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Washington, U.S. | Xinhua | U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday that he’s nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court, setting in motion a process for the first African American woman to sit on its bench.
Announcing from the White House, Biden introduced Jackson as “a daughter of former public school teachers, a proven consensus builder, and an accomplished lawyer and distinguished jurist on one of the nation’s most prestigious courts.”
He also urged the Senate to “move promptly” to confirm the nomination and underlined that he had met with ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Jackson, who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said that she is “humbled by the extraordinary honor” of being nominated for the Supreme Court.
The nomination came about a month after Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a longtime liberal, said that he is about to retire this summer after nearly three decades on the bench. Jackson clerked for Breyer in the 1999-2000 term.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden pledged he would tap an African American woman to be his nominee to the nation’s highest court if he got the chance. “For too long, our government, our courts haven’t looked like America,” he said on Friday.
The Democrat reaffirmed the commitment after Breyer announced retirement but has drawn criticism from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have argued that the selection should be based on merit rather than race or gender.
In the wake of Biden’s nomination of Jackson to the Supreme Court, Republicans have begun criticizing her educational background, her record on crime, and the support she holds from left-wing groups.
Jackson, 51, has been viewed as a potential candidate for the Supreme Court after she was confirmed by the Senate last year with bipartisan support to the D.C. Circuit, often referred to as the second most powerful court in the United States.
Born in D.C. but raised in Miami, Jackson received her law degree from Harvard University and graduated cum laude in 1996. Earlier in her legal career, she worked as an assistant federal public defender in D.C. and served as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission for four years.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement on Friday that he looks forward to meeting with Jackson in person and “studying her record, legal views, and judicial philosophy,” while noting that the vetting progress in the chamber will be “vigorous and thorough.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair and Democrat Dick Durbin praised the selection of Jackson to the Supreme Court and said the panel is starting the formal investigation on Friday, with the hope of hearings in the coming weeks and a confirmation vote “as soon as possible.”
It requires a simple majority of votes in the 100-seat Senate to confirm Jackson to be the next Supreme Court justice.
The Senate is evenly split between the two parties. Democrats can approve the nomination without any Republican support, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tie-breaking vote.
The Supreme Court is the final appellate court of the U.S. judicial system, with the power to review and overturn the decisions of lower courts, and is also generally the final interpreter of federal law including the country’s constitution.
The high court consists of nine justices, who have life tenure and can serve until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached and removed from office.
Currently, conservatives have a 6-3 majority over liberals on the bench, and Jackson’s ascension won’t change the court’s ideological balance.
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Xinhua
