[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 119 (Monday, July 16, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4959-S4960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been less than a week since the 
President nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve as an Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court. Already, praise has poured in for his 
legal abilities, professional accomplishments, and personal character.
  Some of the most interesting testimony has come from the men and 
women who may know better than anyone how Judge Kavanaugh approaches 
his work--his law clerks. You can learn a lot about a leader by asking 
the men and women who work for and with him. Thirty-four of his past 
clerks sent an open letter to Chairman Grassley and Senator Feinstein 
last week.
  Their own political and legal views are quite diverse:

       Our ranks include Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. 
     But we are united in this: our admiration and fondness for 
     Judge Kavanaugh run deep.

  They describe his commitment to legal excellence:

       We never once saw him take a shortcut, treat a case as 
     unimportant, or search for an easy answer. Instead, in each 
     case, large or small, he masters every detail and rereads 
     every precedent.

  They also compliment the way Judge Kavanaugh conducts himself both 
inside and outside the courtroom. They call him ``unfailingly warm and 
gracious, grounded, and kind.'' They describe a ``fundamental 
humility.''
  A subset of those clerks wrote a second letter. It was from every one 
of Judge Kavanaugh's female clerks whose current employments allowed 
them to sign it.
  These 18 women explain: ``We feel compelled to write separately to 
convey our uniformly positive experiences with the Judge as a boss on 
issues of gender and equality in the workplace.''
  ``In our view,'' they write, ``the Judge has been one of the 
strongest advocates in the Federal judiciary for women lawyers.''
  They explain how Judge Kavanaugh seeks out the best and brightest, 
how he goes above and beyond to advise and mentor all of his clerks.
  Judge Kavanaugh's hiring reflects, in their words, ``rare gender 
parity.'' Note

[[Page S4960]]

that I did not say ``equity'' but ``parity''--25 women clerks and 23 
men. In 2014, in fact, all four of Judge Kavanaugh's clerks were 
women--a first for a judge on the DC Circuit. There have been 84 
percent of those 25 women who have gone on to Supreme Court clerkships, 
thanks, in large part, to Judge Kavanaugh's guidance and support.
  Here is how they conclude their letter:

       As you likely know by now, Judge Kavanaugh has two 
     daughters, Margaret and Liza. If they decide to follow in 
     their dad's--and grandmother's--footsteps and become lawyers, 
     they will enter a legal profession that is fairer and more 
     equal because of Judge Kavanaugh.

  We have also heard from Professor Amy Chua, who has served on Yale 
Law School's clerkship committee for most of the last decade. During 
that time, 10 Yale Law School graduates have clerked for Judge 
Kavanaugh, 8 of whom are women.
  She emailed them to ask about their experiences. As she explained in 
the Wall Street Journal, they lauded his work ethic, his commitment to 
excellence, his humility, and his decency, and ``to a person they 
described his extraordinary mentorship.''
  One woman said:

       He's been an incredible mentor to me despite the fact that 
     I am a left-of-center woman. He always takes into account my 
     goals rather than giving me generic advice.

  With respect to Judge Kavanaugh's approach to deciding cases, 
Professor Chua pointed out that he ``actively seeks out clerks from 
across the ideological spectrum who will question and disagree with 
him'' because ``he wants to hear other perspectives before deciding a 
case.''
  ``Above all,'' she observed, Judge Kavanaugh ``believes in the law 
and wants to figure out, without prejudging, what it requires.''
  Again, we have already heard so many speak up to recommend this 
impressive nominee.
  In the weeks ahead, we will hear more, including from Judge Kavanaugh 
himself, when our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee conduct 
hearings on his nomination. Yet I wanted to call special attention 
today to the warm words of those who have worked with and for Judge 
Kavanaugh. They have seen firsthand just how rigorously he approaches 
his work as a judge and how graciously he shares his time and his 
talent with others. Judge Kavanaugh is certainly an impressive nominee.