Democrats highlighted Ketanji Brown Jackson’s groundbreaking nomination to the Supreme Court. GOP senators said they would vet her record on crime.
The hearing is in a break for lunch
The confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is in a 30-minute break for lunch.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing resumes, Jackson will be introduced by Judge Thomas Griffith, formerly of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Lisa Fairfax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and the nominee will deliver an opening statement.
Why the Senate has a say in the Supreme Court confirmation process
From CNN staff
Today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing kicked off a historic confirmation process for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — who could become the first Black woman on the highest court.
But why is the Senate involved in this process? Under Article II of the Constitution, the President nominates justices to the Supreme Court, with the “advice and consent of the Senate.”
One hundred and sixty-five nominations have been officially submitted to the Senate (including nominations for chief justice).
The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary also evaluates nominees to the Supreme Court for the Justice Department and the Senate Judiciary Committee. The organization has three possible rankings: qualified, well-qualified, and not qualified.
The American Bar Association on Friday rated Jackson as “well qualified” — its highest rating.
There is no requirement that the chief justice of the Supreme Court previously serve as an associate justice, but five of the 17 chief justices have. Three justices served on the Court immediately before being elevated to chief justice: Edward D. White, Harlan Fiske Stone and William Rehnquist. Two justices had a break between their service as associate justice and being appointed chief justice: Charles Evans Hughes and John Rutledge.
Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed nine justices during his 12-year presidency, the most since George Washington. Jimmy Carter is the only president to complete a full term of office and never have the opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice.
Read more about Supreme Court nominations here.
Democrats put abortion and climate crisis front and center
From CNN’s Tierney Sneed
Democrats are putting a spotlight on the major cases of the Supreme Court and some of the controversial rulings the 6-3 conservative majority has recently handed down — and some still to come.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein referenced current cases on the Supreme Court’s docket concerning gun control policy, abortion rights and what authority the Environmental Protection Agency has to fight climate change.
“As a former mayor, I saw how these official, how these problems affect people, everyday people on everyday streets throughout my city, and then subsequently the state of California,” Feinstein said.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar hit a similar note, when she asked her colleagues to remember how the court “must be able to see the real people with the other end of its rulings.”
“Like Americans who are one Supreme Court decision away from losing their health insurance, or one court decision away from the ability to make their own health care choices, or the DREAMers who could lose the only country they’ve ever known,” Klobuchar said, alluding to the previous Supreme Court cases that dealt with the Affordable Care Act and immigration policy.
She also referenced the conservative majority’s ruling in a 2020 Wisconsin election rules case as the pandemic took hold, as she recalled “the people who waited for hours in the rain one recent election day in Wisconsin, wearing garbage bags, and homemade mask in the middle of what would soon become a global pandemic just to cast a ballot.”
When Elena Kagan promised to ask Antonin Scalia how to hunt
From CNN’s Ariane de Vogue
Every Supreme Court confirmation process includes the dreaded “meet and greets” when the nominee sits down with as many senators as possible for courtesy visits before hearings begin — even when it’s clear a senator opposes a nomination.
Several senators have mentioned their recent meetings with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. And, to be sure, the meetings include discussions on weighty constitutional issues and a nominee’s judicial experience. But sometimes the conversations take unusual turns.
Justice Elena Kagan, for instance told CNN’s David Axelrod several years ago that when it came to gun rights, she was asked several times whether she had ever been hunting.
She confessed she was a “Jewish girl who grew up in New York City” and knew close to nothing about the sport. She said that at the time she felt like her answers to the senators “sounded pretty darn pathetic.”
So Kagan decided to make a promise.
She told one senator that if she were lucky enough to be confirmed she would ask Justice Antonin Scalia to teach her how to hunt.
“When I got on the Court I went to Justice Scalia,” Kagan said. “I told him the whole story and I said this is the only promise I made in 82 office visits. He thought it was hysterical.”
The two justices started out with clay pigeons, then deer (she bagged one), antelope (no such luck) and even ducks.
Brett Kavanaugh hearing drama continues to resonate among Republicans
From CNN’s Tierney Sneed
Republican senators are making a point to remind Democrats and the public about how contentious Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation fight got.
The very beginning of the opening statement from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s top Republican, were a call back to those hearing, with him recounting how his opening remarks were almost immediately interrupted by protestors.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Republicans “couldn’t go back to our offices during Kavanaugh without getting spit on.”
Promising that Jackson’s hearings won’t be a repeat of the ugliness of the Kavanaugh fight, Graham referred to specifically to the sexual assault allegations put forward about the judge in late summer 2018.
“It means that no Republican senator is going to unleash on you an attack about your character when the hearing is virtually over,” Graham said, while seeming to allude to the role California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein played in the allegations – which Kavanaugh has vehemently denied — coming out. “None of us I hope have been sitting on information about you as a person for weeks or months, you come into our offices and we never share it with you to allow you to give your side of the story. We wait to the very last minute when the hearing’s about to be gaveled, concluded, and say ‘oh by the way, I’ve got this letter.'”
Utah Sen. Mike Lee referenced those 2018 hearings as well.
“When we’re focused used on things that we have no business doing, like bringing forward spurious last minute, uncorroborated accusations of a personal nature, we neglect the importance of talking about the jurisprudential role, the philosophy that guides individual jurists,” Lee said.
Key things to know about Jackson’s personal history and legal career
From CNN’s Jake Tapper, Ariane de Vogue, Jeff Zeleny, Betsy Klein and Maegan Vazquez
As senators make their opening statements establishing arguments for and against Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation, the judge’s personal history and legal career have been front and center.
Here are some key things to know about Jackson:
The judge was born in the nation’s capital but grew up in the Miami area. She was a member of the debate team at Miami Palmetto Senior High School before earning both her undergraduate degree and law degree at Harvard.
She also previously clerked for retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and served as a federal public defender in Washington — an experience that her backers say is fitting, given Biden’s commitment to putting more public defenders on the federal bench.
She was also a commissioner on the US Sentencing Commission and served on the federal district court in DC, as an appointee of President Barack Obama, before Biden elevated her to the DC Circuit last year.
Jackson thanked Breyer when she was presented as Biden’s nominee last month.
“Justice Breyer, in particular, not only gave me the greatest job that any young lawyer could ever hope to have, but he also exemplified every day, in every way, that a Supreme Court justice can perform at the highest level of skill and integrity, while also being guided by civility, grace, pragmatism and generosity of spirit,” Jackson said. “Justice Breyer, the members of the Senate will decide if I fill your seat, but please know that I could never fill your shoes.”
At her 2021 confirmation hearing for the appellate court, she connected her family’s professions — her parents worked in public schools — to her decision to work as a public defender.
“I come from a background of public service. My parents were in public service, my brother was a police officer and (was) in the military,” she said at the time, “and being in the public defenders’ office felt very much like the opportunity to help with my skills and talents.”
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, is a relative by marriage and introduced her at the 2013 hearing for her district court nomination.
Ryan also congratulated Jackson when she was nominated.
“Janna and I are incredibly happy for Ketanji and her entire family. Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, and for her integrity, is unequivocal,” Ryan said.
At the White House event for her nomination, Jackson noted that an uncle was previously given a life sentence on drug charges, an issue of which she hasn’t previously spoken about publicly.
“You may have read that I have one uncle who got caught up in the drug trade and received a life sentence,” Jackson said. “That is true, but law enforcement also runs in my family. In addition to my brother, I had two uncles who served decades as police officers, one of whom became the police chief in my hometown of Miami, Florida.”
In 2008, when Jackson was in private practice and well before she became a judge, Jackson referred her uncle’s file to WilmerHale, a law firm that handles numerous clemency petitions, according to a spokesperson for the firm.
The firm submitted the petition on Brown’s behalf on October 7, 2014, and Obama commuted his sentence on November 22, 2016. According to the firm, Jackson had “no further involvement in the matter” after making the referral. Jackson’s chambers said she would decline comment on the issue.
“I am standing here today by the grace of God as testament to the love and support that I’ve received from my family,” Jackson added when nominated.
Read more about Jackson’s personal history and legal record here.
GOP opens hearing with focus on past nomination fights and dispute over records
From CNN’s Tierney Sneed
During his opening statement, the Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, focused on the tactics used by Democrats in previous confirmation hearings and a dispute over documents Republicans are seeking.
Grassley recounted how Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing in 2018 was disrupted by protestors and how Democrats claims, during Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings in 2020, that she would strike down the Affordable Care Act in a case where she ultimately ruled in favor of the law. Both were nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Trump.
He spoke at length about internal documents from the US Sentencing Commission, where Jackson served as a vice-chair for four years, that Republicans have unsuccessfully sought to obtain, and he briefly defended the attacks other members have launched about her record in certain criminal cases.
“As for her district court record, there have been some accusations that we cherry-picked some of Judge Jackson’s criminal cases,” Grassley said. “Well, don’t worry. We’re going to talk about other cases as well.”
The statements previewed how Republicans might lean into a “soft on crime” framing with Jackson’s experience as a federal public defender and some of her other advocacy. While singling out the support she’s received from the liberal group Demand Justice, Grassley connected her nomination to the progressive reforms being sought in criminal justice.
“I’ve distinguished between two types of nominees who have worked in criminal cases,” Grassley said. “There are ‘Bill of Rights attorneys’ who want to protect defendants’ constitutional rights, Then there are what I’ve called ‘criminal defense lawyers’ who disagree with our criminal laws. They want to undermine laws that they have policy disagreements with, and of course that’s a very important difference.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin: “You, Judge Jackson, can be the first”
From CNN’s Tierney Sneed
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin’s opening statement emphasized the groundbreaking nature of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Noting that the Supreme Court’s make up has “never really reflected the nation” the court served, the Democratic senator from Illinois directly addressed the fact that Jackson would be the first Black female justice if confirmed.
“Not a single justice has been a Black woman. You, Judge Jackson, can be the first,” Durbin said. “It’s not easy being the first. Often you have to be the best. In some ways, the bravest. Many are not prepared to face that kind of heat, that kind of scrutiny, that ordeal and the glare of the national spotlight,” he said.
He said that with her nomination, “We can be confident that the court, its role, and its decisions will be more understandable to the American public.”
“Every day, KBJ”: Black women rally behind Ketanji Brown Jackson ahead of SCOTUS confirmation hearings
From CNN’s Eva McKend and Chandelis Duster
Several women-led groups held a rally in front of the Supreme Court on Monday to bolster support for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ahead of her Senate confirmation hearings.
The National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, She Will Rise, Black Women’s Roundtable and other organizations hosted the rally, pushing for the Senate to confirm Jackson – who would be the first Black woman on the high court. “Every day, KBJ,” “Confirm her today,” and “1, 2, 3, 4 confirm her” were among the many chants heard at the rally attended by dozens.
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, told the crowd Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is “personal.”
“This is a moment that is historic but also filled with so much possibility for all of us,” she said.
Jackson’s nomination has inspired many who long for representation on the court in its 233-year history as Black women continue to shatter glass ceilings in the political sphere.
Sophia Fouzi, age 10 and daughter of She Will Rise founder Kimberly Tignor, told CNN, “It inspires me and a bunch of girls and women.”
Founded in August 2020, She Will Rise advocated hard for the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. The organization will continue to focus on urging for Black women to be in judicial pipelines throughout the US.
“When I’m older I’d like to think bigger than the Supreme Court. I would like to be the first African American female President,” Fouzi told CNN.
Black women traveled from all over the country to support Jackson’s confirmations including from as far as Vermont.
“We have so many amazing people of color and women of color who want to step into spaces and places of decision making and we are needing to be here to support and honor the work of Judge Jackson,” said former Vermont State Rep. Kiah Morris, executive director of the progressive activist group Rights & Democracy.
Counter protestors were in attendance as well, beating a drum and chanting, “Women deserve better. Abortion hurts women.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearing-3-21-22/
