About 70 activists joined U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy at a rally Friday to speak out against Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s pick to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Blumenthal and Murphy, both Democrats, already have announced their intention to vote against Kavanaugh, citing his views on abortion law, gun control and other matters.
“Republicans have talked for years about activist judges,’’ Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin told the crowd gathered on the north steps of the state Capitol. “Well, Brett Kavanaugh is the very definition of a judge with an agenda.’’
Several speakers expressed concern about Kavanaugh’s position on gun control.
“Judge Kavanaugh is an extremist far out of touch with the American mainstream,” said Jonathan Perloe, director of programs and communications at CT Against Gun Violence. “Nowhere is that more evident than his views on gun laws.”
The NRA calls him “an outstanding choice,” Perloe added. “Under a Kavanaugh court, the only thing that will matter is the unfettered, unchecked right to bear arms.”
Earlier this week, Murphy denounced Kavanaugh, saying he has “taken positions far to the right of the Scalia court on guns.” The senator was referring to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in a key case supporting the Second Amendment.
Murphy said that Kavanaugh could become “the most radical voice on the court on guns.’’
But Murphy’s comparison was rated “mostly false” by PolitiFact, a nonpartisan website that fact-checks the statements of members of Congress, White House officials and others.
“Kavanaugh stated that assault weapons bans were unconstitutional in the circuit court case Heller vs. District of Columbia,’’ PolitiFact wrote. “Scalia’s opinion on the Supreme Court allowed for some regulations in District of Columbia vs. Heller, which some courts have interpreted to rule in favor of assault weapons bans. But the decision was not about assault weapons.
“We found at least one instance where Scalia signed off on saying an assault weapons ban would be unconstitutional. So Kavanaugh’s position and Scalia’s are substantially similar. Leaving room for legal interpretation, we rate this statement Mostly False.”
Murphy’s spokeswoman, Laura Maloney, said the senator’s comment was based on Scalia’s precedent-setting Supreme Court opinion in the Heller case.
“The fact remains that in viewing such laws as unconstitutional, Judge Kavanaugh would overturn the will of the people and prevent states like Connecticut from having commonsense laws on the books to stop gun violence and save lives,’’ Maloney said.
Scott Wilson, president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a grass-roots gun owners group, said Murphy and other Democrats are seeking to use the Kavanaugh nomination to fire up party activists in advance of the midterm elections.
“He’s politicized the Second Amendment of the Constitution in a way that is completely un-American,” Wilson said. “I can’t believe people are having rallies to eradicate their very own constitutional rights. It’s as if there are masses of people saying to lawmakers ‘save ourselves from ourselves’ because we don’t know what’s best for us.”
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