With the support of three renegade Republicans (Romney of Utah, Collins of Maine, and Murkowski of Alaska), Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as a new Justice of the Supreme Court.
Her qualifications were beyond dispute. She is one of the most qualified members of the Court. she received the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association (Trump’s last appointee, Justice Barrett, did not).
She won’t change the 6-3 balance on the deeply divided Court, but she will bring a fresh perspective, a great intellect, a deep respect for the Constitution, and a judicial temperament that enabled four days of withering and unfair attacks by ambitious Republican Senators who we’re competing for the QAnon sector of the GOP base.
A great choice! Justice prevailed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agreed. But, it should have been (given her credentials) a no-brainer.
Turns out that 47 Republican Senators lack integrity and brains.
I don’t think we’ll ever see another justice confirmed with more than a handful (at most) of senators crossing party lines.
I think you’re right….but I hope you’re wrong.
You may be right. Trump’s appointees we’re far from mainstream. Three Catholic hardliners who oppose abortion and oppose separation of church and state. Justice Jackson does not have a record as an extremist who wants to overturn settled precedents. She is a conventional liberal who believes in protecting long-established civil rights. She is mainstream. Trump’s choices were given to him by the hard-line rightwing Federalist Society. Justice Jackson is so moderate that even Lindsey Graham voted for her when she was nominated to an appellate court. But then voted against her today. She didn’t change. He did.
Back in the age of civility, Supreme Court justices were confirmed overwhelmingly, except in the few cases where they were controversial, like Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was confirmed with a huge bipartisan majority. Today, only a tiny number defy their party line.
I would be interested in your memory of the refusal to confirm Abe Fortas. My memory is that Fortas got mixed up in the controversy over the New Deal and Communism issue and was rejected during the LBJ years. this led to the Democrats attack on Clemet Haynesworth in the early Nixon years. In my memory, the only conifirmation controversy happened after that.
There was controversy over Earl Warren, of course, after Brown vs Board. I remember a billboard in East Tennessee urging his impeachment. We were on our way to see my grandmother in North Carolina and I questioned my parents about the issue.
While FDR fought with the Supremes over the New Deal in his day, I do not remember studying any opposition to his appointees to the bench.
I got into moderation with these questions, but I will try again. My memory over fighting over the SCOTUS nominations goes back to the fight over Abe Fortas, whom the Republicans opposes. I seem to recall the Democrats going after Clement Haynesworth in the early part of Nixon’s years, which I took to be a retaliation of sorts. Seems like ever since then there has been strife over appointments
Roy,
I looked up Abe Fortas on Wikipedia. He was a very liberal Jew. LBJ appointed him to the Supreme Court, where he authored a number of liberal opinions. (He represented Gideon before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, which led to the decision that indigent people have a right to be represented in court.) Fortas served on the Court for four years, then LBJ named him to be Chief Justice. Republicans filibustered his nomination. Some because he was too liberal for them, others because of outright anti-Semitism. Fortas resigned from the Court after ethics charges were filed against him for accepting outside funding.
I seem to recall my father connecting him with
Alger Hiss some way. I also recall Haynesworth claiming that he had been victimized by the Democrats after a Nixon appointment. He then went back to Florida where he ran for some office with the slogan: “This the people will decide.” He was voted down.
I googled and the only connection I could find between Fortas and Hiss was that they both worked for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the early days of the New Deal. No indication that they knew one another.
Supreme Court confirmations are no longer about credentials and qualifications – they are almost entirely about partisan politics, or to put it more charitably, about whether you favor or oppose the nominee’s judicial philosophy. Justice Jackson will be reliably left-wing on all controversial decisions, a clone of Sonia Sotomayor. Some people will like that, others won’t. Same for the conservative justices.
It seems pretty likely that Justice Jackson will not have a spouse texting the White House Chief of Staff and asking him to commit treason by overturning a democratic election or that she would list her spouse’s noninvestment income as NONE on required financial disclosure forms in a year when that spouse was paid $687,000 in speaker’s fees by The Heritage Foundation. And it seems unlikely that she would fail to recuse herself from cases involving the attempted coup on January 6, having done the former. Those matters are not about being liberal or conservative but about being a justice who actually gives a _____ about the law.
The right appoints people who move the country to the right. The left appoints moderates which moves the country to the
right.
Compare the work product of moderates like Merrick Garland and Bob Mueller to the work product of Bill Barr (and, Leonard Leo).
Barr said religion should be introduced at every opportunity.
As the Taplin blog identified the GOP, “men over women, whites over blacks, Christians over non-Christians, and straights over gays.”
Republicans aren’t interested in governance in the sense of the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, they advance colonialism.
Bob, the Ginni Thomas stuff is extremely disturbing. Thomas really should recuse himself from everything relating to January 6. But there’s huge discretion and very little law about recusals. Congress could change that, though.
She is so impressive. This is excellent news. I was totally blown away by how calm, careful, deliberate, and reasoned she was during the hearings. What a contrast with he whose name cannot be mentioned on WordPress.
Thank you Senators Murkowski, Romney and Collins for doing the right thing!
They don’t deserve too much praise for courage. They all voted for the corrupted Kavanaugh, Gorsuch & Coney-Barrett appointments. Mitch McConnell gave the R’s permission to vote in favor of Judge Jackson. He said publicly he was not going to oppose her. What if her appointment had tipped the court balance to a 6- 5 in favor of Dems. They would all be marching lock step with Marsha Blackburn & Lindsey Graham.
oops. What if her appointment had tipped the court balance to a 5- 4 in favor of Dems?
This short essay is a useful corrective for everyone who thinks that opposing Ms. Jackson was a result of lacking integrity and brains. By that standard, all but 3-4 Senators lack integrity and brains, i.e. 96+% of Senators always vote along party lines.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/dick-durbin-is-a-bad-joke-on-supreme-court-nominees/
Thank God For Durbin. Corrupt Pathology Prevailed But At Least He Stood Firm.
If I were in the Senate, I would have opposed Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, because they want to roll back decades of civil rights protections and privilege religion above all contesting claims. They are reactionary ideologues.
Many of us are nostalgic for the days when consensus was easier to reach. But there’s really nothing wrong with opposing SCOTUS nominees based on ideological objections. It’s well within the scope of “advice and consent.” One could argue that it’s a good thing — SCOTUS decisions have political implications and voters have no direct say over who gets on the court, and Senators should not be relegated to rubber-stamping nominees simply because they are “qualified” (a low bar that I think has been met by every nominee in my lifetime, with the possible exception of Harriet Miers).
When Senators oppose the nomination of a person who is not merely “qualified,” but “highly qualified,” as the ABA said, then that is simply reckless partisanship. Democrats should have supported Justice John Roberts, and Republicans should have supported Justice Katanji Brown Jackson. Instead they smeared her and acted despicably. The Charleston Post & Courier reported that Senator Lindsay Graham showed his disrespect for Judge Jackson by showing up for a hearing without wearing a tie. The most uncomfortable Republican Senator who opposed her nomination must have been Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who said he knew it was a historic moment, but he disagrees with her “philosophy.” He is African-American, the only African-American Republican in the Senate. Shameful.
“When Senators oppose the nomination of a person who is not merely “qualified,” but “highly qualified,” as the ABA said, then that is simply reckless partisanship.”
I wouldn’t put too much stock what the ABA says. The ABA rated Jackson “well-qualified,” which is its highest rating. The ABA has given the same rating to every other SCOTUS nominee in recent memory except Harriet Miers and Clarence Thomas. As with Justice Jackson, the ABA’s “well-qualified” ratings of Justices K, Gorsuch, and Alito were all unanimous. But I assume you don’t think opposing the nominations of those justices was reckless partisanship.
I do not think that opposing the nominations of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett was “reckless partisanship.”
If you believe that the civil rights of every American matter, you would oppose them.
If you believe that abortion rights are settled precedent, you would oppose them.
If you believe in separation of church and state, you would oppose them.
All three are Catholic religious zealots, who will tear down the wall of separation so that religious institutions and religious beliefs are privileged above civil rights and other issues. This Court (at least five, perhaps six of the Justices) is very likely not only to overturn Roe v. Wade, but to rule that it is okay to allow states to fund religious schools.
Is it merely partisan to say that these views have been out of the mainstream for many decades?
Thanks for the post. The ABA did rate almost every candidate to the Supreme Court “highly qualified.” The vote was unanimous in most cases, but not in the case of Amy Coney Barrett, nor in the case of Clarence Thomas, who was not rated “highly qualified.”
This Washington Post graphic shows that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is the most qualified person on the Supreme Court: https://twitter.com/maryderrickart/status/1512491198589591555?s=20&t=zKL6GLreEjQqwbxSxpPENg
By the way, when Breyer retires, Justice Jackson will be one of only three members of the Court who attended a public high school. The others are Kagan and Alito.
Huffpo’s article about Tim Reichert’s candidacy for Congress tells all of us what the politicized religious right wants.
This essay is neither useful nor corrective. It is partisan and corrosive of our representative system of government. The artice suggests that Durbin does not have the right to thank Republicans who crossed the aisle. What tripe.
Our new Justice displayed impressive grace and aplomb as she weathered repeated RepubliQan performance art inanity.
emphatically agreed!
SCOTUS’ anti-abortionists –
Catholic success in initiating and passing school choice legislation in Indiana (getting tax dollars) is little different than the Church’s successes in anti- abortion policy and law.
4-7-2022, the AP (reposted by Huffpo) described Indiana as having the 2nd highest rate of women (18%) who don’t receive prenatal care during their 1st trimester. AP also described Indiana as having more than 9% of the state’s children in poverty without medical insurance.
Notre Dame is in Indiana. Amy Comey Barrett’s training and career were at the school.
The AP article summarizes- “states with the strictest abortion laws are the hardest places to raise children.” Nothing is new about conservative religion and disregard for mothers. their children and disregard for democracy.
The alliance, during the past two decades, between the American Catholic Church and the less politically powerful evangelical protestants doomed the USA to 3rd world religion-supported colonialism.
Charles Koch’s funding of Paul Weyrich’s Catholic-inspired, politicized ideology shouldn’t be ignored any longer.
Comparison of Brown’s resume suggests that she was the most qualified nomination to the bench in this century. Her experience is a plus, but her status as a public defender as a part of her career corrects an omission that has been too long left uncorrected.
If we are to keep the Supreme Court at 9 justices (I support a bi-partisan expansion to around 25) then we should make sure that the justices we confirm should represent all aspects of our judicial experience. Beginning with Alito, conservative justices have been clones of each other, with experience bases that are hard to distinguish one from another. We even have two recent justices that went to the same high school.
I still view Roberts as the most impressive nominee this century, if we’re basing it strictly on the resume and reputation. But Brown is definitely top notch and unimpeachable.
True. Roberts had the proper credentials.
Regarding the happy news that Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the next Supreme Court justice.
There is no equivalency between the Republicans and Democrats in terms of this process.
Republicans didn’t just vote against confirming a nominee – during the hearings and when they cast votes they continued to make false accusations to demonize a nominee. The hearings for Amy Coney Barrett were nothing like the ugliness we saw in the hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, despite Barrett being rushed through while a presidential election was in progress by a corrupt and dishonest Republican Senate that previously claimed it could not hold hearings and a vote for a nomination made in March of an election year but could hold hearings and a vote for a nomination made in late September of an election year. It would have been arguably appropriate for a Senate to vote on a nomination made in March but not one made in September. But the fact that the Republicans had the chutzpah to do just the opposite demonstrated that their party believes that might makes right and morality and integrity were an anathema to the Republican Party.
The Democrats were respectful of Amy Coney Barrett even if they chose not to confirm her. But throughout the process, too many Republicans in the Senate made spurious and nasty allegations. No one can reasonably argue that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is pro-pedophile, but the ugly questions that were put to her by the the Republican Senators were appalling. And she handled them all with grace and aplomb.
Contrast that with Kavanaugh, who was asked far more legitimate questions and just went beserk (and didn’t actually answer them). This is the man whose own high school yearbook told a story of what a truly nasty piece of work he was back then (the “Renate” stuff he and his friends decided to include in their yearbook as a permanent record of how little regard they had for a young woman whose reputation they enjoyed publicly destroying was evidence of their lack of any morals.)
The Democrats are respectful of the process and the Republicans politicize and abuse the process. One reason that our democracy is in so much danger. Once an anti-democratic leader gains power, it is very difficult to take it back.
What a lovely opportune time for going up to Cruz, and with a big beaming smile say ‘Hya Ted. How ya doin’? Courting (emphasise the word) anymore opportunities?’
(OK it’s corny, but winding him up after his disgraceful antics; well why not?)