President Joe Biden nominated Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court on Friday, elevating an African-American woman to a seat on the bench for the first time
In a formal ceremony at the White House on Friday afternoon, Biden said, “I am honored to introduce to the country a daughter of former public school teachers, a creative proven consensus, an accomplished attorney, a distinguished jurist, one of the best, on one of the most prestigious courts in the nation.”
Biden made his announcement just two years after promising that, if he came to power and had the opportunity to nominate someone for the Supreme Court, he would choose an African-American woman, because none has been part of the highest court in his 232 years of history.
“For too long, (the members of) our government and our courts have not resembled what the United States was like you”, recalled Biden during an act at the White House.
With the mind on future generations
Flanked by Jackson and by the first African-American vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, Biden called for greater diversity in institutions, to “inspire all young people to believe that they can also serve their country at the highest level”.
In the same sense, Jackson herself trusted that, if the Senate confirms her to occupy one of the nine seats on the Supreme Court, her work on the court “inspires future generations of Americans.”
“I am truly honored by the extraordinary honor of this nomination,” said the judge, of 51 years, in a brief speech.
The arrival of Jackson to the court would not change the ideological composition of the US Supreme Court, which with six judges from conservative leaning and three progressives, leans more to the right than at any time since the decade of 1930.
However, will broaden the diversity of a court in which there are five white men, an African-American and three women, one of them Latina Sonia Sotomayor.
If confirmed, which seems likely, Jackson will replace one of those white men, Stephen Breyer, who is one of only three members of the court’s progressive caucus and who announced in January that he plans to retire to the 83 years.
But Breyer will not leave office until the end of the current session of the Supreme Court in June or July, for which means that Jackson will not have the opportunity to pronounce on the burning issues that the court has on its agenda, including the possibility of limiting access to abortion in the US.
In full tension over Ukraine
Jackson, who has been a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia since last year, was the favorite of the progressive wing of the Democrats among the three candidates that Biden considered for the position.
The president interviewed in person to Jackson last 14 February and also spoke the same day with two other judges, Leondra Kruger and J. Michelle Childs, the latter backed by one of the Biden’s great African-American allies, Congressman James Clyburn.
Biden did not make his decision until this Thursday afternoon, in full agitation over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and despite the tension arising from of that war decided to make the announcement this Friday, explained the spokeswoman for the White House, Jen Psaki, in her daily press conference.
The reason is that the president wanted to keep his promise to nominate the judge before the end of February, and he was interested in doing so before his annual State of the Union address, which will take place next Tuesday, March 1.
The week that Next week, Jackson will begin meeting with senators to get to know her better, and the Democrats’ goal is for her final confirmation vote to take place before April 8, when the Senate begins a two-week recess.
Optimism among Democrats
It is possible that the Senate’s attention to the war in Ukraine will delay that timetable, but few in Washington believe that the Jackson nomination could fail, because it only takes a simple majority of 51 votes to confirm it .
Last year, Jackson was confirmed for her current position as a federal judge with the votes in favor of three Republican senators -Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham-, although the latter criticized Biden’s decision this Friday.
For the president, Jackson has “one of the brightest legal minds” in the country, and especially appreciates the fact that, if confirmed, she would be the first Supreme Court justice to have experience as a lawyer for low-income people at the federal level.
She also worked at the US Sentencing Commission to reduce the sentences of most of federal drug trafficking crimes, including crack cocaine, something that allowed the release of at least 1 800 prisoners and shortened the sentences of some 12,12.
And, when it was judge in a federal court in Washington at the end of the last decade, frustrated some plans of the then president, Donald Trump, on issues such as immigration or labor rights.
The daughter of two teachers who studied in racially segregated public schools, Jackson grew up in Miami, inspired by her father’s passion for law, who studied law when she was very young.
“It was my father who pushed me down this path,” the judge said this Friday.
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