Brett Kavanaugh made history on Sunday with his first actions as a newly sworn-in Supreme Court justice: He appointed an all-female law clerk staff.
After a vicious, hyperpartisan “circus” of a confirmation process, the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh Saturday in a bipartisan vote of 50-48, which included West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and key swing-vote Republicans Susan Collins and Jeff Flake (Lisa Murkowski voted “present”).
On Sunday, Kavanaugh began the process of getting familiar with the arguments the court will be hearing this month, and, as The New York Times reports, he did so by meeting with his historic group of clerks.
“Justice Kavanaugh met with his four law clerks, all women — a first for the Supreme Court — in chambers that had until recently been occupied by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who has moved to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s old chambers,” the Times reports.
The Times notes that Kavanaugh stated in his testimony in September that he would continue to take steps to address the underrepresentation of women among law clerks, as he has done for over a decade.
“A majority of my 48 law clerks over the last 12 years have been women,” Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee in his testimony. “In my time on the bench, no federal judge — not a single one in the country — has sent more women law clerks to clerk on the Supreme Court than I have.”
As a newly-confirmed justice, Kavanaugh is continuing his pro-women law clerk policy.
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H/T Ed Morissey