Roy Blunt: “I want to speak for a few minutes about the hearings going on today with Judge Brett Kavanaugh. I had a chance, as you…”

“I want to speak for a few minutes about the hearings going on today with Judge Brett Kavanaugh. I had a chance, as you did, to meet him a little over a month ago. It was clear from that conversation that he is clearly the best person available, in my view, to fill the vacancy left by Justice Anthony Kennedy. I think his opening remarks this week gave great evidence to that. He said, as he described himself, that ``a judge must be an umpire--a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy. . . . I do not decide cases based on personal or policy preferences. I am not a pro- plaintiff or pro-defendant judge. I am not a pro-prosecution or pro- defense judge. I am a pro-law judge.'' What does it mean to be a ``pro-law'' judge? It means that you see your job as a judge who will look at the law and determine what the law says, whether that is criminal law or civil law. I am not an attorney, but if you hire an attorney to give you advice on civil law, the greatest benefit you can have in making a decision based on that advice is that judges at all levels, up to the Supreme Court, will look at the law as hopefully your good attorney did and say: This is what this law means. If you make this decision based on what the law says, the courts in the United States of America will reach that same, likely, conclusion. Your attorney might say that the law is not clear on this issue, and that is a different scenario.…”