When the president and the majority of the Senate are of the same political party, confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court nominees rarely matter. In January 2006, I testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of Samuel Alito. At a break, then-Sen. Joe Biden came up to me and said that it was all an exercise in Kabuki theater. He said that everyone in the room knew that Alito was going to be a very conservative justice. He said that the Republicans were pretending that he was open-minded and had no ideology, while the Democrats were trying to ask questions to trip him up and he was too smart for that.
I fear that the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh are likely to replicate this. But what should be the strategy for Democratic senators in asking questions to try and make the hearings matter?
