2 key senators go to Kavanaugh side

WASHINGTON -- Judge Brett Kavanaugh appears headed toward confirmation to the Supreme Court this weekend after two key undecided senators -- Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. -- announced Friday that they would support his elevation to the high court.

"We will be ill-served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be," Collins said in remarks that stretched for more than 40 minutes but addressed the sexual-abuse allegations only near the end.

"The Me Too movement is real. It matters. It is needed and it is long overdue," she said, arguing that her support for Kavanaugh's confirmation does not negate the claims of sexual assault that have flooded forward in the wake of Christine Blasey Ford's testimony against the nominee. But she said she was not convinced of Kavanaugh's guilt.

"I found her testimony to be sincere, painful and compelling. I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault and that this trauma has upended her life. Nevertheless, the four witnesses she named could not corroborate any of the events," Collins said.

Manchin immediately followed with a statement proclaiming his support.

"I have reservations about this vote given the serious accusations against Judge Kavanaugh and the temperament he displayed in the hearing," he wrote. "And my heart goes out to anyone who has experienced any type of sexual assault in their life. However, based on all of the information I have available to me, including the recently completed FBI report, I have found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist."

Those decisions came after a 51-49 procedural vote to limit debate on the nomination. A final confirmation vote is expected today.

Vice President Mike Pence has planned to be available in case his tiebreaking vote is needed.

Kavanaugh's path to the court seemed unfettered until mid-September, when Ford accused him of drunkenly sexually assaulting her in a locked bedroom at a 1982 high school gathering. Two other women later emerged with sexual-misconduct allegations from the 1980s, all of which Kavanaugh has denied.

With the Senate and the nation divided, Kavanaugh's future came to rest with four undecided senators: three Republicans -- Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Collins -- and one Democrat, Manchin. But one by one, they let their positions be known.

Flake said Friday that he would vote for Kavanaugh "unless something big changes." Murkowski broke with her party in voting to block his confirmation, and later delivered an emotional impromptu speech explaining why she had voted against ending debate.

"I believe we're dealing with issues right now that are bigger than the nominee and how we ensure fairness and how our legislative and judicial branch can continue to be respected," she said.

"This is what I have been wrestling with, and so I made the -- took the very difficult vote that I did," she said. "I believe Brett Kavanaugh's a good man. It just may be that in my view he's not the right man for the court at this time."

In a twist, Murkowski said later that she will state her opposition but vote "present" as a courtesy to Kavanaugh supporter Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who is attending his daughter's wedding in Montana. Murkowski said she'd use an obscure procedure that lets one senator offset the absence of another without affecting the outcome, while letting the missing lawmaker's preference appear in the record.

If confirmed, President Donald Trump's second Supreme Court nominee will replace the high court's swing vote -- as cast by retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan -- with a committed conservative, shifting the ideological balance on the court toward the right for decades.

The last time a justice was confirmed by a single vote was in 1881, when Stanley Matthews was confirmed 24-23.

Trump was triumphant on Twitter. "Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting 'YES' to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!" he wrote.

DEBATE, RECRIMINATIONS

Friday's vote ushers in 30 hours of debate before the Senate takes its final vote on Kavanaugh. It came as senators were still absorbing the results of a confidential FBI inquiry into allegations of sexual assault against the judge.

In remarks before the Friday morning vote, senior senators delivered closing arguments that demonstrated how deeply the nomination has split the Senate.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman, accused Democrats of waging a scorched-earth campaign to destroy Kavanaugh -- "the most qualified nominee in our nation's history" -- before he could be confirmed.

He said that the burden of proof for the nominee's accusers had not been met and that an ample investigation had found no evidence to corroborate their claims.

"We had a campaign of distraction from his outstanding qualifications, a campaign of destruction of this individual," Grassley said.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, warned Democrats that a vote against Kavanaugh based on uncorroborated accusations would dangerously erode "the ideals of justice that have served our nation so well for so long."

And Trump urged on the Senate, saying anti-Kavanaugh protesters were "screamers" and "professionals" paid by financier George Soros.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Kavanaugh had disqualified himself many times over because of his views on presidential power, gun rights and abortion rights. She chastised Republicans for an incomplete investigation of the sexual-misconduct claims against him and said Kavanaugh's emotional defense at a public hearing last week demonstrated a temperament unfit for the office.

"Based on all the factors we have before us, I do not believe Judge Kavanaugh has earned this seat," she said.

Democrats and Republicans appeared to agree, at least superficially, on one thing: The behavior of senators has been unbecoming.

"When future Americans look back at these proceedings, let them draw no lessons from the Senate's conduct here," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor raised concern at an event at Princeton University on Friday about partisanship on the high court.

Without mentioning Trump or Kavanaugh, the justices responded to a question about the politics of the moment.

Kagan said there had traditionally been a "middle" of the court and it's not clear there will be going forward.

Sotomayor said it's important for the justices to rise above partisanship and treat one another with respect and dignity.

Also Friday, the American Bar Association, which had issued a unanimous "well qualified" rating for Kavanaugh, said in a letter that it would reopen its evaluation because of "new information of a material nature regarding temperament" that emerged from the emotional hearing last week that featured testimony from Ford and Kavanaugh.

The national lawyers' organization told the Judiciary Committee that its team of internal reviewers "does not expect to complete a process and revote" before the anticipated final confirmation vote today.

Information for this article was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times; by Alan Fram and Lisa Mascaro of The Associated Press; and by Alex Horton, Avi Selk, Mike DeBonis, Seung Min Kim, John Wagner, Mike DeBonis, Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Sean Sullivan, Elise Viebeck and Paul Kane of The Washington Post.

A Section on 10/06/2018