Doug Jones: Push Kavanaugh confirmation past the first week of October

Senator Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) on Thursday doubled down on his support of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s decision not to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this coming Monday, with Alabama’s junior senator in a tweet saying that he wants the process to at least go past “the first week of October.”

Ford, who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominee to the United States Supreme Court, of sexual assaulting her at a high school house party around 35 years ago, initially promised through her attorney to testify but now is demanding that an FBI investigation must be conducted before she will agree to appear.

In new developments Thursday afternoon, Ford’s attorney indicated that Ford could possibly testify another day next week, however that possibility came along with a list of more demands, some of which are non-starters in conducting a fair hearing – Ford reportedly wants Kavanaugh to testify before her, will not be in the same room with him and refuses to submit to questioning by nonpartisan lawyers, instead only wanting to speak with the senators.

“Monday is an artificial timeline. There is nothing magical about the first week of October,” Jones asserted.However, October 1 marks the beginning of the new term for the United States Supreme Court. Once oral arguments begin on key cases during the term, a subsequently confirmed Kavanaugh would very likely, based on precedent, not be able to vote on them – which is why the Senate set that date as the benchmark for getting Kavanaugh confirmed.

“[The first week of October] came and went in 2016. Republicans set the clock — and they can change it,” Jones added.

To be clear, the Republican-led Senate in 2016 also set the clock that year, and they were open about the reasoning behind it – voters were about to go to the polls and vote for president, an effective referendum on the type of justice the American people wanted nominated. Now, voters have spoken and President Trump has nominated Justice Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. This year, obviously there is no presidential election on the ballot. Midterms are, however, around the corner, and Jones’ timeline puts the national spectacle of a Ford/Kavanaugh public hearing in that partisan context.

Monday is an artificial timeline. There is nothing magical about the first week of October. It came and went in 2016. Republicans set the clock—and they can change it. The future of the Supreme Court is at stake. There is absolutely no reason to barrel ahead w/o all the facts. — Doug Jones (@DougJones) September 20, 2018

Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn