Part of the tragic error of Senator Collin’s thought process is that the issue and the hearing was not part of a criminal process concerning the guilt or innocence of Judge Kavanaugh. It was about whether he should become a Supreme Court Justice.
Therefore the maxim “innocent until proven guilty” is not relevant. The fact that Ms. Ford’s accusations were not corroborated (in this brief, woefully inadequate, investigation) is not relevant. If she was a credible witness, which most agree she was, then that at a minimum raised a doubt about whether Kavanaugh in fact did assault her. Her charge was only refuted by Kavanaugh himself and his friends.
That measure of doubt should have been enough to keep him off the Supreme Court. The image of the Supreme Court is of critical importance to its effectiveness in our system of government. That she felt that the FBI investigation had been adequate is hard to understand. Then there is the matter of Kavanaugh's apparently lying under oath about the extent of his drinking and his decidedly unjudicial demeanor at the hearing.
All together this should have resulted in Senator Collins deciding that regardless his credentials and his other qualities, he should not be elevated to the Supreme Court.
Then there is the Senator’s confidence in Kavanaugh’s judicial thinking. Senator Collins explained carefully that from her conversations with him she was confidant that he would not overturn Roe v Wade. He felt that the case was settled precedent. She also felt he would not throw out Obamacare.
How foolish of Senator Collins! How many times have lawyers/judges used legal double speak in recent times to make Senators feel like they were mild-mannered men who would do no harm to the public good, who honored the Constitution and precedent. And yet once on the bench, they showed their true colors and consistently voted their ideological bias; they did not judge a case based on its facts and they did not honor precedent.
It is true that it has at times been important in the past to overturn precedent, such as the case of Brown v Board of Education that declared segregated schooling unconstitutional; separate was not equal. This was necessitated by progressive changes in society’s attitudes towards people of color and what defined the common good.
The court voted as it did not because of the justices own ideological preferences but because of the change they saw in the country and the need to lead the country to a more just future. If Roe is overturned, it will instead be precisely because of the ideological preferences of the justices and a vocal minority of the populace. Surveys show consistently that the vast majority of Americans support a woman’s right to choose.
The future of our democracy will in many ways be impacted negatively by Senator Collins’ vote. That she was so full of herself that she gave the speech she gave was not an indication of a woman of strength and intelligence, although it sounded like that, but rather an indication of her weakness and her inability to truly understand what her role was in this moment. Senator Murkowski on the other hand understood the moment.
