Jackson Confirmed as First Black Woman on U.S. Supreme Court

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, making history as the first Black woman to ever join its ranks while leaving the ideological balance on the nation’s highest court unchanged.

The 53-47 vote affirming the elevation of the 51-year-old federal judge saw her garner backing of all 50 Senate Democrats and only three Republicans -- Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah.

President Joe Biden watched the vote with Jackson, his first Supreme Court pick, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the vote and her husband, Doug Emhoff watched from the gallery.

WATCH: Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Source: Bloomberg

Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate and former public defender who the Senate confirmed last year to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, will join the high court when Justice Stephen Breyer retires in June or July. She will be the court’s 116th justice, its sixth woman and the eighth justice who isn’t a white male.

Jackson’s confirmation process further solidified the infusion of partisanship and politics in judicial appointments. Though no Republicans said she wasn’t qualified for the job, she got fewer GOP votes than the nine Sonia Sotomayor got in 2009 and the five Elena Kagan received in 2010.

Many GOP senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said they opposed Jackson because they view her as a potential activist judge.

“Republicans want to uphold the separation of powers the framers left us,” McConnell said. “We want judges to honor their limited role in our Republic: stick to the text, rule impartially and leave policy making to policy makers.”

Democrats said Jackson is impartial and even-handed, and will bring more diversity to the court.

“She will be the first, and I have no doubt in my mind that she will pave the way for others in the future,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Jackson’s nomination fulfilled a 2020 campaign promise by Biden, who vowed to make his first Supreme Court pick a Black woman. The confirmation could give Democrats a needed political boost as they battle to keep control of the House and Senate in this fall’s elections despite Biden’s slumping approval ratings.

At her confirmation hearings, Jackson faced intense questioning about her record in earlier roles as a federal judge, a public defender and vice chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Frequently interrupted, she defended herself amid questions about her past representation of alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a cluster of sentences she meted out in child pornography possession cases that some Republicans said were too lenient.

Republicans continued to raise concerns that Jackson is soft on crime during debate on the Senate floor. GOP Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri at one point paused the debate with an unsuccessful attempt to get the full Senate to take up legislation establishing a five-year minimum sentence for anyone convicted of possessing child pornography.

Another Republican senator, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, went so far as to suggest Jackson might have defended the Nazis in court.

“You know, the last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis,” Cotton said, referring to former Justice Robert Jackson. “This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.”

Democrats defended her against suggestions that she’s too lenient on criminals, noting she has endorsements from police groups including the Fraternal Order of Police and has family members in law enforcement.

“Far from being soft on crime, very movingly, she described what it is like to have a family member who walks a beat because her brother is a cop and her uncle, a chief of police,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.

Jackson, who can stay on the D.C. Circuit until her swearing-in, won’t be seated for this term’s blockbuster decisions, including potentially overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights decision.

For the next term, Jackson has said she would recuse when the court considers a challenge to Harvard College’s use of race in its admissions decisions. She serves on the university’s board of overseers.

The court is also planning to hear cases in its next term over redistricting and the Voting Rights Act, the reach of the Clean Water Act and free-speech objections to laws barring anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

--With assistance from Greg Stohr.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net

Megan Scully, Elizabeth Wasserman

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