The norm in recent years is four days, which would take us through Friday. But Chairman Grassley said earlier that we'll go all day Saturday and Sunday if necessary.
Booker: Independent farmers are threatened by consolidation of multinational corporations. Abuse of corporate consolidation is driving farmers out of business. One farmer was telling me about suicide rates [presumably of farmers, he means]. And when health care costs go up, people lose their lives.
Booker: Americans across country feel trapped by criminal justice system, which disproportionately affects Americans of color.
Booker: The powerful, the privileged, special interests, corporations -- the pattern in your record is that these groups win. Women, minorities, the disadvantaged, the poor -- these folks lose.
Booker: I laud our founders. I think they were geniuses. But they were also flawed people. We are the oldest constitutional democracy. We were not founded on tribalism. We broke the course of human events and formed this nation. God bless our founders, but we know they were flawed: Indians were called "savages," women weren't referred to as all.
It can go well into the evening hours, especially on days when the nominee is actually being questioned. Today, we were told we might wrap by 2:30 pm. It's now approaching 3:30 p.m. I would say another 90 minutes today.
Booker: From activists at Selma and other important places in the history of civil rights -- one activist is in the audience who on this very day in history faced crowds yelling slurs as she was part of the "Little Rock 9" desegregating a high school in Little Rock. This was the first major test of Brown v. Board.
Booker: There are people here who were part of these victories, and now we are facing the roll-back of rights.
Booker: I cannot support your nomination not just because of the body of your work but because of the perverse process by which your nomination has come forward.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., now speaking.
Tillis: We have members of the Democrats who said the night of your nomination that they would not support you, and now they are saying they need more documents.
Tillis: You've been taking a lot of notes. Tomorrow I want to spend more time listening to you than speaking over you.
Tillis quotes from a rallying email from a liberal organization against Kavanaugh's emails that mentions, among other things, how Kavanaugh will not work against gun violence. But, Tillis says, this should be Congress' job, so let's fix it.
Tillis: Rather than try to get Kavanaugh to commit to outcomes, don't expect him to be a politician.
Tillis: I think we have an eminently qualified judge before us. To suggest because I'm inclined to support him that I'm complicit in evil makes me doubt sincerity of others that they don't doubt motives. [This refers to Booker's remarks about not wanting to mistrust motives of his colleagues.]
Tillis: I hope senators during the questioning will take time to talk about legal theory.
Tillis: If people objectively look at your record, they will be hard-pressed to take all the theater today and present you as a judicial activist.
Regardless of one's politics, all should agree that Sen. Tillis is one of the more down-to-earth and witty members of the committee.
Sen. Harris, D-Calif., now up.
Harris: I restate my objection to the denied motion to adjourn hearing.
Harris: The Kagan documents that were not handed over had to do with active cases, which is not the case today.
Sen. Sasse has walked over to confer with Sen. Klobuchar. He's even sitting in a Democratic chair while he does so.
Harris: There has been many a political campaign run to use the Supreme Court as a political tool to end things like the Affordable Care Act, so concerns about whether this nominee was chosen to advance a political agenda are legitimate.
Harris: It took 57 days to vet documents that we received yesterday, then it's as if we need to be speed readers to review the documents.
We are almost done with senator's opening statements, but after Harris we still have Sen. Lindsey Graham, who missed his normal spot in the order earlier.
Harris: 96% of his record is missing. It is reasonable that we should want to review his entire record.
Harris: It should not be the ability of the leadership of this committee to unilaterally make decisions about what will be admissible or not.
Harris: I would think anyone who wants to sit on the Supreme Court would be proud of his record and want the American people to see if, and would want to be confirmed in a process that is not under a cloud.
Harris: We should not be moving forward with this hearing. The American people deserve better than this.
Harris: Students going back to school this week. Many years ago I was starting kindergarten. I was on bus as part of second class of students as busing desegregated her area of California. Had Chief Justice Warren not been on the Supreme Court, he could not have led a unanimous decision -- and I may not have had the opportunities that allowed me to become a lawyer.
Harris: A Supreme Court seat not just about philosophy, it's personal. One individual on that court can have a impact on people you'll never meet: whether a person can cast a ballot, whether a woman with breast cancer can afford health care, whether a transgender worker is treated with dignity, whether a pregnant teacher in desperation is forced to a back-alley abortion, whether the president is accountable or above the law.
Harris: It's important that the American people have transparency and accountability with this nomination. It's why it's disturbing that Republicans have prevented this body and the American people from reviewing his full record.
Harris: I am concerned that this nominee not guided by impartiality or even ideology, but partisanship on behalf of the conservative legal agenda.
Harris: If we look at record on DC Circuit [Kavanaugh's current court], it's clear the nominee has brought political bias to the bench.
Harris: His positions are not impartial, they are politicians. I fear that his record indicates that he may be a politician in robes.
Harris: I don't doubt Kavanaugh is devoted to his community. But that's not why we're here. We're here to talk about the Supreme Court. Do we want that court to continue a legacy of being above politics, or are we prepared to participate in a process that is tainted?
Harris: Symbol of justice is a woman in a blindfold holding scales. Justice should be blind to how much money someone has, or what language someone's parents speak. I am concerned about whether you would treat every American equally, or instead show allegiance to the party that shaped your career and the president who appointed you.
Sen. Graham, R-S.C., now up: Last senator
Graham is fairly senior on the committee, but is just now getting to his statement.
Graham: Where did Justice Breyer come from? He was Ted Kennedy's judiciary aide. Where did Ruth Bader Ginsburg come from? The ACLU. It's hypocrisy to say that to be fair, a conservative president has to nominate a liberal.
Graham: It didn't anybody for Clinton to nominate Breyer while under investigation.
Graham: This pick is a home run from my point of view.
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