What Do Brett Kavanaugh And Nancy Pelosi Have In Common?

Brett Kavanaugh and Nancy Pelosi would seem to have little in common. Brett Kavanaugh is a Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice best known for voting to overturn Roe v. Wade and for being accused of committing sexual assault while a high school student. Nancy Pelosi is the vehemently pro-choice Speaker of the House. But they do have something in common. An apparently deranged man attempted to break into Justice Kavanaugh's home, most likely with the intent to kill him. A few months later, an apparently deranged man successfully broke into Speaker Pelosi's home and, failing to find her at home, brutally injured her 82-year-old husband.

The man who tried to kill Justice Kavanaugh had called the police and said he had come to Maryland to kill a supreme court justice. He was caught outside of Kavanaugh's home with a gun, a knife, and zip ties before he could harm anyone.

The Pelosi’s were not as fortunate. The assailant successfully broke into their home through the back door shouting "where is Nancy?". Mr. Pelosi called 911 but the assailant was able to severely injure him just as the police arrived.

Another thing they have in common is that both attacks were foreseeable, given the larger political context. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, at the highest levels of Congress, have indulged in violent rhetoric against them that carries the obvious risk of encouraging violence against Kavanaugh and Pelosi. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, accused Republicans seeking to limit abortions of "waging a war on women," and continued, "I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh - you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions".

Republicans have been no better. Last year, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said that "it will be hard not to hit" Pelosi with the speaker's gavel if he becomes the next Speaker of the House.

After a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked, protestors began picketing conservative Justices' homes. The protests were clearly illegal. Federal law states that it is unlawful to protest near a "residence occupied or used by [a] judge, juror, witness, or court officer" with the intent of influencing "the discharge of his duty." The Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that such laws do not violate the First Amendment. Nevertheless, the Biden Justice Department has refused to enforce this law.

The attack on the Pelosi's home was also foreseeable. Last year, their home was vandalized, and a pig's head was left on the sidewalk.

These terrible events show that public officials are unsafe in their homes, regardless of their political affiliation. Neither party has been willing to tone down the rhetoric or to protect the safety of members of the other party.

What can be done about this? In the short term, Congress will need to extend Secret Service or other protection to a much greater array of public leaders and their families than they currently do. Anti-harassment laws need to be strengthened and more stringently enforced. A good start would be for Congress to make it a felony to attempt to intimidate public officials by going after their children. For example, the pro-choice group Ruth Sent Us posted the names of the school attended by the children of conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Such actions have no First Amendment value and are obviously attempts to intimidate a public official.

But there also needs to be a change in the broader culture, and change has to begin at the top. President Biden must speak out far more forcefully against such tactics. Republicans need to step up too. Rising Republican star and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said, just hours after the attack on Pelosi's husband, that: "There's no room for violence anywhere, but we're gonna send her back to be with him in California. That's what we're going to go do."

Both the political left and right have been flirting with violence for far too long. Liberal reluctance to call out the violence associated with the Black Lives Matter protests and conservative apologetics for the January 6th insurrection are just the most visible of many examples of a failure of leadership on this issue by both parties.