U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will face senators' questions for the first time Tuesday as Democrats push to quickly confirm the only Black female justice in the court's 233-year history.
Jackson, a federal appeals court judge, sat and silently listened to more than four hours of senators' opening statements on Monday, the first of four days of Judiciary Committee hearings on her nomination. As senators begin 30-minute rounds of grilling on Tuesday, she will respond to their specific points, including charges by some Republicans that she has been too lenient in sentencing on criminal matters.
In her own 12-minute statement, Jackson didn't mention specific cases but told the committee that she would "apply the laws to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favour, consistent with my judicial oath," if she were to be confirmed.
Jackson, 51, thanked God and professed love for "our country and the Constitution." She stressed that she has been independent, deciding cases "from a neutral posture" in her nine years as a federal judge.
While Republicans promised pointed questions, Democrats were full of praise for President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee. Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin said that to be first, "often, you have to be the best, in some ways the bravest."
Biden chose Jackson in February, fulfilling a campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in American history. She would take the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced in January that he would retire after 28 years on the court.
Democrats have narrowest of margins
Barring unexpected developments, Democrats who control the Senate by the slimmest of margins hope to wrap up Jackson's confirmation before Easter next month, even though Breyer is not leaving the court until after the current session ends this summer.
Democratic leaders are hoping for some Republican support, but can confirm her with the support of only Democrats in the 50-50 Senate, as Vice-President Kamala Harris can cast a tie-breaking vote.
In the opening statements, Democrats on the judiciary panel sought to pre-emptively rebut Republican criticism of Jackson's record on criminal matters as a judge, and before that as a federal public defender and a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency created by Congress to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences.
Jackson "is not anti-law enforcement" and is not "soft on crime," Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy said, noting that members of Jackson's family have worked in law enforcement and that she has support from some national police organizations. "Judge Jackson is no judicial activist."
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Even though few Republicans are likely to vote for her, most GOP senators did not aggressively criticize Jackson, whose confirmation would not change the court's 6-3 conservative majority. Several Republicans used their time to denounce Senate Democrats instead of Jackson's record.
Republicans are trying to use her nomination to brand Democrats as soft on crime, an emerging theme in midterm election campaigns. Biden has chosen several former public defenders for life-tenured judicial posts.
With Jackson taking notes, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said in his opening statement that his research showed that she had a pattern of issuing lower sentences in child pornography cases, repeating comments he wrote in a Twitter thread last week.
Hawley is one of several committee Republicans, along with Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who are potential 2024 presidential candidates, and their aspirations may collide with other Republicans who would prefer not to pursue a scorched-earth approach to Jackson's nomination.
Members of the judixjmtzywciary panel are already familiar with Jackson, who appeared before them last year after Biden chose her to fill an opening on the federal appeals court in Washington. She was also vetted by the committee and confirmed by the Senate as a district court judge under President Barack Obama, and to her post on the sentencing commission.
