Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court, Thursday afternoon. The Senate will vote to confirm her for the seat that Justice Stephen Breyer will vacate before the October term begins, after finishing out the spring term.
She will be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, fulfilling President Joe Biden’s promise as a candidate back in 2020. She will be the first justice who has experience as a public defender. She is the first justice since Thurgood Marshall to have substantial criminal defense experience. She will be just the second justice in history to have served on all three levels of the federal judiciary—District, Circuit, and the Supreme Court. She has spent more time on the bench as a trial court judge than any nominee since 1923.
In fact, she has more experience on the bench than Justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, and Barrett combined had before their confirmations.
Thursday, Apr 7, 2022 · 3:17:31 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter
It’s a good day. The Senate is about to have the cloture vote on her confirmation, which will be followed by “debate” and then the final vote this afternoon, possibly evening. Hopefully the worst of the worst of Republicans got it out of their systems already, and don’t bother to show up for debate. But we should be so lucky.
Thursday, Apr 7, 2022 · 3:53:07 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter
In case you were wondering, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema finally announced, today, that she’s supporting Jackson. She could have been there with support through the vile, disgusting attacks coming from Republicans, but that’s not her brand.
Judge Jackson has the quintessential biography for an American success story in public service. She was born in Washington, D.C., in 1970 to two public school teachers. After her birth, the family moved to Miami, Florida, where her father went to law school. She would sit at the kitchen table with him, with her coloring books, while he studied. That, she says, is where her interest in the law was born.
At Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Judge Jackson was a star, but nonetheless, when she told her guidance counselor that she wanted to go to Harvard, she should not set her “sights so high.” She went to Harvard, where she graduated magna cum laude. She then graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she also served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Judge Jackson’s career has been absolutely impeccable. That, of course, did not stop Republicans from wallowing in the gutter with baseless and vile racist and sexist attacks on her record, a tactic blessed by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The spectacle was so extreme that a majority of Americans polled right after the hearings by Quinnipiac University were appalled by it.
Nonetheless, Judge Jackson will prevail. Justice, just this once, will prevail.
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