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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2022
Jackson confi rmed as fi rst Black female high court justice
By MARY CLARE JALONICK
and MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate confi rmed
Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court
on Thursday, shattering a historic barrier by
securing her place as the fi rst Black female
justice and giving President Joe Biden a bipar-
tisan endorsement for his promised eff ort to
diversify the high court.
Cheers rang out in the Senate chamber as
Jackson, a 51 year-old appeals court judge with
nine years experience on the federal bench,
was confi rmed 53 to 47, mostly along party
lines but with three Republican votes. Presid-
ing over the vote was Vice President Kamala
Harris, also the fi rst Black woman to reach her
high offi ce.
Biden tweeted afterward that “we’ve taken
another step toward making our highest court
refl ect the diversity of America.” Senate Major-
ity Leader Chuck Schumer exulted that it was
“a wonderful day, a joyous day, an inspiring
day — for the Senate, for the Supreme Court
and for the United States of America.”
Harris said as she left the Capitol that she
was “overjoyed, deeply moved.”
Jackson will take her seat when Justice Ste-
phen Breyer retires this summer, solidifying
the liberal wing of the 6-3 conservative-dom-
inated court. She joined Biden at the White
House to watch the vote, embracing as it came
in.
During four days of Senate hearings last
month, Jackson spoke of her parents’ struggles
through racial segregation and said her “path
was clearer” than theirs as a Black American
after the enactment of civil rights laws. She
attended Harvard University, served as a pub-
lic defender, worked at a private law fi rm and
was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sen-
tencing Commission.
She told senators she would apply the law
“without fear or favor,” and pushed back on
Republican attempts to portray her as too
lenient on criminals she had sentenced.
Jackson will be just the third Black jus-
tice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence
Thomas, and the sixth woman. She will join
three other women, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena
Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett – meaning that
four of the nine justices will be women for the
fi rst time in history.
Her eventual elevation to the court will
be a respite for Democrats who fought three
bruising battles over former President Donald
Trump’s nominees and watched Republicans
cement a conservative majority in the fi nal
days of Trump’s term with Barrett’s confi rma-
tion. While Jackson won’t change the balance,
she will secure a legacy on the court for Biden
and fulfi ll his 2020 campaign pledge to nomi-
nate the fi rst Black female justice.
“This is a tremendously historic day in the
Susan Walsh/AP Photo
President Joe Biden holds hands with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as they watch the Senate
vote on her confi rmation to the Supreme Court from the White House on Thursday.
White House and in the country,” said White
Statements from Republican Sens. Susan
House press secretary Jen Psaki after the vote. Collins, of Maine, Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska,
“And this is a fulfi llment of a promise the pres- and Mitt Romney, of Utah all said the same
ident made to the country.”
thing — they might not always agree with
The atmosphere was joyful, though the Jackson, but they found her to be enormously
Senate was divided, as Thursday’s votes were well qualifi ed for the job. Collins and Mur-
cast. Senators of both parties sat at their desks kowski both decried increasingly partisan con-
and stood to vote, a tradi-
fi rmation fi ghts, which
tion reserved for the most
only worsened during
important matters. The
the battles over Trump’s
JACKSON WILL
upper galleries were almost
three picks. Collins said
BE THE SECOND
full for the fi rst time since
the process was “broken”
the beginning of the pan-
and Murkowski called it
YOUNGEST
demic two years ago, and
“corrosive” and “more
MEMBER OF THE
about a dozen House mem-
detached from reality by
bers, part of the the Con-
the year.”
COURT AFTER
gressional Black Caucus,
Biden, a veteran of a
stood at the back of the
more bipartisan Senate,
BARRETT, 50.
chamber.
said from the day of Brey-
SHE WILL JOIN A
Harris called out the
er’s retirement announce-
tally, pausing with emotion,
in January that he
COURT ON WHICH ment
and Democrats erupted in
wanted support from
loud applause and cheers,
both parties for his histo-
NO ONE IS YET
Schumer pumping his fi sts.
ry-making nominee, and
75, THE FIRST
A handful of Republicans
he invited Republicans
stayed and clapped, but
to the White House as he
TIME THAT HAS
most by then had left.
made his decision. It was
Despite
Republican
HAPPENED IN
an attempted reset from
criticism of her record,
presidency, when
NEARLY 30 YEARS. Trump’s
Jackson eventually won
Democrats vociferously
three GOP votes. The fi nal
opposed the three nom-
tally was far from the overwhelming biparti- inees, and from the end of President Barack
san confi rmations for Breyer and other jus- Obama’s, when Republicans blocked nominee
tices in decades past, but it was still a signif- Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
icant accomplishment for Biden in the 50-50
Once sworn in, Jackson will be the second
split Senate after GOP senators aggressively youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50.
worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft She will join a court on which no one is yet
on crime.
75, the fi rst time that has happened in nearly
30 years.
Jackson’s fi rst term will be marked by cases
involving race, both in college admissions and
voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the
court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions
program since she is a member of its board of
overseers. But the court could split off a sec-
ond case involving a challenge to the Univer-
sity of North Carolina’s admissions process,
which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.
Judith Browne Dianis, executive director
the Advancement Project, a civil rights orga-
nization, said Jackson will make the court
more refl ective of communities that are most
impacted by the judiciary.
“The highest court in the land now will
have a fi rsthand perspective of how the law
impacts communities of color — via voting
rights, police misconduct, abortion access,
housing discrimination or the criminal legal
system, among other issues,” she said. “This
will ultimately benefi t all Americans.”
Jackson could wait as long as three months
to be sworn in, as the court’s session generally
ends in late June or early July. She remains a
judge on the federal appeals court in Wash-
ington, but she stepped away from cases there
when she was nominated in February.
Republicans spent the confi rmation hear-
ings strongly questioning her sentencing
record, including the sentences she handed
down in child pornography cases, which they
argued were too light. Jackson declared that
“nothing could be further from the truth” and
explained her reasoning in detail. Democrats
said she was in line with other judges in her
decisions.
The GOP questioning in the Judiciary
Committee showed the views of many Repub-
licans, though, including Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a fl oor
speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got
tough once in this area.”
Democrats criticized the Republicans’
questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here,
but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen.
Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier
this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomi-
nation 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge
it from committee and moved ahead with her
confi rmation.
In an impassioned moment during the hear-
ings last month, Booker, who is Black, told
Jackson that he felt emotional watching her
testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and
yours” in her image.
“Don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said.
“Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do
I know that? Because you’re here, and I know
what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro,
Jessica Gresko, Zeke Miller and Farnoush
Amiri in Washington, D.C., and Aaron Morri-
son in New York contributed to this report.
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