Jackson Clears GOP Hurdle, on Path for Confirmation This Week

(Bloomberg) -- The Senate set Ketanji Brown Jackson on a path for confirmation this week, placing her history-making ascension as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court within reach.

The Senate voted 53-47 to discharge Jackson's nomination from the Senate Judiciary Committee, a procedural step made necessary hours before when that panel deadlocked on its vote to advance President Joe Biden's first Supreme Court pick. Monday's floor vote sets the stage to begin debate on Jackson on Tuesday, with a final vote as early as Thursday.

Democrats want to confirm her before leaving for a two-week recess later this week.

Jackson's elevation is all but certain despite Democrats' wafer-thin control of the 50-50 Senate. No Democrat has said they'll oppose the appellate court judge and former public defender, and three Republicans -- Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah -- announced they will back her confirmation.

Jackson, 51, would be the sixth female justice in the court's history, the third African American and the first to have once been a federal public defender. She would succeed the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom she once worked as a law clerk. Confirmation won't alter the court's conservative tilt but would add a fresh voice to its three-member liberal wing.

Republicans have not disputed Jackson's qualifications -- she's served as a federal judge for nine years -- but they have argued she would not adopt a restrained judicial philosophy.

Some Republican senators said some sentences she imposed earlier in work as a District Court judge in Washington, D.C., were too lenient, including convictions for those who possessed child pornography.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who voted in 2021 to confirm Jackson to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, said during Monday's committee hearing that Jackson would be the first Supreme Court pick he would vote against. Graham has accused Jackson of judicial activism, lenient sentencing and advocating for liberal causes. “After four days of hearings, I now know why the left likes her so much,” Graham said.

Democrats defended her qualifications, which also included serving as vice chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, as well as what she described as a careful and even-handed methodology in deciding her cases. They also chastised Republicans for the grilling they gave to Jackson during her days of testifying at last month's confirmation hearings, which included frequent interruptions of the nominee.

“The nation saw the temperament of a good, strong person ready to serve on highest court in the land,” Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said.