be at school during the crucial week in which summer makeovers are revealed and fall alliances are formed. (And they still had to hear about Marbury v. Madison multiple times.) Also, my heart goes out to the aunts, uncles, and cousins Kavanaugh says are sitting behind him. This day was like, six and a half baptisms, except worse, because Ted Cruz talked.
Least sympathetic onlooker: The woman in navy just over Kavanaugh’s shoulder.
PHOTO: SAUL LOEB
She smirked. She rolled her eyes. She laughed. She seemed, generally, to think that she was at a talk show taping, and I bet she’s still wondering why there wasn’t a prize beneath her chair.
Best Law & Order antics: Sen. Richard Blumenthal. After lunch, when the Democrats resumed their complaints about the previous night’s document dump, Sen. Grassley snapped, exasperated, that his staff was able to read them all by 11 p.m. Then Blumenthal was all, like, But the documents weren’t even fully uploaded by 11 p.m.! You got a time machine or what, Chuck?
Dumbest theory: Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE). Sen. Sasse took some shots at the protestors, calling them “people trying to get on TV.” Yeah. For sure, in 2018, when we have Instagram, YouTube, and near-constant editions of Bachelor franchise programming, the easiest way to earn fame is to hike to D.C., sit through government proceedings, and yell about fundamental rights, all in hopes of being the roughly one in 25 protestors you can partially see on camera for exactly one second. Nailed it, Sasse.
Most worthy of further exploration: Hold on—ketchup on spaghetti? Is that some sort of sick joke?
Megan Angelo is a TV critic; catch her Kavanaugh recaps here all week.
