President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is slated to meet with several members of the Senate on Tuesday, including supporters such as Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and Sen. Ted Cruz, who previously voted against her confirmation to a lower court.
Since her nomination to succeed retiring Justice Stephen Breyer late last month, Jackson has been touring the Capitol complex meeting with lawmakers as Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin has set her confirmation hearings to start on March 21. In recent days, some Republicans, including the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley, have called for “thorough vetting” of Jackson rather than rushing the process.
“I’m really honored to meet with Judge Jackson, someone I’ve admired for a long time, not only for her extraordinary intellect and legal expertise, but also the depth and warmth of her character and her strength in defending fundamental convictions about people’s rights and values,” Blumenthal said while meeting Jackson. “And looking forward to that character and intellect persuading a number of my Republican colleagues to support her as well.”
GRASSLEY SAYS JACKSON SUPREME COURT CONFIRMATION HEARING PLAN SHOULD SLOW DOWN
Later on Tuesday, Jackson will convene with Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Mazie Hirono, and Cory Booker, as well as Republicans such as Cruz and Sen. Susan Collins.
Collins and two other GOP senators, Lindsey Graham and Lisa Murkowski, have voted for at least 60% of Biden’s judicial nominees and previously voted for Jackson to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. However, the trio of lawmakers has dismissed suggestions that their past confirmation of Jackson would guarantee their vote this time around.
Jackson does not need support from Republicans to be confirmed as the first black woman on the Supreme Court, as Democrats hold 50 seats and Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaker vote. While the GOP cannot do much to block Democrats from confirming Jackson, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has emphasized a nominee’s crucial “qualification is judicial philosophy” and has called on other lawmakers to study her record.
In a statement Friday, Cruz acknowledged his vote against confirming Jackson to the District of Columbia Circuit but said he would carefully consider her nomination to the highest court.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“The people of Texas deserve a rigorous investigation of Judge Jackson’s nomination,” Cruz said. “This is especially key in a time when too many parts of our executive and judicial branches are at risk of politicization, and when Americans face crises directly related to our legal system with unenforced federal laws at our border and in prosecutors’ offices across the country.”
