Your briefing on developments in the Supreme Court confirmation battle.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a schedule.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a four-day marathon of hearings, the brunt of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation process.
On Monday, March 21, committee members, individuals introducing Jackson and Jackson herself will all make remarks.
The committee’s questioning of Jackson will span Tuesday, March 22 through Wednesday, March 23. There will also be a routine closed-door hearing on Jackson’s FBI background check.
Thursday will end the proceedings with outside witness testimony.
“I look forward to Judge Jackson’s appearance before the Committee and to respectful and dignified hearings,” Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) wrote in a letter. We shall see!
One-On-One Hundred
- Jackson has started her one-on-one meetings with members of the Senate.
- “I just had a great meeting with Judge Brown Jackson,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday. “She reminds me in certain ways of Justice Breyer who she clerked for, that she is so thoughtful and even-handed and tries to look at both sides. And another amazing thing about her — she’s had such a breadth of experience.”
- Durbin met with Jackson Wednesday as well.
A Smooth Process?
- Republicans continue to seem disinclined to vociferously challenge Jackson’s confirmation.
- “I don’t think there’s a lot of surprises here,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters. “And I also think, given the fact that she’s not going to change the balance, ideological balance, on the court, I think people will be respectful and they’ll do their due diligence and ask questions, but I think we all have a pretty good idea what the outcome is likely to be, unless there’s a big surprise.”
Some Light Reading
- Get to know the potential newest Supreme Court justice with this enthralling installment of every activity and case in which she’s ever participated.
- One big thing I’ve learned: to be on the Supreme Court, you apparently need to devote many a weekend to presiding over kids’ mock trial competitions. Pass.
Give them some time. I am quite certain they will come up with some reasons, I mean come on, she was nominated to the court by a Democrat, for most GOP Senators this is enough of a reason, they’re just afraid to say it out loud.
She’s not going to change the ideological balance, so she doesn’t matter. Did Cornyn just say that out loud?
The quiet part: Ketanji Brown Jackson will radically increase the number of black women on the Court and shift the gender balance even further away from the Constitution’s original intent of an all male Court.
I wonder if any Republican on the committee will outright rebuff meeting with her?
And so begins the season where Rethugliklans will, in effect, recite their well-rehearsed mantra: If my donors don’t own you, we don’t want you.