The Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, breaking a historic barrier by securing her place as the first black female judge and granting President Joe Biden bipartisan endorsement for his effort to diversify the court.
Jackson, a 51-year-old appeals court judge with nine years of federal court experience, was confirmed 53-47, with three Republican votes adding to the Democratic half. Vice President Kamala Harris, also the first black woman to reach that high office, presided over.
Jackson will take his place when Judge Stephen Breyer retires this summer, consolidating the conservative-dominated liberal wing of the court 6-3. He joined Biden in the White House to watch the vote, hugging each other as he arrived.
During the four days of Senate hearings last month, Jackson spoke of his parents' struggles against racial segregation and said his “path was clearer” than theirs as a black American after the enactment of civil rights laws. She attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked in a private law firm, and was appointed to the US Sentencing Commission.
He told senators that he would enforce the law “without fear or favoritism,” and rejected Republican attempts to portray it as too lenient to the criminals he had sentenced.
Jackson will be only the third black magistrate, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She will join three other women, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett, which means that four of the nine judges will be women for the first time ever.
His eventual promotion to court will be a respite for Democrats who fought three painful battles for former President Donald Trump's nominees and saw Republicans cement a conservative majority in the final days of Trump's term with Coney Barrett's confirmation. While Jackson won't change the balance, it will secure a legacy in court for Biden and deliver on his 2020 campaign promise to nominate the first black female judge.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote that Jackson's confirmation would be a “joyful day, joyful for the Senate, joyful for the Supreme Court, joyful for the United States.”
Despite efforts to tarnish his record, Jackson eventually won three Republican votes. The final tally was far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations of Breyer and other judges in past decades, but it was still a significant bipartisan achievement for Biden in the 50-50 split Senate after Republican senators worked aggressively to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft with the crime.
The statements of Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah said the same thing: they may not always agree with Jackson, but they found that she was enormously well qualified for the job. Collins and Murkowski denounced the increasingly partisan confirmation fights, which only worsened during the battles for Trump's three elections. Collins said the process was “broken” and Murkowski called it “corrosive” and “more separate from reality each year.”
Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said since the day of Breyer's retirement announcement in January that he wanted the support of both parties for his candidate and invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempt to restart Trump's presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the three nominees, and the end of President Barack Obama's, when Republicans prevented nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
Once he is sworn in, Jackson will be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. He will join a court where no one is yet 75 years old, the first time it has happened in almost 30 years.
Jackson's first term will be marked by race-related cases, both in college admission and voting rights. She pledged to stay out of court consideration of Harvard's admission program as she is a member of its board of supervisors. But the court could split a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina's admissions process, which could allow you to have a say in the matter.
Republicans spent confirmation hearings strongly questioning his sentencing record, including the sentences he handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too mild. Jackson stated that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explained his reasoning in detail. The Democrats said they agreed with other judges in their decisions.
(With information from AP)
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