Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he would not support Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
“I cannot and will not support Judge Jackson for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,” McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.
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McConnell argued Jackson was not prepared to answer questions on her judicial record or philosophy, arguing her record was more sparse than previous nominees.
He also criticized Jackson for not taking a position on the size of the Supreme Court when asked about calls from progressives to add additional justices to counteract the current conservative balance.
“The most radical pro-court packing fringe groups badly wanted this nominee for this vacancy,” McConnell said. “Judge Jackson was the court packer’s pick, and she testified like it.”
Jackson’s nomination, McConnell argued, is part of a push from the Biden administration to make the nation “softer on crime.”
“The judge regularly gave certain terrible kinds of criminals light sentencing guidelines,” McConnell said, repeating Republican arguments that Jackson’s sentences for child pornography offenders as a trial judge were lenient. Jackson said her sentences were within legal norms and guidelines that judges must consider as a matter of law.
McConnell argued Jackson’s policy views “seep into her jurisprudence.”
“Nothing we saw this week convinced me that either President Biden or Judge Jackson’s deeply invested far-left fan club have misjudged her,” he said. “I will vote against this nominee on the Senate floor.”
McConnell said he went into the nomination process with an “open mind,” but his remarks confirmed his expected opposition to Jackson’s confirmation.
Sen. Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, later delivered remarks pushing back on McConnell, arguing Jackson delivered an appropriate response to questions about court packing, saying it was the role of other branches of government to determine.
Durbin said charges Democrats were soft on crime are driven by Republicans testing a message for November elections, arguing Jackson comes from a law enforcement family and was endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police.
Jackson’s sentencing record, Durbin said, was “in the mainstream.”
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Just three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — previously voted to confirm Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, grilled Jackson on her record during her confirmation hearing in several tense exchanges and is not widely expected to support her again.
