Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will meet with federal appeals court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, launching the start of Supreme Court nominee’s Capitol Hill charm offensive.
The meeting, announced by Schumer’s office, comes after President Biden said Friday that he was nominating Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, who intends to retire over the summer assuming his successor has been confirmed by the Senate.
It’s Jackson’s first announced meeting with a senator, in what is expected to be weeks of one-on-one sit-downs. Democrats are hoping to have Jackson, who would be the first Black woman Supreme Court justice, confirmed by April 8, when the Senate is scheduled to leave town for a two-week break.
Schumer has eyed a 30-day timeline similar to the amount of time between when then-President Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett and when Senate Republicans confirmed her just days before the 2020 election. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Schumer’s No. 2 and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters earlier this month that Biden was looking at a 40-day process.
“Once the President sends Judge Jackson’s nomination to the Senate, Senate Democrats will work to ensure a fair, timely, and expeditious process – fair to the nominee, to the Senate, and to the American public. Under Chairman Durbin’s leadership, Judge Jackson will receive a prompt hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming weeks,” Schumer said in a statement.
“After the Judiciary Committee finishes their work I will ask the Senate to move immediately to confirm her to the Supreme Court,” he added.
Democrats could confirm Jackson on their own if all 50 of their members remain united, and Vice President Harris breaks a tie. But they are cautiously hopeful they’ll be able to win over at least one GOP senator. Three Republicans voted last year to confirm Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.).
“Ketanji Brown Jackson is an experienced federal judge with impressive academic and legal credentials. I will conduct a thorough vetting of Judge Jackson’s nomination and look forward to her public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and to meeting with her in my office,” Collins said in a statement on Friday.