Sharon Kennedy: Robert Bork’s vindication

Anybody remember Robert Bork, the fellow who took a beating in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan nominated him for a seat on the Supreme Court? He was grilled by senators who considered his extreme right-wing views a threat to his ability to remain impartial. His potential rulings on rights for women and minorities were not popular. Many senators predicted he would be instrumental in turning the clock back to previous decades.

To refresh your memory regarding the Bork confirmation hearings, they started with this quote from Sen. Ted Kennedy: “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, school children could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the government and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy. … The damage President Reagan will do through this nomination if it is not rejected by the Senate could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term.”

The Democratic Party had a spine then without a yellow streak running down it. The disgraced Chappaquiddick Kennedy was not the only one who tore into Bork. His colleagues joined him like a bull tearing into a red cape before being finished off by the matador’s sword. The mauling of Bork was verbal, but the result was the same. His bid for the court was dead. He was beaten but not bowed and was welcomed by educational institutions.

Why is remembering Bork’s failed confirmation and Kennedy’s speech important? Because upstart Mitch McConnell vowed such a display of partisan politics would never happen again. Although a senator for only three years, he rallied the troops and ruled with an iron fist. Mitch was a man on a mission: Show no mercy when it was the donkey’s turn to put forth a nominee. Stall, stall and keep stalling until an elephant was once again in the Oval Office. Mitch’s chance came in 2016 when Justice Scalia was found dead in his bed at a Texas resort.

When he died, Barack Obama was president and Mitch had risen to Senate majority leader. He lost no time in stating that the vacancy created by Scalia’s death would not be filled until a new president was elected. Mitch felt it was “unfair” to fill the seat when a presidential election was on the horizon. That “horizon” was 18 months away, but he was successful in blocking Barack’s candidate. Dignified, intelligent, soft-spoken, move-at-a-snail’s-pace Judge Merrick Garland would be nominated but would not get his day before the Senate.

Politics has always played a role in packing the court, but was it always so obvious? It’s thrown in our faces now. It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. Seven days prior to the 2020 election, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. Not 18 months prior to a presidential election. Only seven days. Bork had finally been vindicated. Henceforth Supreme Court appointees would be based solely on their political views, not on integrity, impartiality or anything other than loyalty to their benefactors.

Mitch felt no shame for his hypocrisy. It took 33 years, but he had accomplished his goal. The highest court in the land was firmly in the hands of one political party.

— To contact Sharon Kennedy, send her an email at authorsharonkennedy.com. Kennedy's new book, "View from the SideRoad: A Collection of Upper Peninsula Stories," is available from her or Amazon.

This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Sharon Kennedy: Robert Bork’s vindication