Jackson’s affirmation as the 116th justice in U.S. history received bipartisan support, with a final vote of 53 to 47 in the upper house. Three Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, joined the 50 Democrats in backing President Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and the first woman of color to take over the role, chaired the Senate during the vote. “In this vote, the negative is 53. The negative is 47 and this candidacy has been confirmed,” Harris said, to applause from senators. Jackson’s appointment to the Supreme Court is likely to be an important element of Biden’s legacy and marked his first opportunity to leave his mark on the Supreme Court. But Jackson will not immediately take the bench, as Judge Stephen Breyer, whom he will cover, is due to retire at the end of the Supreme Court’s term this summer. Mr Biden watched the vote with Jackson at the Roosevelt House in the White House. Photographers capture the two embracing as the Senate exceeded the threshold required for confirmation. President Biden Goes to Hug Supreme Court Justice Candidate Ketanji Brown Jackson as they watch the Senate vote on its confirmation from the Roosevelt Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C. “This is a wonderful day, a happy day, a day of inspiration for the Senate, the Supreme Court and the United States of America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Sumer said before the vote. “Today it is one of the brightest lights and hopefully it is a metaphor, a sign of many more bright lights to come.” The approval of Jackson’s candidacy by the evenly divided Senate limited a confirmation process marked by efforts by Republicans to portray her as an activist judge who would legislate from the bench. Their criticisms, which have their roots in Jackson’s history of child pornography convictions as a federal District Court judge, have failed to derail efforts by White House and Democratic Senate leaders to rally bipartisan support for him. penetrating the partisan polarization of the recent Confirmation of the Supreme Court. However, the accusations fueled Republicans as they position themselves as the party of law and order in the run-up to the November midterm elections. Senate leaders moved quickly to begin the confirmation process after Biden, the former chairman of the Senate Justice Committee, announced Jackson as his Supreme Court nominee in late February. With the election of Jackson, Mr. Biden has fulfilled his promise from the 2020 presidential campaign to nominate the first black woman in the Supreme Court. During four days of confirmation hearings in March, Jackson endured nearly 24 hours of questioning by the 22 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, after which the committee reached a dead end in approving her candidacy along party lines. Monday. The 11-11 vote in the Justice Committee forced a procedural vote in the full Senate to advance Jackson’s candidacy. While the upper house voted to remove Jackson’s candidacy from the committee, with three Republicans running with the Democrats in the vote, the effort underscored how bitter the recent confirmation battles and the almost unified opposition of the GOP to her appointment have become. Prior to the vote, Murkowski said in a statement announcing her support for Jackson that her decision was based in part on her rejection of “the corrosive politicization of the Supreme Court review process, which, on both sides of the aisle. , it gets worse and more disconnected from reality with time “. Jackson will join the Supreme Court after serving for almost a year in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which is considered the second most powerful court in the country. In her first term in the Supreme Court, Jackson will hear two cases involving admission policies at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, as well as disputes over redistribution and religious freedom. Jackson has vowed to retire from Harvard legal battle as a member of the school’s board of trustees, one of its two governing bodies. While her appointment will not change the ideological composition of the conservative Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority of 6-3, Jackson will be the second youngest judge at the age of 51, likely securing decades of service. Her appointment also marks the first time two African-Americans will appear in the Supreme Court at the same time and the first time four women will serve together in the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the confirmation hearing of the Senate Justice Committee at the Capitol on Wednesday, March 23, 2022. Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Jackson also brings professional diversity to the bench, having served as an assistant ombudsman in the federal court in Washington. There has never been a Supreme Court justice who has worked as a public defender, and Judge Sonia Sotomayor is the only current member of the court to have served on a U.S. district court. She was also a member of the U.S. Convict Committee and worked in a private practice after graduating from Harvard and Harvard Law School. During her confirmation auditions, Jackson showed the arc of the nation’s history through the lives of her and her parents – from her separate Florida parents to the first black woman who will sit in the nation supreme court “in a generation”. Observing her legal career, she pledged to be an independent lawyer approaching cases from a neutral position. “I decide cases with a neutral stance. I evaluate the facts and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me without fear or favor, according to my oath,” she told senators at her confirmation hearings. “I know that my role as a judge is limited, that the Constitution only authorizes me to decide on cases and controversies that are presented correctly, and I know that my judicial role is further limited by the careful observance of the former.” These assurances, however, did little to convince most Republican senators. Many questioned Jackson’s refusal to characterize her judicial philosophy, which she described as a multi-step methodology, and her reluctance to take a seat in the Supreme Court, even if they recognized her legal qualifications. The most frequent criticisms of Jackson, however, focused on her conviction of child pornography offenders, which GOP senators have repeatedly argued under federal guidelines. “What emerged from the Senate process was worrying,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Senate during a review of Jackson’s album. “In Judge Jackson’s courtroom, the simple legal text and the clear intent of Congress do not match what the judge admits to her personal policy disagreements.” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a statement Monday that if Republicans controlled the Senate, Jackson would not have received a confirmation hearing. He also predicted that if the GOP wins a majority in the upper house again, the Democratic nominees will be rejected if judged to be too liberal. “We are supposed to be like trained seals here, applauding when you appoint a liberal,” Graham said. “This will not work.” The South Carolina senator was one of only three Republicans, including Collins and Murkowski, to support Jackson’s candidacy in the DC Circuit, but he intends to vote against it in the Supreme Court. Democrats, meanwhile, have worked throughout the confirmation process to emphasize the historic nature of Jackson’s appointment and final Senate approval. “With the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the Supreme Court of the country, we are not only writing history, but we are continuing a great American tradition, highlighting one of the best and brightest legal minds in our nation in an honorable position,” the Senate said. Judicial committee chairman Dick Darbin told the Senate. “There is no one who deserves this high price. As we learned last month, she is the best of us.”
