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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 2022)
Page 4 March 23, 2022 ‘Without Fear or Favor’ Continued from Front $5.00 TEES CLUBS FAMILY REUNIONS SCHOOL CLUBS BUSINESSES SCREEN PRINTING 971-570-8214 energytrust.org an opening on the federal appeals court in Washington, just down the hill from the Supreme Court. The American Bar Association, which evaluates judicial nomi- nees, has given Jackson its highest rating, “well qualified.” Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the NAACP, said she was excited to see a Black woman on the verge of a high court seat. “Representation matters,” Wal- lace said. “It’s critical to have di- verse experience on the bench. It should reflect the rich cultural di- versity of this country.” The Republicans are trying to use Jackson’s nomination to brand Democrats as soft on crime, an emerging theme in GOP midterm election campaigns. Biden has chosen several former public de- fenders for life-tenured judicial posts. In addition, Jackson served on the U.S. Sentencing Commis- sion, an independent agency creat- ed by Congress to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences. Sentencing expert Douglas Ber- man, an Ohio State law professor, wrote on his blog that Jackson’s record shows she is skeptical of the range of prison terms recommend- ed for child pornography cases, “but so too were prosecutors in the majority of her cases and so too are district judges nationwide.” Biden chose Jackson in Febru- ary, fulfilling a campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in American history. She would take the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced in January that he would retire af- ter 28 years on the court. Jackson once worked as a law clerk to Breyer early in her legal career. Democrats are moving quickly to confirm Jackson, even though Breyer’s seat will not officially open until the summer. They have no votes to spare in a 50-50 Sen- ate that they run by virtue of the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. But they are not moving as fast as Republicans did when they in- stalled Amy Coney Barrett on the court little more than a month af- ter the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and days before the 2020 presidential election. Barrett, the third of President Donald Trump’s high court picks, entrenched the court’s conserva- tive majority when she took the place of the liberal Ginsburg. The court revealed Monday that Justice Thomas, the oldest member of the court at 73, was in the hospital being treated for an infection but that he did not have COVID-19. Last year, Jackson won Senate confirmation by a 53-44 vote, with three Republicans supporting her. She is married to Patrick Jack- son, a surgeon in Washington, who sat in the audience with their two daughters, one in college and the other in high school. Jackson wiped away tears as his wife ex- pressed her love for him. She is related by marriage to former House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who was the Repub- lican vice presidential nominee in 2012. Ryan has voiced support for her nomination. Jackson has said her children have kept her in touch with reality, even as she has held a judge’s gav- el since 2013. In the courtroom, she told an audience in Athens, Georgia, in 2017, “people listen and gener- ally do what I tell them to do.” At home, though, her daughters “make it very clear I know noth- ing, I should not tell them any- thing, much less give them any orders, that is, if they talk to me at all.”
