Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson clears another major hurdle
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has at least one Republican backer in the bag: Susan Collins. Collins’ vote should come as no surprise. She has historically backed Supreme Court nominees, regardless of the sitting president’s party. As the New York Times reported, Collins believes that “presidents should have latitude in selecting a prospective justice,” though she opposed Amy Coney Barrett because of the speed with which Barrett was literally shoved down everyone’s throats. Collins was right then, and she is right now. Since there are no signs that any Democratic senators will vote against Judge Jackson, President Biden is on his way to fulfilling a very important promise that he made during his campaign, ensuring that governmental entities reflect the makeup of the population. This is a promise that will last for decades.
NYT reported that Collins initially had some reservations about Judge Jackson’s confirmation. Collins asked for and received a second private meeting with Jackson, and she left that meeting with her announcement that she will support Jackson’s confirmation. Specifically, NYT reported that Collins was “reassured that Judge Jackson would not be bending the law to meet a personal preference” and that Judge Jackson meets Collins’ standards for a jurist to serve on the Supreme Court. Collins further said in her interview that senators have moved away from what she “perceive[s] to be the appropriate process for evaluating judicial nominees.” That is certainly true with respect to Judge Jackson. Collins invoked the Constitution, saying that senators are “to look at the credentials, experience and qualification of the nominee. It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the individual ideology of a senator or would vote exactly as an individual senator would want.” Trump is seeing that from his nominees. While they may be grateful for their lifetime appointments, their job is to interpret and apply the law, period. Judge Jackson will do that without question.
Even if no other Republican senators join Susan Collins in confirming Judge Jackson, President Biden gets credit for a bipartisan confirmation. This is extremely important in our overly divided government. It shows that at least some senators can still do the jobs they were elected to do. This will also alleviate the need for Vice President Harris to issue a tiebreaker on the confirmation vote because all Democratic senators appear to be on board. This is exactly the way that our representatives should serve us as citizens; however, Republicans have gone off the deep end. They were desperately trying to find something that would disqualify Judge Jackson, but they failed miserably. Instead, both McConnell and Sasse have indicated they will not vote to confirm her because of what they perceive to be sentencing issues. As a rule, Supreme Court justices do not sentence defendants, though they can be called upon to hear an appeal. Judge Jackson is a sensible jurist who will individually make decisions based on the merits of a case, not on some preconceived body of thought, as McConnell and Sasse appear to be assuming. Their assumptions are wrong and are based solely on their unwillingness to embrace bipartisanship.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years