President Joe Biden said Monday his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, “deserves to be confirmed as the next justice” as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to move her nomination forward for a full vote.
Jackson, 51, was tapped in February by Biden to succeed retiring Justice Stephen Breyer and has unanimous support among Democrats in the Senate, along with one confirmed GOP vote from Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
“Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court,” Biden wrote in a tweet.
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, echoed Biden’s praise at the opening of the meeting, saying the judge has “the highest level of skill, integrity, civility, and grace.”
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Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court.
She deserves to be confirmed as the next Justice.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 4, 2022
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a ranking member of the committee, said he is opposing Jackson’s nomination, saying, “She and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government.”
The 22-member committee could likely deadlock during Monday’s vote, meaning an 11-11 vote would require Democrats to ask the full Senate to vote on a motion to advance Jackson’s nomination from the panel, which only requires a simple majority.
A deadlock has not happened since the 1991 nomination of current Justice Clarence Thomas, when Biden was chairman of the panel and a motion to send the nomination of Thomas to the floor with a “favorable” recommendation failed on a 7-7 vote.
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The forthcoming vote comes nearly two weeks after lawmakers on the committee questioned Jackson for hours over her record, to which many GOP members raised concerns about her judicial philosophy, sentencing methodology, and background as a former public defender.
If Jackson’s nomination advances past the Senate, she is likely to be confirmed in the Senate and would become the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court.
