US Senate begins hearings on Justice-designate Jackson
Judge Jackson
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The US Senate has begun confirmation hearings for Constitutional Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is set to become the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
The US Senate has begun confirmation hearings for Constitutional Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is set to become the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Congress Chamber, Democrat Dick Durbin, called on the opposition Republican senators on Monday to treat the 51-year-old with respect: They should be aware “of how history will judge every senator”.
President Joe Biden praised Jackson on Twitter as a “brilliant legal mind with the utmost strength of character and integrity”. The federal judge deserves to be confirmed as the new constitutional judge.
Biden nominated Jackson for the US Supreme Court in February. The former public defender is set to succeed Liberal constitutional judge Stephen Breyer, who is due to retire in the summer. In the United States, constitutional judges are nominated by the President and must then be confirmed by the Senate. The appointment is for life.
In view of the central role of the Supreme Court in the institutional structure of the USA, the confirmation process for nominated constitutional judges is politically hotly contested. Republicans have already vowed they will not commit Jackson’s “character assassination,” which Democrats accused Democrats of when conservative Constitutional Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed in 2018. Allegations of abuse had been raised once morest Kavanaugh at the time.
However, Republicans have made it clear that they plan to ask tough questions at hearings later this week regarding Jackson’s time as public defender, her role defending inmates at the controversial Guantanamo detention center, her work on a uniform sentencing committee, and verdicts as a judge . A little over half a year before the mid-term congressional elections in November, they are likely to try to attack President Biden via Jackson and portray him as too soft in the fight once morest crime.
Far-right Senator Josh Hawley has previously accused Jackson of having a history of “letting child pornography offenders go scot-free,” an accusation Democrats have outragedly denied.
Jackson was introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday she will answer questions from the senators there. The Democrats, who only have a razor-thin majority in the upper house, hope to get the judge’s confirmation in early April.
Jackson’s confirmation would not change the majority in the Supreme Court, because the liberal lawyer is to replace the also liberal Breyer. The conservative camp has a clear majority of six of the nine judges on the court.
Jackson would be the first black female constitutional judge in US history. So far there have only been two African American judges on the Supreme Court: Thurgood Marshall, who died in 1993, and Clarence Thomas, who has been in office since 1991. A black woman, on the other hand, has never been nominated.