Sen. Mazie Horono, D-Hawaii, said Tuesday she would be open to voting for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
"The burden of proof is on him, which means that I am leaning no but maybe he can convince me to vote for him. This is a big burden on him to show me he can be fair and objective," Hirono said on CNN’s "New Day."
“The president has a power to nominate, but we have the power and responsibility to confirm this person. But with that responsibility comes, as far as I am concerned, the Senate hearing, the one-on-one meeting that I will have with him, and because of his record and the fact that he has been vetted by two highly conservative groups who want to overturn Roe v. Wade and repeal the Affordable Care Act, among other things, he bears the burden of proof," Hirono said.
The two conservative groups Hirono referred to are the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. In May 2016, Trump released a list of possible Supreme Court choices that those groups had vetted. Kavanaugh’s name was added later to that initial list, The New York Times editorial board noted.
Other Senate Democrats have been more critical of Kavanaugh. “I will oppose him with everything I’ve got,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday.