Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski still has not announced her decision about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Murkowski, one of just two pro-abortion Republicans in the Senate, is being lobbied heavily by the abortion industry to oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation. With Republicans holding just a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, every vote counts.
This week, Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News that she is watching the confirmation hearings and reviewing Kavanaugh’s writings, speeches and opinions.
“I’ve been very clear in terms of what my vetting process was going to be,” she said Wednesday. “So far I haven’t heard anything that is earthshaking, something that hasn’t been out there as a point of discussion before. But I know they really just started questions this morning.”
Of her personal meeting with Kavanaugh, Murkowski said this:
“I don’t know what his personal belief about abortion is. I don’t know that anybody knows what his personal belief is,” she said.
Murkowski wants to hear more about established precedents at this week’s hearings, she said.
And she noted, that while cases “could” come from lower courts that test Roe v. Wade, it is not certain.
“But I do think that there are people who have been made to fear that if Judge Kavanaugh is nominated, that the day he joins the bench, that Roe versus Wade is going to be overturned. That is just not possible,” she said.
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She praised him for being “a person who is very critical in his evaluation of the facts as applied to the law.”
“… my review has concluded that this is somebody who looks very critically at the facts of each case and then works to apply the law to it,” she said.
Murkowski said she will announce her decision before the Senate votes on Kavanaugh.
She and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine are possible swing votes in his confirmation. Both are Republicans who confirmed President Donald Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch. However, both also have pro-abortion voting records.
They and several moderately pro-life Democrats are being targeted by the abortion industry with ads, protests and other efforts to push them to oppose Kavanaugh and block Trump from appointing a second conservative justice to the high court.
A federal judge, Kavanaugh has served on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. for more than a decade, where he developed an extensive record of protecting religious liberty and enforcing restrictions on abortion. Pro-life leaders believe he would do the same on the U.S. Supreme Court.
National pro-life leaders have expressed high hopes for Kavanaugh and the future of unborn babies’ rights.
His confirmation hearings continued Thursday.
ACTION: Contact U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
