OA189: Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh

Today's Rapid Response Friday gives you a sneak preview of what to expect from the person we predict will become Donald Trump's next nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. We discuss:

• Why it's likely to be Kavanaugh and not any of the other rumored contenders, especially flavor-of-the-minute Amy Coney Barrett
• Kavanaugh's view of the First Amendment's establishment clause and the future of Lemon v. Kurtzman
• Kavanaugh's views on abortion
• How Kavanaugh differs (and how he doesn't!) from Neil Gorsuch when it comes to Chevron deference
• The weird conservative hit squad out to get Kavanaugh
• And much, much more!

After all that, we end with an all new Thomas Takes The Bar Exam #83 involving assault with an unloaded gun.  If you'd like to play along, just retweet our episode on Twitter or share it on Facebook along with your guess and the #TTTBE hashtag.  We'll release the answer on next Tuesday's episode along with our favorite entry! Recent Appearances Thomas was just a guest on Episode 421 of the Cognitive Dissonance Podcast.  If you'd like to have either of us as a guest on your show, drop us an email at [email protected]. Show Notes & Links

1. If you want a head start on Tuesday's show, check out the just-released Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report.
2. This is the Notre Dame speech/law review article in which Kavanaugh lays out his judicial philosophy and essentially auditions for the Supreme Court.
3. We discussed the following cases:  Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000), Priests for Life v. Department of Health & Human Services, 808 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (en banc), Garza v. Hargan, 874 F.3d 735 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (en banc), United States Telecom Ass’n v. FCC (D.C. Cir., 2017) (en banc), PHH v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 881 F.3d 75 (2018) (en banc), Seven-Sky v. Holder, 661 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir 2011), and Heller v. D.C., 670 F.3d 1244 (D.C. Cir. 2011)!
4. Right-wing weirdo roundups:  Here's the National Review endorsement of Kavanaugh; this is the truly bizarre Jacobs piece in The Federalist; and here is the Federalist Society's own rebuttal.
5. Finally, a preemptive Andrew Was Wrong:  Here's Raymond Kethledge's University of Michigan address on how bad Chevron deference is.

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