Josh Hawley wanted a gotcha moment. How Ketanji Brown Jackson shut him down.
Although Republicans have raised the specter of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s and Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings multiple times this week, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s credentials should have made her confirmation hearings more like the proceedings for Justice Neil Gorsuch. Republicans may not like having a Democratic nominee to consider, but her qualifications are impeccable and her demeanor — even in the face of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, pulling out his “Antiracist Baby” book — is laudable.
Instead of asking questions designed to clarify, Republicans have gone straight to the fringes.
Like Gorsuch, who drew letters of support from bipartisan groups of lawyers, Jackson’s support includes the Fraternal Order of Police and former Republican appointees to the federal bench, including an introduction from retired Judge Thomas Griffith, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In another era, Jackson’s nomination would have hardly been contentious at all. In 1986, former Justice Antonin Scalia’s confirmation vote was 98-0; former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s 1993 vote was 96-3.
Yet Jackson most likely faces a confirmation vote along close to party lines: She picked up just three Republican votes during her confirmation to the Court of Appeals last year, a reflection of the times we live in and not of her credentials. Her 2022 confirmation hearings seem to have taken on the patina of a Festivus airing of grievances.
Kavanaugh, many will remember, emotionally and at times rudely defended himself against an allegation of a drunken teenage sexual assault. He insolently asked Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar if she had a drinking problem as she questioned him. This type of retort was, obviously, out of the question for Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to sit on the Supreme Court.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/josh-hawley-wanted-a-gotcha-moment-how-ketanji-brown-jackson-shut-him-down/ar-AAVqh8K
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