Will pass or not pass? Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be heard from Monday until Thursday by the US Senate Judiciary Committee. The elected officials of the upper house of Congress will then have to decide during a vote in plenary session probably at the beginning of April if they validate the choice of President Joe Biden to appoint this brilliant 51-year-old jurist to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The decision would be historic since it made her the first black woman in this position. She would then sit from the start of the next school year in the most mixed Supreme Court in American history, with three other women and an African-American magistrate.
The Conservatives will remain in the majority no matter what
The power of the nine sages of the High Court, appointed for life, is particularly important. “The Court decides a lot of crucial subjects, some of which are explosive”, such as the right to abortion or to carry a firearm, notes Larry Sabato, professor of political science at the University of Virginia.
But the arrival of Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace the progressive magistrate Stephen Breyer, who will retire in the summer, “will not change the balance: the conservatives will keep a majority of six judges out of nine, recalls the analyst. This should be enough to bring the temperature down and ensure a fairly smooth confirmation process. »
Asked regarding her judgments in horrific criminal cases
The balance of power in the Senate gives a slight advantage to the magistrate: each party has 50 elected officials but, in the event of a tie, it is up to the Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris to decide between them. A handful of moderate Republican senators had also supported his nomination to the federal appeals court in Washington, a year ago, and might revote in his favor.
Ketanji Brown Jackson should be asked regarding her defense, as a lawyer, of Guantanamo detainees and other criminals, and then regarding her judgments in horrific criminal cases. Senator Josh Hawley has previously accused her, in a long series of tweets, of withholding low sentences in child pornography cases.