McCaskill plans to vote against embattled Kavanaugh for Supreme Court seat

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill officially joined Wednesday the chorus of Democrats who will oppose federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme Court, citing his record on dark money rather than newly revealed allegations of sexual assault.

The Missouri Democrat made her announcement after a committee vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination was postponed in the face of allegations he sexually assaulted a peer as a high school student more than three decades ago. However, McCaskill cited Kavanaugh’s judicial record rather than the controversy as the reason for her opposition, specifically zeroing in on the issue of campaign spending.

“He has revealed his bias against limits on campaign donations, which places him completely out of the mainstream of this nation,” McCaskill said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform for the Campaign Legal Center, said it’s a common practice for campaigns to post material to their websites that later ends up in ads paid for by outside groups. “You’ve seen candidates from both sides of the aisle exploiting what’s called the publicly available information loophole,” Fischer said.

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