Kamala Devi Harris (born October 20, 1964) is the junior Senator from California. Before that she served as Attorney General of California. Harris was born in Oakland, California. She is the daughter of an Indian mother—a cancer researcher who emigrated in 1960—and a Jamaican-American father who is an economics professor. (Wikipedia)
This is the second perSISTERS print I’ve made for Kamala Harris. The first design, INSIST, was made in response to her being interrupted numerous times during Senate Intel hearings in June 2017. Nevertheless, she insisted on her right to question and get an answer.
On September 5, 2018, Senator Harris asked some powerful questions during the second confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. The nominee had difficulty answering her. The question about laws governing female bodies vs male bodies gets to the heart of the abortion rights issue, avoiding the excuse of the “Ginsburg Standard,” which Kavanaugh said he was following when he refused to answer questions about Roe v. Wade, even though he has, in fact, a written record objecting to that decision, and so would not be divulging new information about how he might rule as a Supreme Court judge. A nominee should not divulge how he or she may rule on a particular case because the judiciary should remain independent of any promises. However, the nominee may, and SHOULD, divulge his or her thinking about the principles underlying a particular precedent, and whether the nominee agrees with the soundness of those principles, or constitutional interpretations.
According to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), this portrayal of Justice Ginsburg’s hearings and the Ginsburg Standard is not accurate. Here I will quote at length from the NWLC:
Claims are being made that Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to answer questions about her views on abortion and the right to privacy and liberty during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1993, and that Judge Kavanaugh should follow her example. In fact, Kavanaugh made these claims when he was nominated to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
This portrayal of Justice Ginsburg’s hearings is not accurate. The truth is that Justice Ginsburg did the exact opposite. Then-Judge Ginsburg did answer Senators’ questions on abortion and the right to privacy—in fact, she spoke at length about her views.
Here is Justice Ginsburg’s response to then-Senator Hank Brown’s question about the constitutional underpinnings of the right to abortion:
“[Y]ou asked me about my thinking about equal protection versus individual autonomy, and my answer to you is it is both. This is something central to a woman’s life, to her dignity. It is a decision that she must make for herself. And when government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.” (Nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Hearings Before the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 103rd Cong. 207 (1993)).
And here is her answer to a question by Senator Leahy about whether there is a constitutional right to privacy:
“There is a constitutional right to privacy which consists I think of at least two distinguishable parts. One is the privacy expressed most vividly in the Fourth Amendment, that is the government shall not break into my home or my office, without a warrant, based on probable cause, the government shall leave me alone. The other is the notion of personal autonomy, the government shall not make my decisions for me, I shall make, as an individual, uninhibited, uncontrolled by my government, the decisions that affect my life’s course.” (Ginsburg Nomination Hearings, 185).
Additionally, then-Judge Ginsburg had a very extensive record of opinions and articles when she appeared before the Judiciary Committee, giving Senators an ample basis on which to determine her views on important legal issues – which is not the case with Judge Kavanaugh. As the 1993 Judiciary Committee report on the Ginsburg nomination said:
“[E]ach member of the committee had ample means, prior to Judge Ginsburg’s hearing, to discover much pertinent information—indeed, the most pertinent information—about Judge Ginsburg’s judicial approach and method. In more than 300 signed appellate opinions, and more than three score articles, Judge Ginsburg told the Senate and the American people an enormous amount about herself even before the hearings opened.” (Ginsburg Nomination Rept., 40).
Indeed, the Judiciary Committee’s report on the Ginsburg nomination concluded that “the committee knows far more about Judge Ginsburg’s views on reproductive rights than it has known about any previous nominee’s. Judge Ginsburg’s record and testimony suggest both a broad commitment to reproductive freedoms and a deep appreciation of the equality and autonomy values underlying them.” (Nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Sen. Exec. Rept. No. 103-6, at 39 (1993)).
Attempts to claim a “Ginsburg standard” that would allow Judge Kavanaugh to refuse to explain his views on the rights to privacy, liberty, and abortion are disingenuous excuses.
Rather, Judge Kavanaugh should follow Justice Ginsburg’s example and be forthcoming in his confirmation hearings. He must answer whether or not he believes the Constitution protects the individual right of all people to make personal decisions about their bodies and relationships, including the right to use contraception and to have an abortion.
A NOTE ON THE DESIGN
I was so happy to be able to use a capital Q in a perSISTERS design. This is definitely my favorite character. The capital Q is often an eccentric letter in a typeface, an eccentricity that is most often hidden because this letter is so rarely used in the English language. Because this flamboyant letter is kept “in the closet” I took it upon my self, in 1997, to create an artists book about this letter. I have three posts about this work, here, here, and here. The Q in this perSISTER design is from the typeface BeLucian Ultra. The book weight version is used for the name “Lucian” in the book, as in queen, the abecedarium of a typophiliac by Leda Black, Palabra Press, 1997 and a Blurb edition, 2015.
SOURCES
https://nwlc.org/resources/the-ginsburg-standard-requires-judge-kavanaugh-to-give-full-and-complete-answers-to-questions-about-liberty-privacy-and-abortion/
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/13/628711698/the-reality-of-the-ginsburg-rule
The image of Ms. Harris is based on a screen shot from the video clip “Kamala Harris Interrupted at Intel Senate Hearing” from CNN. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/07/watch_two_republican_men_try_to_shush_kamala_harris_in_a_senate_hearing.html)
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