Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies on her nomination to become an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 22, 2022.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson in a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday forcefully defended her judicial record against Republican accusations that she was too lenient in sentencing child-pornography offenders.
“As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, I was thinking that nothing could be further from the truth,” Jackson said when asked about the attacks from some GOP lawmakers.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who asked the question at the start of the second day of Jackson’s confirmation hearings, directly referenced claims made by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., another member of the judiciary panel.
Hawley tweeted last week that Jackson showed “a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”
But fact checks from numerous media outlets called that claim misleading. Durbin and other Democrats have quoted a conservative columnist who called Hawley’s argument “meritless to the point of demagoguery.”
Jackson’s defense of her record came at the start of two days of cross-examination by senators as part of her confirmation hearings. Jackson, who if confirmed will become the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, was expected to face intense scrutiny from Republicans and praise from Democrats.
Jackson in her first appearance before the Senate committee on Monday offered a summary defense of her career from the bench. She said she looks at her cases “from a neutral posture” and applies the law “without fear or favor.”
She elaborated on Tuesday morning, telling the senators that her judicial experience has shown her to be “impartial.”
“I don’t think anyone could look at my record and say that it is pointing in one direction or another, that it is supporting one viewpoint or another,” she told Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the panel’s ranking member.
Jackson also declined requests from Durbin and Grassley to share her views on court packing, the prospect of increasing the number of seats on the Supreme Court. She referred to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the third nominee of former President Donald Trump, who had also refused to opine on that issue during her confirmation hearings.
“My north star is the consideration of the proper role of a judge in our constitutional scheme,” Jackson said. “In my view judges should not be speaking to political issues.”
Lawmakers are able to question Jackson under oath in a public forum Tuesday for the first time since President Joe Biden nominated her to the Supreme Court. The federal judge previously met privately with senators on Capitol Hill.
Jackson is a 51-year-old judge who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The first nominee of Biden, Jackson would succeed the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, replacing one liberal justice with another.
The high court’s conservatives currently enjoy a 6-3 majority over the liberals.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.