Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney say they will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson\u2019s historic elevation to the Supreme Court, giving President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee a burst of bipartisan support and all but assuring she\u2019ll become the first Black female justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The senators from Alaska and Utah announced their decisions Monday night ahead of a procedural vote to advance the nomination and as Democrats pressed to confirm Jackson by the end of the week. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced last week that she would back Jackson, noting her \u201cstellar qualifications\u201d as a federal judge, public defender and member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All three Republicans said they did not expect to agree with all of Jackson\u2019s decisions, but they found her extremely well qualified. Romney said Jackson \u201cmore than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.\u201d Murkowski said she will \u201cbring to the Supreme Court a range of experience from the courtroom that few can match given her background in litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With three Republicans supporting her in the 50-50 split Senate, Jackson is on a glide path to confirmation and on the brink of making history as the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court\u2019s more than 200-year history. Beyond the historic element, Democrats have cited her deep experience in nine years on the federal bench and the chance for her to become the first former public defender on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Collins and Murkowski said they believed that the Senate nomination process has become broken as it has become more partisan in the past several decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murkowski, who is up for reelection this year, said her decision partly rests \u201con my rejection of the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the vote, Murkowski said she had \u201cassumed a level of risk\u201d but \u201cthere\u2019s three of us that found ourselves in this place where I believe the strength, qualifications of the candidate are such that are appropriate for the court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden nominated Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who will step down after the court\u2019s session ends this summer. Biden has sought bipartisan backing for his pick, making repeated calls to senators and inviting Republicans to the White House. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that administration officials would work the phones until the last minute to maximize support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJudge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court,\u201d Biden tweeted earlier Monday. \u201cShe deserves to be confirmed as the next justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Senate\u2019s 53-47 vote Monday evening was to \u201cdischarge\u201d Jackson\u2019s nomination from the Senate Judiciary Committee after the panel deadlocked, 11-11, on whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The committee vote, split along party lines, was the first deadlock on a Supreme Court nomination in three decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Judiciary committee\u2019s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said he opposed Jackson\u2019s nomination because \u201cshe and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The committee hadn\u2019t deadlocked since 1991, when Biden was chairman and a motion to send the nomination of current Justice Clarence Thomas to the floor with a \u201cfavorable\u201d recommendation failed on a 7-7 vote. The committee then voted to send the nomination to the floor without a recommendation, meaning it could still be brought up for a vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky set the tone for most of his party last week when he said he \u201ccannot and will not\u201d support Jackson, citing GOP concerns raised in hearings about her sentencing record and her backing from liberal advocacy groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans on the Judiciary panel continued their push Monday to paint Jackson as soft on crime, defending their repeated questions about her sentencing on sex crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cQuestions are not attacks,\u201d said Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, one of several GOP senators on the panel who hammered the point in the hearings two weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that \u201cnothing could be further from the truth\u201d and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions. And on Monday they criticized their GOP counterparts\u2019 questioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,\u201d said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The questioning was filled with \u201cabsurdities of disrespect,\u201d said Booker, who also is Black. He said he will \u201crejoice\u201d when Jackson is confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, expressed disappointment with the committee tie, even as he noted that Jackson had cleared an important hurdle. He said \u201chistory will be watching\u201d during the full Senate vote later this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro and Josh Boak in Washington contributed.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The senators from Alaska and Utah announced their decisions Monday night ahead of a procedural vote to advance the nomination and as Democrats pressed to confirm Jackson by the end of the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":53654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":9,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,33,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5650],"class_list":["post-17739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"S6CE6BGVUBCNXFYTZ3UNZPYEE4","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/2022\/04\/05\/murkowski-romney-back-jackson-all-but-assure-confirmation\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n