OPINION: Why these hearings are complete shams

Between shouting protestors and Democrats that don’t want to proceed with the hearing because of the 42,000 documents that were dumped on them the night before the hearing, the Senate Confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh has been chaotic.

These hearings are a sham. Everyone has already decided before they walked into the building if they’ll nominate him as a judge or not. In fact, they already decided before President Donald Trump made his choice.

The idea of settled law is a misrepresentation of the role of the courts. If the current court is just supposed to rubber-stamp the decisions of the past then why do we have a court? If the settled law is supposed to stand then we would still have decisions such as separate but equal. Judges are supposed to rule based upon their interpretation of the law. They certainly can consider precedent but they should not be bound to it.

If you want something to be “settled law” then there is only one way to achieve it, amend the Constitution. The fact that we allow a decision by the courts to be the last step is the very thing that makes these nominations so controversial.

Jay Mcfarland hosts the JayMac News Show as well as the fictional podcast, Hosts of Eden. KSL Newsradio is part of Bonneville Media and based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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