Dianne Feinstein

OPINION — This was the point. This was always the point of the “Year of the Woman,” in 1992 and every election year since then. To have women at the table, to have women as a part of the process in the government we live by every day. Women still aren’t serving in Congress in the numbers they should be, but it is at moments like this one — with a nominee, an accusation, and a Supreme Court seat in the balance — where electing women to office matters.

When Anita Hill told an all-male panel of senators in 1991 that Clarence Thomas had repeatedly sexually harassed her when she had worked with him years before, the senators on the all-male Judiciary Committee seemed to put Hill on trial instead of Thomas. Why didn’t she quit her job and get another one, they asked. Why did she speak to him again? Why didn’t she come forward and say something about Thomas sooner if he was such a flawed nominee?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed Democrats for the process and timing under which the sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has been raised. But  he said he has confidence that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley will handle the matter appropriately.

It’s been 70 days since President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh and the Senate has spent more than two months poring through his background, including hundreds of testimonials from people who know him, McConnell said.

President Donald Trump on Monday called the notion that Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court might be withdrawn over sexual misconduct allegations from his high school days “ridiculous.” But he backed delaying the confirmation process so the nominee and his accuser could speak with senators.

“If it takes a little delay, it’ll take a little delay,” Trump said. “I’m sure it will work out very well.”

A scheduled Thursday afternoon Judiciary Committee vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination was always going to be the most significant event on the schedule.

But the decision by Christine Blasey Ford to come forward publicly with an allegation of attempted sexual assault by Kavanaugh while in high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, has put what could have been a fairly perfunctory (though partisan) proceeding in the spotlight.

ANALYSIS: President Donald Trump’s pick for a pivotal spot on the Supreme Court already put the Senate at the confluence of the nation’s contentious political and legal movements.  But a woman’s allegation of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh  — dating back decades to when he was a teenager — heaps cultural importance as well on what senators do at this moment.

Senators, particularly Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Republicans who have relentlessly insisted on a confirmation vote this month, now have to decide what to do amid a “Me Too” movement that has exposed how these types of allegations have been hidden, mishandled or simply ignored by powerful men in the past. 

A California professor who claims a “stumbling drunk” Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school would testify publicly if asked by Senate Judiciary Committee leaders, her attorney said Monday.

Christine Blasey Ford, 51, says she instantly thought Kavanaugh might “inadvertently kill” her during a party in the early 1980s after he and a friend corralled her in a bedroom and the Supreme Court nominee pinned her to a bed and groped her over a one-piece bathing suit. Kavanaugh denies the allegation.

Updated 11:51 p.m. | Republican Sen. Jeff Flakejoined calls from Democrats on Sunday to hit pause on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination to get more information from a woman who went public with details of an alleged sexual attack by Kavanaugh decades ago when they were both in high school.

The comments by the Arizona lawmaker, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are the first sign of trouble for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s push for a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh this month.

ANALYSIS | What was an anonymous letter with serious allegations against Supreme Court nominee are now vivid words from an accuser, putting a name and face on the charges and raising new questions about the nomination.

A California professor contends she instantly thought a “stumbling drunk” Kavanaugh might “inadvertently kill” her during a party in the early 1980s while they were in high school, breaking her public silence and handing Republican leaders and the White House tough decisions about what to do next.

A California professor has gone public with allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were high school students in the early 1980s.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that Christine Blasey Ford, a 51-year-old research psychologist who teaches at Palo Alto University, alleged that Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk” — corralled her in a bedroom. There, according to the account, Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed and groped her while attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothes she was wearing over it.

There was a watershed moment in Washington this week — three spending bills were cleared ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline and sent to the president’s desk for signature. That’s the first on-time delivery of a quarter of the annual appropriations measures in a decade.

Elsewhere in the Capitol, the Senate Judiciary panel set a final vote on the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, for Sept. 20, despite controversy.