12/14/18
Chief Justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye has reportedly renounced her Republican Party registration and re-registered as a no-party-preference voter, citing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Cantil-Sakauye made the comments in a phone interview on Thursday to CALmatters, a nonprofit news organization, saying that she had been thinking about Kavanaugh's September confirmation hearing. "I’ve been thinking about it for some time," Cantil-Sakauye said of her decision. She said that she spoke with her husband and friends about the hearing and their conclusion was that "you didn’t leave the party — the party left you." “I felt compelled to make a choice now. It better suits what I do and how I approach issues," Cantil-Sakauye told CALmatters, adding that she has become displeased with the GOP's direction nationally and in her home state. Cantil-Sakauye has excoriated President Donald Trump for being harmful to the "rule of law" because of his attacks on judges. “The people uttering those are doing damage, short-term and long-term, to courts, to the rule of law,” Cantil-Sakauye said this week. She was referring to questions regarding Trump's statement last month that a ruling against the administration's immigration policy was made by "an Obama judge." U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts also rebutted Trump's remarks at the time in a rare statement, saying: "We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them."
