Patrick Jackson, husband of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, wipes tears next to daughter Leila as Judge Jackson delivers her opening statement at her U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., on Monday.
WASHINGTON--Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden's nominee to become the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, stressed her patriotism and Christian faith on Monday while Republicans asked whether she has a hidden agenda that favours criminals.
In her opening statement during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Jackson said she was blessed to be "born in this great nation" and added: "I must also pause to reaffirm my thanks to God, for it is faith that sustains me at this moment." Jackson, 51, pledged independence if confirmed by the Senate to the nation's top judicial body and embraced a limited role for jurists.
Jackson, who has served since last year as a federal appellate judge after eight years as a federal district court judge, also reflected on opportunities she had that her parents, who grew up in era of racial segregation in the South, did not. "My parents taught me that, unlike the many barriers that they had had to face growing up, my path was clearer, such that if I worked hard and believed in myself, in America I could do anything or be anything I wanted to be," Jackson said.
In opening statements by committee members, Democrats hailed the historic nature of Jackson's selection for the lifetime post and praised her judicial record. Republicans took aim at her record and tried to link her to advocacy groups on the left, while some tried to paint Jackson as "soft on crime."
The harshest attacks came from Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn. Hawley has suggested Jackson was overly lenient toward certain child pornography defendants when sentencing them to prison terms - claims that sentencing experts have called misleading.
"I can only wonder: what's your hidden agenda?" Blackburn asked. "Is it to let violent criminals, cop killers and child predators back to the streets?"
As the hearing unfolded, Biden touted Jackson on Twitter as "a brilliant legal mind." Biden, who as a candidate in 2020 pledged to appoint a Black woman to the court, last month nominated Jackson to succeed retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, 83.
"Members of this committee: If I am confirmed, I commit to you that I will work productively to support and defend the Constitution and the grand experiment of American democracy that has endured over these past 246 years," Jackson said.
"I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously. I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favour, consistent with my judicial oath," she added.
Her confirmation would not change the ideological balance of the Supreme Court, which includes three conservative justices appointed by Biden's Republican predecessor Donald Trump. But it would let Biden freshen the court's liberal bloc with a justice young enough to serve for decades.
If confirmed, she would be the 116th justice to serve on the high court, the sixth woman and the third Black person. With Jackson on the bench, the court for the first time would have four women and two Black justices.
"It's not easy being the first. You have to be the best and in some ways the brightest," Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the committee's chairman, told her.
Durbin said attacks on Jackson's approach to criminal justice issues are baseless and her judicial record showed she would not be a "rubber stamp" for Biden. Durbin noted that law enforcement organizations including the Fraternal Order of Police have endorsed Jackson's nomination.
Jackson faces questions from senators on Tuesday and Wednesday. Republicans said among other things they would ask her whether she supports efforts on the left to expand the Supreme Court to erase its current 6-3 conservative majority.
