The Kavanaugh hearings felt like a punch in the gut. Watching Dr. Ford's very credible testimony about Kavanaugh's attempted rape of her, and his unhinged, red faced response was a lot to take in. And the Republican white men who huddled around Kavanaugh to put the kibash on an extremely warranted FBI investigation, and then made sure that Kavanaugh was confirmed? That was a terrible abuse of power. I don't believe Mitch McConnell when he said that he believed that America would "get past" the Kavanaugh hearings. I don't think we will. I know I haven't. We don't like to think about them, but that is not the same thing as getting past them.
Okay, so how do we get rid of him? There are several options. First, we could call for his impeachment.
Impeachment is not just something that we can do to the president. Impeachment can be used to get rid of federal judges, too. And Supreme Court Justices are federal judges, my friend. If we're going to impeach anyone, it makes more sense to impeach Kavanaugh than Trump. Trump will only be with us for at most six more years. Hopefully many fewer. But we could be stuck with Kavanaugh for for FORTY YEARS! We need to get rid of him.
By the way, impeachment for anybody involves a two step process. It's kinda like the Texas Two Step, but with way more lawyers. The process starts in the House of Representatives. They are the ones who decide if a person has done something so bad, they should be impeached. If a person is impeached, they are actually being told that they did something really bad.
The second step is removal. That part happens in the Senate. After the House does it part and decides that a person's actions warrant impeachment, then the Senate takes a vote to see if they can get that person removed from their office. Removal requires a two thirds majority vote.
There are some people who think that even if the House voted to impeach Kavanaugh, there are not enough Senators who would vote to remove him. So they think that any efforts to impeach Kavanaugh would be doomed to fail. But I don't care! We should all contact our Representatives in the House and Senate, and ask for Kavanaugh to be impeached anyway.
And just to be clear, the worst thing that can happen to a person through the impeachment process is removal from their office. No jail time will come from impeachment. Jail time could come from being separately prosecuted by other bodies, like federal and state courts for crimes the person may have committed.
What COULD put Kavanaugh in jail is being prosecuted and found guilty of his attempted rape of Dr. Ford. There is no statute of limitations for attempted rape in the state of Maryland. That means that the state could open an investigation, charge and prosecute Kavanaugh for his attempted rape of Dr. Ford right now if they wanted to. It doesn't matter that the events happened thirty years ago.
So how would we get the state of Maryland to investigate, charge, and prosecute Kavanaugh for his attempted rape of Dr. Ford? Call the authorities! Ever since Kavanaugh was confirmed, I have been calling the Attorney General of the State of Maryland, Brian Frosh. His main number is (410) 576-6300. I also have been calling the Montgomery County Department, because this is the county where the crime allegedly took place. Their phone number is (240) 777-7300. When I call, I tell them who I am, and that I am calling to encourage the Attorney General to investigate, charge and prosecute Brett Kavanaugh for the attempted rape of Dr. Ford. The women who answers (and it is always a woman who answers) politely takes my message or patches me over to a voicemail box where people like me can leave messages related to things that have happened during the Trump administration.
More recently, I have called the (410) number and left a message for Zenita Hurley. She is on the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit Policy and Funding Committee, so I figured she would be a good place to start.
I have also called the Maryland Governor's office to ask if they have encouraged the Attorney General to investigate and charge Kavanaugh. I was told by the receptionist that the Governor of Maryland is really anti-Trump, so maybe that could go somewhere. The number there is (410) 974-3901.
There is a federal law that says that if a judge is convicted of a felony in federal or state court, then that judge can't decide cases any more. (28 U.S. Code Section 364) So if Kavanaugh is convicted of attempted rape, that would remove him from the Court.
I also found two other ways to remove Kavanaugh from a Washington Post article written by Aziz Huq, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He suggests that the president could appoint and the Senate could confirm Kavanaugh for another federal court position, like maybe on the D.C. Circuit, where he used to work. If that were to happen, Kavnaugh would be demoted, and off the Supreme Court.
The other option is for Congress to pass a law that would create a panel of judges who would have the power to discipline federal judges. If this panel were created, the justices on the Supreme Court would finally have something other than impeachment to discipline them for bad behavior. And that would be good for our democracy. And wouldn't it be great to do something good for our democracy, people?
Both of the last two suggestions require a cooperative president, so that means that neither of them will happen while Trump is in office. But we can still call our representatives in the House and put ideas in their heads. The main number there is (202) 224-3121. The new representatives, including such groovy ones as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, take office on January 3, 2019.
One last thing you can do is send a note of support to Dr. Ford. Let her know what you are doing to make sure that Kavanaugh is held accountable. Her address is :
Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford
c/o Palo Alto University
1790 Arestadero Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
I know democracy is hard, and slow. The things I suggested will take a while to accomplish the end of getting Kavanaugh off the court. But I would rather light a candle than curse the dark. I hope you feel the same way.