The Senate Confirmation Process and Character
In his Farewell Address, George Washington reminded a young nation that it was an "experiment" in self-government. It still is. Washington's biggest worry was that Americans would tear their nation apart in pursuit of self-interest. He warned about the "factious" spirit and pleaded for "indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest."
Washington's foresight was that, as Heraclitus put it two thousand years before, "character is destiny," in nations as well as individuals. The Senate confirmation process through which we recently passed was the latest test of our American experiment. In regard to the character of the nominee, the President, the Senate, and many of the people themselves, the process provided a test tube full of evidence. In important respects, the American character failed the test.
Judge Kavanaugh's competence was not in question. As for any public official, his character was. Writing to her young son, John Quincy, Abigail Adams reminded him that: "Great Learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small Estimation, unless Virtue, Honour, Truth and integrety are added to them."
People will continue to argue about whether Judge Kavanaugh sexually abused one or more women, but there is substantial evidence that he misled the Senate about his drinking behavior. Had he just admitted to excessive drinking as a young man, he would have been no different than millions then and since. That he deceived the Senate under oath was the first test of character he failed. He also fueled questions about the temperament, prudence, and restraint he would bring to the Court in claiming his treatment was "a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger" with "millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups." His later apology for these remarks serves as an admission that they revealed a weakness of character. This is the second test of character he failed.
President Trump's character was also on display. After initially tempering his remarks, he used a political rally in Mississippi to mock Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate. It produced the usual, often orchestrated, outburst of cheers, laughter, and applause. Character is catching. Some members of his own party in the Senate called his behavior "appalling" and "unfortunate," but most ignored or excused his bullying character and thus failed their own test of character. Bullies never stop until someone with stronger character stops them.
The Senate's failure of character goes further, and comes from both sides of the aisle. The Constitution's framers fashioned the Senate to take a long-term perspective on the nation's needs and to check political passions of the moment (and the House). Yet the Senate has now taken on the political character of the lower chamber, swayed just as much by the "factious" spirit that so troubled Washington. Decades of seeking partisan advantage at the cost of comity and its constitutional role prepared it for letting the nation down in the confirmation process.
Until 2013, the Senate allowed unlimited debate on executive branch and judicial nominees. Cloture - closing off debate - required a two-thirds vote. The Democrats changed the rules on all but Supreme Court nominees in their effort to stop Republicans from blocking a liberal president's choices. In 2017, Republicans used the "nuclear option" to require only a majority vote to end debate on a conservative president's Supreme Court nominees. Presidents whose party controls the Senate now have little reason to select judicial non-ideological nominees. The Senate, the Supreme Court, and the nation that depends on both suffer as a result.
Many citizens demonstrated their own weakness of character. Protest is a sacred Constitutional right, but harassment of senators, a nominee, and Dr. Ford, sometimes accompanied by physical threats, is uncivil and reprehensible. Those at the president's rally, who so willingly and raucously reveled in his attacks on Ford, did their country no favor. Virtue not vitriol is what they owe the Constitution. Whenever Americans of any political persuasion joyfully demean the dignity of others, they weaken the government they want to improve..
At the close of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin expressed some thoughts on the future of the government the delegates had just created. Looking forward to it being "well-administered," he nevertheless penned a warning. Our government, he said, "can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." In his Farewell Address, nine years later, Washington noted that " [I]t is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government." Over 130 years later, President Calvin Coolidge reminded us that "character is the only secure foundation of the state." It still is.
Photo Credit: Ninian Reid
