US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said relations among his colleagues are “quite good,” even as the court grapples with deeply divisive issues including abortion, voting rights and affirmation action.
(Bloomberg) — US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said relations among his colleagues are “quite good,” even as the court grapples with deeply divisive issues including abortion, voting rights and affirmation action.
Speaking at the University of Notre Dame Law School earlier this week, Kavanaugh listed nine recent rulings that didn’t fall along liberal-conservative lines, including disputes over immigration, LGBTQ rights and free speech.
“I might be working with Justice Sotomayor on one case, and we might be in disagreement on the other, but we’re working together on the one and we’re not going to let the relationship on the one suffer because we might disagree on the other,” Kavanaugh said, referring to liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “And I think all nine of us do that.”
Kavanaugh, a 2018 appointee of then-President Donald Trump, made his remarks Monday in a conversation with the law school’s dean, G. Marcus Cole. The law school released a video of the event Thursday.
Kavanaugh didn’t mention the leak of the court’s draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion last year or speculation that the resulting turmoil had poisoned the atmosphere inside the court. The court last week announced that an eight-month internal investigation had failed to discover the leak culprit.
Kavanaugh downplayed the unprecedented delay in the issuance of the court’s first opinion of the current term, blaming the “mix of cases” the justices heard in October and November. The justices issued their first opinion on Monday, unanimously resolving a case over the deadlines for veterans to seek disability benefits.
“I’m confident they’ll all be out by the end of June,” when the court’s term traditionally ends, Kavanaugh said.
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