Here is what you need to know about U.S. Supreme Court
nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is 53,
married and has two children. He currently
serves as a judge on the powerful US Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit. Here's where he stands on some hot-button issues as established by CNN:
Abortion
Because he was a swing-vote in favor of abortion rights,
Kennedy's departure from the court has sparked alarm among abortion rights
activists that Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized
abortion nationwide in 1973, could be overturned. In addition, Trump has long
vowed to appoint justices who would reverse Roe and allow states to determine
whether abortion should be legal.
Kavanaugh has not expressed outright opposition to Roe v.
Wade.
One of his opinions likely to draw scrutiny from senators is
a his dissent from a ruling of the DC Circuit last
October that an undocumented immigrant teen in detention was entitled to seek
an abortion.
In his dissent, Kavanaugh wrote the Supreme Court has held
that "the government has permissible interests in favoring fetal life,
protecting the best interests of a minor, and refraining from facilitating
abortion." He wrote that the high court has "held that the government
may further those interests so long as it does not impose an undue burden on a
woman seeking an abortion." He said the majority opinion was "based
on a constitutional principle as novel as it is wrong: a new right for unlawful
immigrant minors in US government detention to obtain immediate abortion on
demand." He added, however, that "all parties to this case recognize
Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as precedents we must follow."
Religious liberty
Kavanaugh's opinion in a case involving a challenge under
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to the Affordable Care Act's so-called
contraceptive mandate, Priests for Life v. HHS, has also drawn scrutiny. In a dissent,
he expressed sympathy for the religious challengers. Making reference to the
Supreme Court's ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, he wrote that "the
regulations substantially burden the religious organizations' exercise of
religion because the regulations require the organizations to take an action
contrary to their sincere religious beliefs."
In a line that has attracted some conservative criticism, however, Kavanaugh also wrote
in his dissent that Supreme Court precedent "strongly suggests that the
government has a compelling interest in facilitating access to contraception
for the employees of these religious organizations."
Separation of powers and executive branch authority
In his time on the DC Circuit, Kavanaugh established a
reputation as a skeptic of regulatory action supported by the
Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration.
In 2012, he argued in a dissenting opinion that the EPA
"exceeded its statutory authority" in a case challenging the agency
over the regulation of greenhouse gases. In a separate 2014 opinion,
Kavanaugh was again critical of the EPA, writing, "In my
view, it is unreasonable for EPA to exclude consideration of costs in
determining whether it is 'appropriate' to impose significant new regulations
on electric utilities."
Second Amendment
In 2011, Kavanaugh dissented from a majority opinion of the
DC Circuit that upheld a ban that applied to semiautomatic rifles in the
District of Columbia.
In his dissent, he wrote that the Supreme Court had
previously "held that handguns -- the vast majority of which today are
semi-automatic -- are constitutionally protected because they have not
traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens."
Citing a previous high court ruling, Kavanaugh went on to
say, "It follows from Heller's protection of semi-automatic handguns
that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that DC's
ban on them is unconstitutional."
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