President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, launched her Capitol Hill charm offensive Wednesday, marking the start of what Democrats are hoping is a no-drama confirmation process.
Jackson met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), as well as top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a daylong parade of highly choreographed but high-profile sit-downs that snaked Jackson, her entourage and a pack of reporters and photographers across the Capitol complex.
Jackson would be the first Black female justice and represent the crown jewel of Biden’s months-long effort to put his own stamp on the federal judiciary, for which Democrats have confirmed the most court picks at this point of a presidency since the Kennedy administration.
“She is not only brilliant and beloved, but belongs on the Supreme Court. I believe her nomination certainly merits a good number of votes from both parties, and I hope we see that as we move forward in the process,” Schumer said.
“I am certain that when other senators have a chance to meet with Judge Jackson, they will understand why she is beyond qualified to replace Justice [Stephen] Breyer on the Supreme Court,” he added.
Biden nominated Jackson last week to succeed the retiring Breyer, who has said he will step down over the summer assuming his successor is ready to go. According to a Judiciary Committee questionnaire Jackson submitted this week, the White House first reached out to her about the Supreme Court seat three days after Breyer announced he would retire.
Democrats want to get her confirmed before they start a two-week break on April 8, a pace that lines up with the 30- to 40-day timeline between nomination and final vote that they and the White House had been looking at.
“We want to do this fairly but expeditiously. … We would like to get this done and have the judge approved by the Senate before the Easter break,” Schumer told reporters after his meeting with Jackson.
Democrats on Wednesday outlined part of how they plan to make that happen.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will start its confirmation hearing on March 21. It is slated to last four days and will be comprised of one day of opening statements, two days of questions to Jackson and a final day of outside experts.
“As I have said from the time that Justice Breyer announced his retirement, the Committee will undertake a fair and timely process to consider Judge Jackson’s nomination,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a letter to senators about the time frame.
The day wasn’t without some surprises. Jackson had an impromptu run in with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, near the Senate chamber.
Jackson’s nomination is shaping up to be relatively low drama compared to the Senate’s recent scorching Supreme Court fights.
It’s the Senate’s fourth Supreme Court fight in five years. In 2017, Republicans nixed the 60-vote requirement for Supreme Court nominees in order to confirm Neil Gorsuch, then-President Trump’s first justice.
A relatively sleepy confirmation battle for his second pick, Brett Kavanaugh, erupted in the wake of sexual assault allegations, which he denied. And Republicans moved at lightning speed to confirm conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to succeed liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg days before the 2020 election.
Republicans have pointed back to the heated fight over Kavanaugh as a contrast to how they will handle Jackson’s nomination.
“The nominee, the Senate, the Court and the American people all deserve a process that is free of the embarrassing antics that have become the Democratic Party’s routine whenever a Republican president nominates a new justice. The baseless smears. The shameless distortions,” McConnell said.
“The country deserves a process that is painstaking, rigorous and befitting the seriousness of a lifetime appointment to our highest court. I don’t care what Judge Jackson’s friends wrote in her high school yearbook,” he added.
The politics for McConnell and his party are complicated. He’s got some firebrands who are likely to want to fight, and several GOP members of the Judiciary Committee are viewed as potential 2024 White House candidates.
But at the same time, Democrats are able to confirm Jackson on their own as long as all 50 of their members hang together. And Republicans view other issues like the economy and inflation as better focal points heading into November as Biden faces sluggish poll numbers.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of surprises here. … I think we all have a pretty good idea of what the outcome is likely to be unless there’s some big surprise,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
There are still questions about how the confirmation fight will play out, including if and how many Republicans will support her.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he’s urged any Republican who wants to meet with Jackson to quickly inform both him and the White House.
Jackson is already scheduled to meet with more GOP senators next week including Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a key swing vote.
Democrats are cautiously optimistic that they will be able to win over at least one GOP senator.
Collins and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) each voted to confirm Jackson to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the second most important federal court in the U.S. But they’ve each stressed that doesn’t mean they are a “yes” vote for the Supreme Court, and Graham had publicly pushed for the White House to pick another nominee.
“I haven’t made a decision. It’s a different level obviously to go to the Supreme Court, and it’s absolutely essential that I sit down with her and interview her,” Collins said.
The White House and Durbin have been working to quietly woo Republicans they view as possible “yes” votes, including Collins.
“I’m looking for a bipartisan vote,” Durbin said. “I’m reaching out to some names you might be surprised. … Most of them are surprised, maybe even a little flattered that I would give them a call.”