The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote Monday on sending Supreme Court hopeful Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote.
The vote is one of the final hurdles for Jackson to clear on the path to becoming the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
“This committee’s action today is nothing less than making history. I’m honored to be part of it,” Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said as the panel’s meeting began.
Democrats hope to confirm Jackson, a 51-year-old federal judge and President Joe Biden’s first high-court nominee, by as early as the end of the week.
Monday’s vote is expected to end in a tie in the 22-member Judiciary committee. Democrats lead the panel, but it is split 11-11 between Democrats and Republicans.
A tie will not halt Jackson’s nomination, but rather will put it in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. If the committee vote deadlocks, Schumer is expected to take steps to advance the nomination in accordance with Senate rules once the chamber floor opens Monday afternoon.
But Durbin on Monday afternoon temporarily delayed the committee’s vote, explaining that the flight carrying Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., to Washington was rerouted back to Los Angeles due to a medical emergency. A spokesperson for Padilla said the senator is expected to make it to Capitol Hill later in the afternoon.
If her nomination comes to a final vote, Jackson is set to receive bipartisan support. At least one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, has said she will support the nomination.
Two other centrist Republicans, Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have not revealed their decisions.
The committee convened at 10 a.m. ET, with each member given time to speak about the nominee before the vote. The senators spent much of that time re-hashing the arguments and rhetoric that dominated the two marathon days of questioning Jackson endured during her confirmation hearings before the panel last month.
Republican members accused Jackson of holding held far-left views and criticized her for failing to satisfy their questions about her judicial philosophy.
They also once again focused on Jackson’s sentencing history in handful of child pornography cases, claiming her record shows a pattern of being far too lenient to those offenders. Fact-checkers have disputed those characterizations.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he would vote against Jackson, despite supporting her less than a year earlier when Biden nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. On Monday, Graham explained his prior support for Jackson by saying that on the Supreme Court, “you’re making policy, not just bound by it.”
He also warned the Democratic majority that if Republicans re-take the Senate after the 2022 midterm elections, they will block Democrats’ new judicial nominees.
“If we get back the Senate and we’re in charge of this body and there’s judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side, but if we’re in charge she would not have been before this committee. You would’ve had somebody more moderate than this,” Graham said. “[When] we’re in charge, then we’ll talk about judges differently.”
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
