Shortly before the expected confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, a group of Republican senators reiterated their arguments against appointing the judge to the nation’s highest court while lamenting that they came up short of the votes to defeat her nomination.
Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney — announced they would support Jackson, allowing Jackson to be confirmed in a bipartisan vote without Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote. Democrats and some Republicans acknowledged in remarks on the Senate floor the historic nature of the confirmation, which will make Jackson the first black woman to serve on the court.
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Sens. Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Lee, and Lindsey Graham, all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, repeated Thursday during a press conference at the Capitol their arguments against confirming Jackson: claims her sentencing record as a trial judge was too lenient in cases involving child pornography offenses, differences of opinion on her judicial philosophy, and what they described as Democrats’ mistreatment of nominees by Republican presidents.
Cruz argued that Jackson as a justice “will consistently vote as she has done as a judge for the last 10 years, for more lenient sentences for criminal defendants, for releasing violent criminals, for lessening the punishment on the very worst sex offenders.”
Jackson and her supporters argued during her confirmation hearings that her sentencing record was within legal norms in such cases.
Blackburn argued that Jackson declined to respond to her question asking the judge to define a biological woman due to the influence of “dark money leftist groups” that supported her nomination. Blackburn said the question was relevant to Jackson’s judicial philosophy.
Lee struck a more cordial tone than some of his Republican colleagues, saying he enjoyed his meeting with Jackson, although he will vote against her confirmation.
“I’d love to be able to support her,” Lee said. “I can’t.”
Lee argued Jackson’s judicial philosophy and her “jurisprudential approach” took some of her rulings beyond her scope of authority as a judge.
“We immunize, we take outside of the political realm Supreme Court justices when we give them presumptive life tenure for a very important reason,” Lee said. “But with that comes some real responsibility to operate conscientiously, only within the realm of the judicial branch. She’s exceeded that far too many times for my comfort. I can’t support her.”
Graham repeated his disappointment that Biden did not select South Carolina U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and argued Jackson did “legal gymnastics” to “audition” for leftist groups supporting her nomination.
“It’s a good day for America for the court to look more like the country that the court presides over,” Graham said. “But what I will never let go is the idea that that was possible because of the filibuster by Democrats of a highly qualified African-American nominee by President [George] Bush, Janice Rogers Brown.”
Graham argued Brown’s ideology was held against her without acknowledgment of the historic nature of her nomination.
The senators argued that should they win a majority in November, it would force Biden to send more moderate nominees to the Senate, an argument made by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier Thursday.
The allegations that Jackson’s sentencing record was too lenient led to some of the most tense moments of her confirmation hearing and prompted some of the harshest rhetoric in the debate over her nomination.
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Asked by a reporter if he agrees with a social media post from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene calling Romney, Collins, and Murkowski “pro-pedophile” for supporting Jackson, Cruz replied, “No, I think that’s silly.”
