WASHINGTON – The testimony on Thursday during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s fourth day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings included witnesses who evaluated her capacity to serve as Supreme Court justice.
The panel of witnesses included Richard B. Rosenthal, an attorney and former Miami Palmetto Senior High School classmate, who said he still remembers the classroom celebration after the “supernova” debate champion’s admission to Harvard was announced.
“Every student was so happy for Ketanji and so proud of her accomplishment. Nobody was jealous, nobody was resentful and nobody was at all surprised because she was Ketanji ... No matter how high she would climb, she always threw ladders down to the rest of us, and encouraged us, and helped us make our own upward climb,” Rosenthal said.
Ann Claire Williams, D. Jean Veta, and Joseph M. Drayton, of the American Bar Association committee, were the witnesses during the first panel of interviews. Veta, who was involved in the review, said her colleagues did not believe she was soft on crime. Veta said, “One high-ranking attorney in the U.S. attorney’s office responded, ‘I vehemently disagree.’
“Outstanding, excellent, superior, superb; those are the comments,” said Williams, the ABA chair.
The ABA gave Jackson the highest rating. For the final hearing’s second panel, the Democrats and the Republicans were able to choose witnesses.
The Democrats’ witnesses
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Jackson’s confirmation would be a civil rights achievement for the country, as she stands to become the first Black woman on the 233-year-old Supreme Court.
“It would be a sad day in America,” Beatty said about the possibility that Jackson would not be confirmed.
Wade Henderson, the president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, agreed with Beatty. He said Jackson’s background is “absolutely extraordinary” and her “mastery of the law is second to none.”
“My hope is that the partisan considerations that may have affected some in the questioning of Judge Jackson will be set aside and that members of this committee, out of their love for the country and its people and the future of the court, will do what’s right,” Henderson said.
Aside from Rosenthal and Beatty, the Democrats had two more witnesses: Risa Goluboff, the first woman to serve as dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, and Capt. Frederick Thomas, the president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
The Republicans’ witnesses
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican supporter of former President Donald Trump, said Jackson’s views were “outside the mainstream” and refused to agree with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, that President Joe Biden was the “duly elected and lawfully serving” president.
- Jennifer Mascott, of The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State
- Eleanor McCullen, an activist against abortion
- Keisha Russell, of First Liberty
- Alessandra Serano, of Operation Underground Railroad
Republicans continued to rely on a 2013 case to accuse her of not being tough enough on child pornography cases. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, wanted to remind the public again that Jackson sentenced Wesley Hawkins, 19, who plead guilty to downloading child porn, to three months in prison in 2013.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Illinois, criticized Blackburn’s idea that Hawkin’s case needed to be scrutinized because it defined her as a judge. Durbin said it was clear Jackson was not any way on the side of the offenders. He also praised Jackson’s dignity, determination, and strength.
“Some of the attacks on this judge were unfair, unrelenting and beneath the dignity of the United States Senate,” Durbin said.
After two long days of grueling interviews, Jackson did not have to attend the final hearing. With Vice President Kamala Harris’s vote, Democrats are on track to confirm her lifetime appointment before spring recess starts on April 8. She would replace Justice Stephen G. Breyer who is retiring at 83.
Highlights from the hearings
Sen. Cory Booker cut through a tense third day of hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Wednesday with a speech on racial progress that drew tears from the nominee and held the rapt attention of colleagues. Read more >