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The Senate voted 53-47 on Monday to move forward with a confirmation vote for President Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was deadlocked 11-11 along party lines, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made a procedural move to discharge her nomination from the committee with Monday’s vote.
Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., were the only three Republicans to vote in favor of Jackson.
“After reviewing Judge Jackson’s record and testimony, I have concluded that she is a well-qualified jurist and a person of honor,” Sen. Romney said in a statement minutes before Monday’s vote. “While I do not expect to agree with every decision she may make on the Court, I believe that she more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court nominee for U.S. President Joe Biden, departs a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, March 23, 2022.
(Julia Nikhinson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sen. Murkowski criticized the “corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees” in announcing her support for Jackson.
“My support rests on Judge Jackson’s qualifications, which no one questions; her demonstrated judicial independence; her demeanor and temperament; and the important perspective she would bring to the court as a replacement for Justice Breyer,” Sen. Murkowski said.
Collins, Murkowski, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., were the only Republicans to vote for Jackson when she was confirmed as an appeals court judge last year, but Graham said he could not support her nomination to the Supreme Court.
Biden nominated Jackson to the Supreme Court in February after vowing to nominate the first Black woman to the high court during his campaign.
Republicans grilled Jackson during 30 hours of hearings last month on the sentences she handed down to criminal offenders, particularly in child pornography cases.
“Having carefully studied her record, unfortunately, I think she and I have fundamentally different views on the role judges should play in our system of government,” the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said Monday. “Because of those disagreements, I can’t support her nomination.”
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The full Senate will start debating Jackson’s nomination on Tuesday ahead of a confirmation vote later in the week.
Fox News’s Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
