Durbin Says Senate Judiciary Committee Will Move Immediately To Begin Confirmation Process For Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden's Supreme Court Nominee
CHICAGO (CBS) -- U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday vowed to move swiftly to confirm President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, to make her the first Black woman to serve on the nation's highest court.
Biden formally announced Jackson's nomination Friday afternoon at the White House.
"From a strong list of prospective candidates, President Biden has chosen an extraordinary nominee in D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson," Durbin said in a statement. "To be the first to make history in our nation you need to have an exceptional life story. Judge Jackson's achievements are well known to the Senate Judiciary Committee as we approved her to the D.C. Circuit less than a year ago with bipartisan support. We will begin immediately to move forward on her nomination with the careful, fair, and professional approach she and America are entitled to."
It's unclear when confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin, but Durbin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have pledged to take up the nomination expeditiously. The pace of the confirmation process for Jackson is expected to be similar to that of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose nomination to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020 was approved by the GOP-controlled Senate in less than 30 days.
Jackson, 51, was selected last year to replace Attorney General Merrick Garland on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Court, which is considered to be the nation's second most powerful court and on which three current Supreme Court justices served. Jackson was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit in June 2021, winning support from all Senate Democrats and three Republicans: Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
She was also on former President Barack Obama's shortlist for the Supreme Court in 2016 to replace late Justice Antonin Scalia, before Obama nominated Garland, who never got a confirmation hearing as Senate Republicans vowed to block any Obama nominee for the court. That allowed former President Donald Trump to pick Justice Neil Gorsuch for the seat instead.
If confirmed by the Senate, Jackson would follow in the footsteps of her mentor, Breyer, for whom she once served as a law clerk.
Former President Obama, who appointed Jackson as a federal district judge, and then to the U.S. Sentencing Commissoin, called Jackson an "excellent choice" to succeed Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Judge Jackson has already inspired young Black women like my daughters to set their sights higher, and her confirmation will help them believe they can be anything they want to be," Obama said in a statement. "Like Justice Breyer, Judge Jackson understands that the law isn't just about abstract theory. It's about people's lives."
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also had high praise for Jackson.
"Ketanji Brown Jackson has lived a life of distinction both as a lawyer and a jurist. If this historic nomination is confirmed, as it should be, she will follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest Suprem Court jurists of our time – not because she's Black, not because she's a woman, but because she's a damn fine judge," Lightfoot said in a statement.
Jackson will be guided through the confirmation process by former Alabama Senator Doug Jones, who is serving as her so-called "Sherpa."
With Jackson's nomination, which comes nearly a month after Breyer announced his retirement, Mr. Biden has his first opportunity to put his stamp on the Supreme Court. While Jackson's appointment will not alter the ideological composition of the high court, which currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, she is likely to serve for decades if confirmed by the Senate.
Breyer revealed in late January he will retire from the Supreme Court once a successor is confirmed, capping months of pressure from liberal judicial groups to step down and allow Mr. Biden to name a successor while Democrats control the Senate.
The president swiftly reaffirmed he would select a Black woman as his nominee, following through on a promise he made during the 2020 presidential campaign to do so and make history with his pick. Jackson was one of more than a dozen candidates Mr. Biden weighed to succeed Breyer, alongside California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger and federal district Judge J. Michelle Childs.
Still, Jackson was considered a leading candidate for the Supreme Court before there was a vacancy, with her professional experience representing indigent criminal defendants and nearly nine years on the federal bench making her a favorite.
Before her appointment to the D.C. Circuit, Jackson served for more than eight years as a judge on the federal district court in the District of Columbia. She was selected for that post by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and introduced at her confirmation hearing by the-Congressman Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin who would go on to serve as speaker of the House before retiring in 2018.
Ryan and Jackson are related by marriage, and the congressman said at the time his "praise for Ketanji's intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal. She is an amazing person."
During her tenure on the district court, Jackson ruled in the high-profile dispute between the House Judiciary Committee and former White House counsel Don McGahn, finding in 2019 that McGahn had to comply with the subpoena for testimony.
"Presidents are not kings. This means that they do not have subjects, bound by loyalty or blood, whose destiny they are entitled to control," she wrote. "Rather, in this land of liberty, it is indisputable that employees of the White House work for the people of the United States, and that they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
She also was on the three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit that rejected former President Donald Trump's attempt to keep the National Archives and Records Administration from turning over his White House records to the House select committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. Jackson joined the opinion written by Judge Patricia Millett that found Trump "provided no basis for this court to override President Biden's judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents."
The Supreme Court ultimately gave the green-light for the National Archives to give the records to the January 6 committee, declining a request from Trump to block their release.
A native of Washington, D.C., Jackson grew up in Florida. A White House bio page that went up late Friday morning notes that her parents attended segregated primary schools in the South, and eventually became public school teachers and administrators in the Miami area.
Jackson attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. According to the White House, when she told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to go to Harvard, the counselor cautioned her against setting her sights "so high." Jackson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and cum laude from Harvard Law School.
She clerked for Breyer on the Supreme Court during the term beginning in October 1999 and, after stints at elite law firms, went on to serve as assistant special counsel for the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
She also worked for two years as an assistant federal public defender before returning to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2010 as vice chair. Jackson's time as a public defender makes her the first justice since Thurgood Marshall to have experience representing criminal defendants.
If confirmed, Jackson will not only be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, but it will also mark the first time there will be two African-American justices and four women serving at the same time. At 51, she would be the second-youngest justice, behind Barrett, who is 50.
