WASHINGTON (AP) — The first full day of questions for Supreme Court nominee Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson delved quickly into some of the big ones, a grueling marathon of debate around President Joe Biden’s historic pick.
What is the judge’s “judicial philosophy”? What are her views on “court packing,” the idea of adding more justices to the court?
And what’s her response to claims by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley that she has been too lenient in sentencing child pornography offenders and is generally soft on crime?
Jackson is making history as the first Black woman nominated for the court, which once upheld racial segregation in America and for 233 years has been filled mainly with white men.
Biden tapped the 51-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, one of her mentors. Democrats have the potential votes in the 50-50 Senate to confirm Jackson, even if all Republicans line up opposed, and her nomination is on track for a vote by Easter.
If confirmed, Jackson would also become the sixth woman justice in the court’s history and with three now serving “the closest we’ve ever come to gender equity,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Takeaways from the start of Tuesday’s first day of questioning in Jackson’s confirmation hearing:
‘STAY IN MY LANE’
With nearly a decade as a judge, and a lawyer who has worked in public and private practice, Jackson is undeniably well qualified to be a justice on the Supreme Court, senators say.
The question, then, is what is her judicial philosophy — will she be an activist judge, trying to set policy, or one who adheres to strict interpretations of the law?
“I am trying, in every case, to stay in my lane,” Jackson told the senators.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., launched the probe of the judge’s views as the first question in Tuesday’s hearing, providing Jackson an opportunity to lay out her approach to the law.
Jackson told the senators she starts from a “neutral” position and approaches each case “without fear or favor.” She said she tries to listen to all sides and then apply the law.
SOFT ON CRIME?
Much the way Southern senators sought to portray the first Black nominee to the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, as soft on crime 55 years ago, some Republican senators see Jackson’s treatment of criminal defendants as one of their strongest arguments against her.
Hawley, R-Mo., set the tone even before the hearings began, raising concerns that Jackson gave child pornography defendants lighter sentences than required.
On Tuesday, Jackson said flatly: “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The mother of two daughters told the senators how she has pored through the graphic evidence of child pornography cases in her courtroom and faced the defendants before her.
