Did Brett Kavanaugh's overt partisanship cause severe harm to the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Abstract

Objective Carrington and French (2021) claimed that “our findings suggest that, when a nominee [to the U.S. Supreme Court] behaves in an overtly partisan manner, it can cause severe harm to the legitimacy of the Court by increasing support for efforts to rein in the Court's authority and independence” (p. 1485). The evidence reported in Carrington and French (2021) for this claim is assessed. Method The research designs in Carrington and French (2021) are discussed, and further statistical analyses are reported. Results The research designs in Carrington and French (2021) cannot support the aforementioned key claim of Carrington and French (2021). Conclusions Carrington and French (2021) do not support the claim that the behavior of Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings severely harmed the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court on net among the U.S. public.