Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson are unfolding as a Republican simulcast of the party’s bid to win congressional majorities in midterm elections and its potential presidential contenders who are already looking toward 2024.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are largely treating Jackson respectfully, deliberately minimizing belligerent confrontations. President Joe Biden’s nominee is the first black woman picked for the Supreme Court, and even opposing Republicans concede she is qualified. They hope to avoid giving the vulnerable Democratic Senate majority an issue to run on this fall, just as Democrats handed an embattled GOP majority a political lifeline in 2018 with unsubstantiated rape allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Simultaneously, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, both eyeing 2024 presidential bids, are grilling Jackson as a hostile witness. So, too, is Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who is considered a White House contender. In their interrogation, the three Republicans have accused Jackson, a former federal public defense attorney, of being soft on crime and coddling pedophiles while insinuating she supports defunding the police and controversial tenets of critical race theory.
“I have no doubt you find child pornography repugnant,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Wednesday, carefully questioning Jackson about her approach to criminal sentencing in child pornography cases. “You’re a mother. You seem to be a very nice person.”
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON LETS THE MASK SLIP
During Tuesday’s hearing, the runner-up for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 used Jackson’s service on Georgetown Day School’s board of trustees to suggest she is directly responsible for curriculum choices. Accordingly, Cruz demanded Jackson answer for the Washington-area private school’s decision to assign books to students that promote controversial elements of critical race theory, an academic study that emphasizes race and ethnicity in American society that critics describe as racist.
Cotton, a regular visitor to key presidential primary states, attempted to corner Jackson on policing and crime, asking, “Does the United States need more police or fewer police?” When she sidestepped his question, typical for Supreme Court nominees, Cotton tried again. “OK, judge, I’m sorry. We have a few minutes here. You have a lifetime commitment if you are confirmed. I asked a simple either-or question: Does the United States need more or fewer police?”
To be sure, Cotton, Cruz, and Hawley were not the only Republicans to confront Jackson with a combative attitude and tough questions. Many Senate Republicans are raising concerns about Jackson’s judicial record, and some GOP members of the Judiciary Committee, other than the 2024 hopefuls among them, peppered the Supreme Court nominee about her views on a range of politically charged issues, including critical race theory, rising crime, gender identity, abortion, and many others.
“Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” asked Sen. Marsha Blackburn. After Jackson said she could not, the Tennessee Republican, seemingly surprised, responded by asking, “So you believe the meaning of the word ‘woman’ is so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition?”
Some of the public opinion polling suggests voters’ dissatisfaction with Biden and congressional Democrats is being fueled by the positions the party has taken on many hot-button cultural issues. Republicans are convinced that focusing on these topics can help their party win big majorities in the midterm elections, a dynamic that could be influencing questions posed to Jackson during the confirmation process.
A GOP strategist with Senate ties said Republicans are simply “pushing” Jackson on legitimate and “obvious controversies in her record” that deserve a full airing. This Republican operative dismissed as Democratic “spin” suggestions that 2022 politics are dictating the GOP’s response to Jackson’s nomination.
Biden nominated Jackson, 51, to replace associate Justice Stephen Breyer after the liberal jurist announced he would retire this year, fulfilling his pledge to appoint the first black woman to the Supreme Court. Since last year, Brown has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the most influential federal court below the Supreme Court and a top feeder for the high court.
Brown’s nomination to the high court was cheered by congressional Democrats and liberal activists, who, based on her rulings as a U.S. district judge and then a jurist on the appeals court, view the judge as a fellow traveler. But Brown, who is vowing to be a neutral arbiter of constitutional law, also enjoys bipartisan support within the legal community and has been awarded the American Bar Association’s coveted “well qualified” rating.
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Voters appear to agree with the ABA.
In a Gallup tracking poll conducted this month, 58% backed Jackson’s confirmation, with 30% opposing and 12% expressing no opinion. Compare that to the initial Gallup tracking data for the three associate Supreme Court justices whose confirmation preceded Brown’s nomination: 51% of voters backed Amy Coney Barrett, 41% supported Kavanaugh, and 45% backed Neil Gorsuch. All three were appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Like them, Jackson’s ascension is expected, although she is likely to be confirmed by a narrow margin. Supreme Court confirmations are highly politicized affairs and most Democrats and Republicans tend to oppose nominees made by presidents of the opposing party.
