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Senate Democrats Thursday celebrated the historic confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, saying that the moment marks a major milestone for the nation.
“This is an amazing day not only for Justice Brown Jackson but for the United States of America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told a gathering of reporters, staffers and activists after the 53-47 vote.
“This is a long road to equality. We keep trodding on it,” he added. “Sometimes you take a step back. Today we took a giant step forward. We are elated.”
SENATE CONFIRMS BIDEN NOMINEE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON TO SUPREME COURT
Jackson’s confirmation vote comes just over two months after Justice Stephen Breyer said he will retire from the court at the end of its current term. Jackson will be sworn in to fill his seat at that time, which is expected to come in late June or early July.
As the Senate voted Thursday, the back of the chamber was filled with House members from the Congressional Black Caucus who arrived to mark the historic day. With Vice President Harris presiding, second gentleman Doug Emhoff watched the vote in the visitor gallery looking down at the proceedings.
Huge applause broke out throughout the chamber after the final tally was gaveled in, including a standing ovation and multiple embraces between Democrats.
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 22, 2022.
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
SENATE REPUBLICANS EXPECT BIG CHANGES IN JUDICIAL, SUPREME COURT CONFIRMATIONS IF THEY TAKE MAJORITY
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who was first elected to the Senate in 1974, choked up during a press conference after the vote while talking about the example Jackson will set for younger generations.
“I’ve been here for 21 Supreme Court nominations, and I look at all of them and I look at what we’ve learned,” he said. “And here I see somebody extraordinarily well qualified, somebody who will make the court look more like America and somebody, frankly, I can say to my children and my grandchildren, ‘Be proud, be proud of what you see.’
“After 48 years, I’m very, very happy.”
“To be the first you have to be the best,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. “We want to make our justice system look much more like America, and today we took a giant step forward.”
Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., arrives at a news conference at the Capitol March 7, 2018, in Washington, D.C.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Only three Senate Republicans voted for Jackson: Susan Collins, R-Maine; Mitt Romney, R-Utah; and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Most Republicans in the Senate chamber either left before the vote was over or immediately after it closed.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., didn’t speak to a crowd gathered outside the Senate chamber as he exited after the vote.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Thursday acknowledged how historic Jackson’s confirmation is. But he railed against the fact Jackson was supported by much of the progressive left to the exclusion of the candidate he and Senate Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., preferred — Judge J. Michelle Childs, also a Black woman.
SCHUMER REACTS TO CONFIRMATION OF BIDEN’S NOMINEE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON TO THE SUPREME COURT
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to media alongside members of the Senate Judiciary Committee after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court April 7, 2021.
( Tyler Olson/Fox News)
“The left responded pretty fiercely,” Graham said of talk in February of Childs potentially being nominated. “All of the groups that are associated with this Arabella organization — the George Soros world — basically declared war on nominees other than Judge Jackson.”
Graham further decried what Democrats did to previous GOP judicial nominees who were minorities, specifically Judge Janice Rodgers Brown.
“The reason she’s not the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court is because they filibustered her and denied her that ability,” Graham said of Brown’s initial appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005.
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Despite Republicans’ grievances, Democrats were jubilant Thursday.
“Seeing Judge Jackson ascend to the Supreme Court reflects the promise of progress on which our democracy rests,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said ahead of the vote. “What a great day it is in America today.”
“Today the higher angels, as Abraham Lincoln said, held forth and held true,” Schumer said.
