When Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced he would be retiring as soon as his replacement was confirmed by the Senate, he gave President Joe Biden perhaps the only chance he’ll ever have to make his mark on the Court.
Biden had promised to nominate a “black woman” if he ever had the opportunity—and that is precisely what he did in nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Most people thought that because Brown Jackson’s appointment would not change the mostly conservative makeup of the Court in any way—a perceived liberal replacing a bona fide liberal—and because of her standing as the first Black woman in the Court’s history, and because she went through the confirmation process with the Judiciary Committee in 2021, one year ago, for her current position, her appointment would be approved in a show of bipartisanship that is ever so rare in today’s America. Most people thought a bipartisan confirmation process would allow Republicans to appear big-hearted and welcoming.
Well, “most people” were wrong. We were suckered into and down the rabbit hole of delusional thinking. Although three Republicans, Romney, Murkowski and Collins, have announced they will vote for her confirmation, the final vote will be anything but bipartisan. The voting is scheduled for 1:45 pm today. She will be confirmed, just not in the way Biden would have liked. After that, Congress will go back to the normal internecine warfare we’ve grown to know so well.
In the Judiciary Committee hearing on her nomination, the knives came out long and sharp. The vileness of the Republican strategy was exemplified Tuesday on the Senate floor by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who fancies himself quite the presidential contender, when he said, “The last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis. This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.”
Cotton’s execrable remark was apparently meant to suggest that not only is Judge Brown Jackson a Nazi sympathizer, she’s also a full-blown Nazi herself!
Why would this Harvard Law graduate and former Infantry officer say such a stupid and hateful thing? How could a demonstrably smart guy stoop that low? What could he possibly stand to gain from such a ridiculous statement? In defending himself, he said he attacked the Judge, because, when working for the Federal Public Defender Program, she defended three Guantanamo detainees, thereby making her sympathetic to terrorists.
In their questioning and public statements, it’s almost as if Republicans were describing an entirely different person. For example, they criticized her for being “soft on crime” and berated her for lenient sentences that go against judicial sentencing guidelines. But Judge Brown Jackson enjoys the full-throated support of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest law enforcement labor organization in the United States, with more than 356,000 members. This organization rarely comments on judicial appointments, but they’re all in for her. Yet, still, on Fox News over the weekend, Senator Ted Cancun Cruz criticized Brown Jackson for her work as a public defender, arguing people go into that line of work because “their heart is with the murderers, the criminals, and that’s who they’re rooting for.”*
Ask yourself why, really why, Republicans are nearly united in their opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, who, by all accounts, both deeply conservative and liberal, is eminently qualified for the appointment. Why did a number of Republican Judiciary Committee members, led by Cruz, focus so much on pedophilia? Why, in their 11.5 hours of questioning, were so many of their sanctimonious “questions” dripping with condescension, misogyny and naked racism? Why were they so very proud of that heroic accomplishment?
I will tell you why. It is because to this day 32% of Republican voters have continued to fall for the Big Lie and believe Joe Biden’s election was illegitimate (23%), or they’re not sure (9%).
It now seems the main goal in life for most Republican politicians, regardless of national interest, is getting reelected—they’ve become addicted to the power in the Washington they decry—, and to do that requires outright pandering to the Trump base and its enablers and supporters. Mustn’t upset Tucker Carlson and his 3.21 million misguided viewers.
American leaders, whose opportunistic ambitions know no bounds, are digging us a hole out of which not even light can escape. This is how democracies and empires die.
*Public Defenders do noble work for little compensation, representing people who would otherwise go unrepresented. They provide the legal representation the Constitution requires. The same thing John Adams did for the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre.
Tags: Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court
