U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson meets with U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) (not pictured), in his office at the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC, March 29, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Supreme Court contender Ketanji Brown Jackson moved closer to confirmation Monday even as the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on whether to advance her nomination to the full Senate.
The procedural vote split the committee 11-11, with all Democratic members voting to report Jackson favorably to the Senate and all Republicans voting against her.
The tie vote does not derail Jackson’s nomination. Democrats are set to break the stalemate in the full chamber, setting up Jackson’s confirmation as soon as Friday.
Schumer said earlier Monday afternoon that in the event of a tie vote, he will move “as soon as I can” to advance Jackson’s nomination out of committee.
Monday’s vote in the Judiciary committee 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 at 10 a.m. ET.
Durbin temporarily delayed the vote until after 4 p.m. ET because Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., a member of the committee, had not yet arrived in Washington due to a medical emergency on his Sunday night flight from California.
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.
