Bloomberg Law: Senator Kennedy’s Judicial Pop Quizzes Trip Up Nervous Nominees
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on February 28, 2024.
Fifteen lawyers sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but John Kennedy manages to get inside the heads of judicial nominees with his questions like nobody else.
The Louisiana Republican with a southern drawl and a former law professor’s Socratic method likes to pose questions about legal doctrines and courtroom procedure that have tripped up nominees from both parties.
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Kennedy “doesn’t seem to recognize that judges have access to libraries,” said Jake Faleschini, justice program director at the progressive advocacy group Alliance for Justice. “It is far more important that judicial nominees have the humility and research skills to look up the issues in each case than to have memorized them before a hearing.”