WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney announced Monday night they will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic elevation to the Supreme Court, giving President Joe Biden’s nominee a burst of bipartisan support and all but assuring she’ll become the first Black female justice.The senators from Alaska and Utah announced their decisions ahead of a procedural vote to advance the nomination and as Democrats pressed to confirm Jackson by the end of the week. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced last week that she would back Jackson.
All three Republicans said they did not expect to agree with all of Jackson’s decisions, but that they found her well qualified. Romney said she “more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.”
With three Republicans supporting her in the 50-50 split Senate, Jackson is on a glidepath to confirmation and on the brink of making history as the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court’s more than 200-year history. Beyond the historic element, Democrats have cited her deep experience in nine years on the federal bench and the chance for her to become the first former public defender on the court.
Both Collins and Murkowski said they believed that the Senate nomination process has become broken as it has become more partisan in the past several decades.
Murkowski said her decision partly rests “on my rejection of the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.”
Biden nominated Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. Biden has sought bipartisan backing for his pick, making repeated calls to senators and inviting Republicans to the White House.
The Senate’s 53-47 vote Monday evening was to “discharge” Jackson’s nomination from the Senate Judiciary Committee after the panel deadlocked, 11-11, on whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor.
The committee vote, split along party lines, was the first deadlock on a Supreme Court nomination in three decades.
“Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court,” Biden tweeted earlier Monday. “She deserves to be confirmed as the next justice.”
The Judiciary committee’s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said he was opposing Jackson’s nomination because “she and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government.”
The committee hadn’t deadlocked since 1991, when Biden was chairman and a motion to send the nomination of current Justice Clarence Thomas to the floor with a “favorable” recommendation failed on a 7-7 vote. The committee then voted to send the nomination to the floor without a recommendation, meaning it could still be brought up for a vote.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky set the tone for most of his party last week when he said he “cannot and will not” support Jackson, citing GOP concerns raised in hearings about her sentencing record and her backing from liberal advocacy groups.
Republicans on the Judiciary panel continued their push Monday to paint Jackson as soft on crime, defending their repeated questions about her sentencing on sex crimes.
“Questions are not attacks,” said Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, one of several GOP senators on the panel who hammered the point in the hearings two weeks ago.
Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth.” Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions. And on Monday they criticized their GOP counterparts’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
The questioning was filled with “absurdities of disrespect,” said Booker, who also is Black, and he said he will “rejoice” when she is confirmed.
Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, expressed disappointment with the tie, even as he noted that Jackson had cleared an important hurdle. He said “history will be watching” during the full Senate vote later this week.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri and Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Becky Bohrer in Alaska contributed.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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So, Mitt—how does the Mormon Church feel about this woman’s views?
It is like I had stated in a previous article—she was going to be a shoo-in.
Mitt is of the old type Morman beliefs, where Mormon women were to reject the secular values of individuality and devote themselves to the eternal women’s roles of marriage, motherhood, and submissiveness. But it is Mitt who apparently cannot tell which Mormon gender he was designed to be, as reflected in his submission to his own women, and the international establishment as the Mormon women were supposed to submit to the Mormon men. He is apparently married to the American Establishment and now acts like one of the mothers of all American traitors, to his church and his government. He has drunk the cool-aid of Self-interest and gone over to the cult of international establishment ideals. Party at this point is just the vehicle he uses to get the job done for the establishment of making one world government a possibility, a marriage made in hell. Like used car salesmen they “Assume the Sale” as a done deed and jump on board the train of political expediency they think will lead them to power, but will only end in a political crash, burn and personal political derailment.
Well The ” Rino ” Republiicans have Shown Which Political Party They Actually Belonged To Instead of Claiming To Be Republicans. It Was To Be Expected That ” Never Trumper, Mitt Romney , Would
Seek His Vindictive Revenge Against The Republican Party Members And Donald Trump Whenever He Had The opportunity And Voting To Seat Joe Biden’s Nominee To The Supreme Court Was His Way Of Doing It.Of Course Lindsey Grayham Didn’t Have To Vote For Seating Ketanji Brown Jackson on The Supreme Court as He already Knew That She Had The Votes Needed So He Was Safe In Voting Against Seating Her On The Court. Of Course, We Could Count On ” Rinos ” Susan Collins And ” Rino, ” Lisa Murkowski , To Vote For Former Judge Jackson , No Suprise There.
Unfortunately with the # of traitors the GOP has, part of me, feared this was inevitable..
Romney, Murkowski and Collins, the obstructionists to American redemption and cleansing of corruption, who will swallow a little bit of corruption to keep smiles and political comity in their workplace. A little but of corruption of pornographic perversion is like being a little bit pregnant. Sooner or later something pops out that is not what was expected. Would they drink a glass of milk that had a little bit of aids infected urine, or a small wad of COVID infected snot sneezed in? The bad effects are not felt immediately but it is only a matter of time before the corruption takes over and debilitates he/she who believes tolerating a little corruption now for immediate gratification will not be followed in the long run by the social seeds of infection, accepted to gain 15 seconds of political comity where the benefits appear to be mutual, but others end up paying the price as usual when reason is compromised for emotion or racial feel good doing.
MAY a pox, strike down, the cretin voters in Alaska, Maine and Utah, who GAVE US these three traitors…
Where Will Ketanji Brown Jackson Fit In As New Supreme Court Justice When She Doesn’t Have The Integerty or the knowledge to be able to Defind What A Woman Is And Wouldn’t declare What her definion of What Constituted a Woman.
More discord among SCOTUS will occur more often than not. Biden’s has broken the law by spefically saying that “only” a black female would be nominated for the position but then the democrats can break any law and it is always swept under the table when it is one of their own who breaks the law – like shooting game used to humans but then I am not a “hunter” only a fish.
It’s very strange what has happened to Mutt Romney. He actually voted no on a previous court appointment for Jackson on a lower court. What has happened to this Mutt over the past few years? It’s almost like he has had some kind of stroke or something that has caused a mental episode. I remember when he was running for president against Obama he was as conservative as most anyone, and was saying all the right things. I really think something is misfiring in his brain. Collins and Murkowski have always been what they are.
HE got his marching orders from pelosi, more likely…
traitors to america is what they are.
this judge malarky is just another nail in our coffin along with un secure borders.
This is just what the left wing liberals have been trying to accomplish for years now, getting one of their own radicals on the SCOTUS. If we don’t purge all these left wingers from our government this appointment is only one more step they will have made in their quest to destroy this constitutional republic of ours and install their form of socialism, with them staying in control of course.
LETS HOPE< if by some miracle, we win not just a majority in the senate later this year, BUT A SUPER MAJORITY, we can then IMPEACH HER!
Romney lives in a cotton candy world where he shares only with other entitled persons. The fact that Jackson is related to Paul Ryan by marriage lengthens the despotic arms of the uber rich control politicians, sucking those of us and our children dry and giving no thought to supposed equity, while fostering Woke bigotry. Does he still put his dog on a crate on top of his car when he goes on vacation….that seems to be how someone like Romney treats those if those of us in the 99%…
That is news to me… Thanks for the heads up.
Its Just Another Way For Joe Biden’s Handlers To ” Pack The Supreme Court ” without actually Seating Another Leftist democrat To The Supreme Court.
These three are helping to destroy America. What could they possibly be thinking??? How about a conservative black female candidate???
Big surprise there…NOT. Just a matter of time before Lindsey Graham the girly man follows suit.
They are all simply racists. Her “nomination” was racist and will be her confirmation. One more step down the tube to depravity.
So the other 2 biggest RINOs in the senate joined the third Rino. Not surprised but wondered what took them so long. Collins can afford to take a chance since she has a while before her next election. But the other 2 RINOs are finished this November.
I certainly HOPE THEY are finished, this november!
well as suspected -the 50 democrat senators are a carbon copy of their leader in the white house -the self proclaimed pedophile
but now 3 of the rinos in the republican party also ring forth their pedophilic leanings-
and racism and skin color are to become the determining factors in future scotus justice confirmations-and the left has now
got themselves a rubber stamp for years in to the future -unless we find a solid reason to impeach this ?? can’t even call it a woman
since given the chance it could not explain what constitutes a ” woman “