(RoyalPatriot.com )- The confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson started in earnest this week, and it’s expected to be a relatively quick process that could wrap up in just a few weeks.
On Wednesday, Jackson — who President Joe Biden announced last week as his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer — met with some senators at the Capitol building.
Democrats are beginning to rally together to emphasize the extensive experience, background and qualifications that Jackson brings to the table as a nominee for a seat on the country’s highest court.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said there would be a “fair but expeditious process where members from both sides will get to ask their questions and explore the judge’s record.”
Schumer was one of the first people who met with Jackson, who he said “encapsulates the two B’s: brilliant and beloved.” In a speech from the floor of the Senate delivered Monday, he said:
“I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Judge Jackson over the last month, and I cannot recall any one of her colleagues, anyone from her private life or anyone in the public sphere say anything negative about her. It’s amazing. That’s how fine a person she is, and how fine a mind she has.”
Schumer might actually be right, too. Not too many people have criticized Jackson directly. Even Republicans who have not directly supported Jackson have focused their criticisms on Biden’s process or the fact that he didn’t pick someone else.
Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, blasted Biden’s pick, but only because he believed Judge J. Michelle Childs, who is from his home state of South Carolina, would’ve made a great choice.
Others have focused on the fact that Biden limited his choices because he promised on the campaign trail that if he were given the chance, he’d nominate a Black woman to a Supreme Court vacancy.
Earlier this week, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the GOP in the Senate, said that his party’s focus during the confirmation proceedings might be on wider issues about the country’s legal system, rather than Jackson’s qualifications for a position on the Supreme Court.
McConnell said he planned to ask Jackson about “major crises” families in America face that involve the legal system, which includes religious freedom, immigration and violent crime.
As he said while giving a floor speech on Tuesday:
“What’s more, one of our two major sides increasingly makes noise about attacking the very legitimacy and structure of the Supreme Court itself.”
One of McConnell’s primary concerns is that Jackson only has a “slim” record serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Since being confirmed to that post only last year, Jackson has authored just two opinions.
McConnell also made reference in his speed to Jackson’s “far-left, dark money fan club.”
He explained:
“Judge Jackson has attracted loyal and intense support for some of the very same dark-money, far-left activists who’ve declared war on the institution of the court itself. One has to wonder why these left-wing organizations work so very hard to boost Judge Jackson for this potential promotion.”
