President Biden Nominates Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson For The Supreme Court

The front-runner was indeed the pick

[Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson]

Ending weeks of speculation, President Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Stephen Breyer. The White House website launched a page this morning to make the case for Judge Jackson. Jackson has long been considered a front-runner for this position. Other front runners had included Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was pushed by Representative James Clyburn. Clyburn was considered to be crucial to turning around Biden’s election prospects ahead of the South Carolina primary. It was also Representative Clyburn who appears to have pressured Biden to commit to nominating a Black Woman to the Supreme Court.

There is little left to say about Judge Jackson. Our own HarvardLaw92 has endorsed her candidacy and believes her to be an outstanding jurist. As someone interested in criminal legal system reform, I think she is the best candidate we could hope for and brings with her experience as a defender (the first one on the Supreme Court bench in over three decades) and with sentencing reform.

The only question that remains is how much of a fight Republicans in the senate will put up against her. However, as they remain the minority party, there is little that they can actually do to slow down this nomination based on the 2017 GOP-led rule change that lowered the threshold for Supreme Court nominations to a simple majority.

The only question that remains is if she gets any crossover votes.


Update: A number of Republicans have already started to paint Justice Jackson as a “far-left” judge. FWIW, at least one person has found examples of Jackson, prior to becoming a justice, working with organizations from “across the aisle”:

FILED UNDER: Democracy, Law and the Courts, Supreme Court, US Politics, ,
Matt Bernius
About Matt Bernius
Matt Bernius is a design researcher working to create more equitable government systems and experiences. He's currently a Principal User Researcher on Code for America's "GetCalFresh" program, helping people apply for SNAP food benefits in California. Prior to joining CfA, he worked at Measures for Justice and at Effective, a UX agency. Matt has an MA from the University of Chicago.

Comments

  1. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Good news, but I am sure Republicans will still object to having a black woman sitting on the Supreme Court.

    1
  2. Mister Bluster says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:..Republicans will still object to having a black woman sitting on the Supreme Court.

    Republicans will object to anyone Biden nominates to the Supreme Court.
    Even if it’s Jesus.

    Jesus Was a Capricorn
    Get back, John

    3
  3. HarvardLaw92 says:

    We’re ecstatic and thrilled for her, to say the least. Called to congratulate her earlier today. He absolutely made the right call 😀

    16
  4. Pylon says:

    The new criticism from the right is that she’s from Harvard. Just not like Gorsuch or Roberts.

    2
  5. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    Already the Republican hypocrisy is at a fever pitch.
    Especially laughable…People who have had no problem voting in favor of Harvard and Yale grads before, all of the sudden, don’t think we should have so many Harvard and Yale grads.
    The contortions these folks will go through to justify voting against a woman of color is going to be hilarious to watch.

    4
  6. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Daryl and his brother Darryl:

    Indeed. McConnell is also making noises about “an exhaustive review”, after railroading Barrett onto the court in the space of ten minutes. The hypocrisy is just a little too evident today.

    7
  7. DrDaveT says:

    In the interest of efficiency, perhaps the administration should just publish a numbered list of spurious and hypocritical arguments against Judge Jackson’s suitability for the Court. Then the Republicans in the Senate could just say (for example) “Um, #2 and #7” instead of wasting everyone’s time trying to phrase them in their own words.

    5
  8. just nutha says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Alas, my money is on both Sinema and Manchin objecting, too. Time will tell.

    3
  9. MarkedMan says:

    Setting politics aside, this is a big win for the country. For my entire lifetime the Supreme Court has come from a pool of candidates who lived as the elite of the elite from high school on. They tend to have very little connection with real life as it is lived by 99.9% of the country. I can only think of three justices that cannot be described in this way, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Thomas. And Sotomayor and Thomas aren’t different because they followed a different track, but rather because as people of color they had different experiences forced upon them, even while walking the halls of privilege. Ginsburg is the real exception, having come from Cornell and Columbia and spendind decades fighting for civil rights before being tapped for the judiciary. We need more like her, and less the of the cosseted and groomed.

    Ketanji is more in the vein of Sotomayor and Thomas, but that’s so much better than the alternative that she will almost certainly be a win for the country.

    3
  10. Daryl and his brother Darryl says:

    @HarvardLaw92:
    And the “exhaustive review” of Justice Boof that included sending over 4,000 tips, called into the FBI, directly into the black hole of the Trump White House.
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fbi-kavanaugh-ford-investigation/index.html

  11. Scott F. says:

    @HarvardLaw92:
    The last 5+ years have shown the Republicans there is no political cost for hypocrisy. Not even the littlest bit…

    4
  12. Gavin says:

    And she was a member of an improv comedy group, making her even better at thinking on her feet. What an unqualified monster!

    1