As hearings come to a close for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, several Republicans say a boycott against her is off the table, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, saying there’s “zero, nada, zip” chance.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will continue meeting in the coming weeks as it works toward eventually reporting Jackson’s nomination to the floor. Senate rules state if all Republicans on the evenly split 11-11 committee fail to attend meetings, there will be no quorum and, in essence, could stymie the process.
But Tillis, one of the most ardent GOP members against a boycott, said it was “never, ever going to happen” and that the information Republicans gathered from Jackson was satisfactory to him.
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Ranking Republican member of the committee Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has been downplaying the prospects of boycotting Jackson for weeks, and despite Sen. Lindsey Graham’s apparent position to vote against Jackson’s confirmation, he also signaled an unwillingness to stymie the nomination process.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn voiced frustration at Democratic committee Chairman Dick Durbin’s unwillingness to request sealed pre-sentencing reports by federal probation offices in regards to Jackson’s cases involving child pornographers.
Ten GOP members this week signed a letter to Durbin, saying such information was worthy of inspection due to her record on sentencing a defendant to prison time below the recommendations laid out by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Durbin firmly rejected additional calls for those requests on Thursday, citing the sensitivity of victims and loved ones involved in the cases overseen by Jackson.
Cornyn said the lack of materials did not substantiate a desire to hold up Jackson’s confirmation, adding, “I don’t intend to participate in a boycott.”
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Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who raised the most vehement objections to Jackson’s record of sentencing child sex offenders, also said he would not boycott the process but confirmed he would vote “no.”
Earlier this year, the boycott tactic was successfully used by members of the Senate Banking Committee to delay and force the withdrawal of Federal Reserve nominee Sarah Bloom Raskin.
