Judge Brett Kavanaugh is known for carrying a copy of the Constitution with him, a fact that did not escape Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) when she questioned him during the hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court, as she dismissively referred to the Constitution as “that book that you carry.”
Harris stated:
I’m going to ask you about unenumerated rights. So, you gave a speech praising former Justice Rehnquist dissent in Rhodes, there’s been much discussion about that, and you wrote, celebrating his success, that “success in stemming the free-wheeling tide creation of unenumerated rights,” that is what you said in celebration of Justice Rehnquist. So “unenumerated rights” is a phrase that lawyers use, but I want to make clear what we’re talking about: it means rights that are protected by the Constitution even if they’re not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
Pointing at Kavanaugh’s table, she patronized, “So they’re not in that book that you carry.”
Harris’ cavalier attitude toward the Constitution seems to fit quite well with her previous history; in December 2010, when she became California’s Attorney General, Harris announced that her office would not defend Proposition 8 before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, despite the fact that it had been passed by voters in 2008 and attorney generals usually defend state laws.
In December 2012, Harris issued a memo telling executives of California’s state and local law-enforcement agencies they could “make their own decisions about whether to fulfill” Immigration & Customs Enforcement detainers.
Harris’ condescending reference to “that book you carry” seemed to hearken back to another person referring to the Constitution condescendingly as “your little book”:
Video of Harris below: