Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, according to a new report.
After holding a second personal meeting with Jackson on Tuesday afternoon, Collins told the New York Times she had decided to support President Biden’s nominee, saying the Jackson had alleviated some of her concerns that arose during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.
Collins, who often remains a swing vote on Supreme Court nominees, said she felt reassured that Jackson would not be “bending the law to meet a personal preference,” according to the report.
“In recent years, senators on both sides of the aisle have gotten away from what I perceive to be the appropriate process for evaluating judicial nominees,” Collins told the New York Times. “In my view, the role under the Constitution assigned to the Senate is to look at the credentials, experience and qualifications of the nominee. It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the individual ideology of a senator or would vote exactly as an individual senator would want.”
Collins, who was one of just three Republicans to vote for Jackson’s confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in June, is the first GOP senator to back the judge’s Supreme Court confirmation.
During an hour-long meeting on Tuesday, Jackson told Collins she “would forever stay out of” the issue of court packing after the judge declined to express an opinion about whether additional seats should be added to the nine-seat Supreme Court during her confirmation hearings last week. The refusal to answer questions about expanding the court concerned many Republicans.
Several Republican senators, including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, also questioned Jackson on her sentencing record from her time as a federal district judge, noting a number of child-pornography cases where she imposed shorter sentences than the federal guidelines recommended. Hawley said Jackson’s record “endangers our children.”
Collins told the New York Times there “can be no question that she is qualified to be a Supreme Court justice,” noting her “breadth of experience as a law clerk, attorney in private practice, federal public defender, member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and district court judge for more than eight years.”
The Maine Republican expressed concern that the nomination process had become too partisan.
“I don’t expect that any of the justices I am going to agree with on every decision — that’s impossible,” she said. “But I do want them to be able to be devoid of prejudgement, partisanship, preference and to be impartial and rule consistent with legal precedent, the language of the law and the Constitution.”
Collin’s support delivers a win to Democrats who hoped they would not have to force through Jackson’s confirmation without any Republican support.
Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said earlier this week that he “sincerely” hopes Democrats will have Republican support for the nomination and said he had been “quietly” reaching out to Republican senators, according to the report.
“There are those within the Republican Party, I know from speaking to them, who understand the history, the significance of this nomination and want to make sure that Mr. Lincoln’s party, the Grand Old Party, is on board,” he said.
Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are also seen as two Republicans who could come out in support of Jackson. Murkowski supported Jackson’s confirmation to the appeals court, while Romney did not.
Source: National Review
