President Joe Biden has selected Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill the Supreme Court seat the justice she once clerked for, Stephen Breyer, when he retires at the end of this court term. The 51-year-old Jackson will be the first Black woman to sit on the court, and the first justice since Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991, with criminal defense experience. Her confirmation would achieve another first: All three justices appointed by Democratic presidents and currently serving would be women.
“Today as we watch freedom and liberty under attack abroad, I’m here to fulfill my responsibilities under the constitution to preserve freedom and liberty here in the United States of America,” Biden said. “It is my honor to introduce to the country a daughter of former public school teachers, a proven consensus builder and an accomplished lawyer and distinguished jurist, on one of the nation’s most prestigious courts. my nominee for the united states supreme court is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.” He continued, “For too long our government our courts haven't looked like America,” he continued. “I believe it’s time we have a court that reflects the full talents . . . of our nation.”
"I am truly humbled by the extraordinary honor of this nomination," Jackson said in accepting the nomination, “and expressly grateful to the care you have taken with all that is going on in the world today.” She expressed her gratitude to her family, saying receiving this nomination is a “testament to the love and support I have received from my family.” She closed by noting that she shares a birthday with the first Black woman ever to be appointed as a federal judge, Constance Baker Motley. “I proudly stand on Judge Motley's shoulders, sharing not only her birthday but also her steadfast anbd courageous commitment to equal justice under law.”
“I looked for someone who like Justice Breyer has a pragmatic understand that the law must work for the American people, someone who has historical perspective to understand that the constitution is a resilient charter of liberty, someone with the wisdom to appreciate that the Constitution protects certain unalienable rights that fall within the most fundamental personal freedoms that our society recognized, and in the end someone with extraordinary character will bring to the Supreme Court an independent mind, uncompromising integrity and with a strong moral compass and the courage to stand up for what she thinks is right,” Biden said.
Judge Jackson has served as a U.S. Sentencing Commission lawyer and commissioner, as a federal public defender, and as a federal judge. From 2013 to 2021, she served as a United States District Judge for the District of Columbia and she now serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She’s been confirmed by the U.S. Senate, with bipartisan votes, three times—twice to her judgeships and once to the Sentencing Commission.
It won’t be easy for the right to find hits against Jackson personally. Here’s part of her bio from the White House, and it’s hard to find a more compelling story.
Judge Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents attended segregated primary schools in the South, then attended Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Both started their careers as public school teachers and became leaders and administrators in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. When Judge Jackson told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to attended Harvard, the guidance counselor warned that Judge Jackson should not to set her sights “so high.” That didn’t stop Judge Jackson. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
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That and everything she’s done since makes her, as Eli Mystal writes, a “legal superstar” who “would have been the most likely person to replace Breyer under any Democratic administration,” regardless of the promise President Biden made to put a Black woman on the court during the campaign.
Three Republicans—South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski—voted to confirm Jackson last year to the D.C. Circuit. She will probably lose the support of Graham, who had been pushing hard for a South Carolina pick, Michelle Childs of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, for whom he has been intensely lobbying. He’s already sniping on Twitter about it: “it means the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again.”
He’s a bitter, little man. “The attacks by the Left on Judge Childs from South Carolina apparently worked,” he continued. “The Harvard-Yale train to the Supreme Court continues to run unabated,” he added. Interestingly, Graham never expressed reservations about the “Harvard-Yale train” when it came to the white Ivy league men he’s voted to confirm.
Graham also promised “a respectful but interesting hearing.” Yes, it will be interesting to see Republicans putting their white supremacy on display yet again in the Judiciary Committee. On national television.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell likewise took the opportunity to be nasty and smear Democrats, saying “the Court and the country deserve better than Senate Democrats’ routine of baseless smears and shameless distortions.” Like Republicans will be held to that. In fact, he included baseless and shameless distortions in his statement, including sniffing that she’s inexperienced—“she has published a total of two opinions, both in the last few weeks”—and “the favored choice of far-left dark-money groups that have spent years attacking the legitimacy and structure of the Court itself.”
The Federalist Society, which has bought the conservative Supreme Court majority with dark money, might just as soon McConnell not go there. But in reality, they bought the Supreme Court majority, so likely feel untouchable.
Anyway, back to that hit on her experience, or lack thereof, per Steve Vladeck: “Judge Jackson has 8.9 years of prior judicial experience. That’s more than four current Justices (Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, & Barrett) had combined. It’s also more than 4 of the last 10 Justices had at their confirmations; 9 of the last 17; and 43 of the 58 appointed since 1900.”
She’s qualified, she’s brilliant, and she will bring to the court a long-overdue commitment to justice for everyone.
“If you are a person of color or a white progressive who understands that a principal failure of justice in this country is the disparate penalties imposed on white and Black defendants, then you should know that there are few Supreme Court candidates with a better track record on this stuff than Jackson,” Mystal writes. “Moreover, if you are a ‘libertarian’ who professes to find comity with the left when it comes to nonviolent drug offenses, it will again be hard to find a judicial candidate better positioned on that issue than Judge Jackson.”
There will be opposition to her appointment from Republicans, even though even the not-at-all-far-left-woke Fraternal Order of Police is praising her nomination. “There is little doubt that she has the temperament, intellect, legal experience, and family background to have earned this appointment,” Patrick Yoes, the group’s president said. “We are reassured that, should she be confirmed, she would approach her future cases with an open mind and treat issues related to law enforcement fairly and justly.”
Nonetheless, as Mystal points out, Jackson will be attacked, and “the reason conservatives will be against Jackson (beyond their racism) is her rulings against the Trump administration and in favor of democratic self-government.” She’s ruled three times against Trump and his cronies’ efforts to dodge Congress and the public by refusing to release testimony and documents related to Jan. 6 and the Russia investigation. Since some of the most deplorable of Trumpy Republicans—Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley—sit on the Judiciary Committee, it’s going to be pretty awful.
They have to gear up for it pretty fast, though. Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced Friday, “We will begin immediately to move forward on her nomination with the careful, fair, and professional approach she and America are entitled to.” Senate Democrats would like to have the confirmation vote by Apr. 8.
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