Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court
Categories: US NEWS
The Senate on Thursday voted 53-47 to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.Three Republican senators — Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — joined all 48 Democrats and two independents in voting to confirm Jackson to the nation’s highest court.Jackson, 51, will become the Supreme Court’s 116th justice and the first Black woman ever to sit on its bench.Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation’s first woman, first Black person and first Asian American to hold that office, presided over the historic vote. The final tally — which was delayed by more than 15 minutes by GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s absence — was met with applause in the chamber when Harris announced it.“In the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, never, never has a Black woman held the title of justice,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech before the vote. “Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the first and I believe the first of more to come.”"Judge Jackson’s confirmation was a historic moment for our nation,” Biden tweeted. “We’ve taken another step toward making our highest court reflect the diversity of America. She will be an incredible Justice, and I was honored to share this moment with her.” Biden and Harris will host Jackson at an event on the South Lawn on Friday to celebrate her confirmation.Her confirmation comes less than two months after Biden introduced the federal appeals court judge as his pick to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer — fulfilling his campaign promise of appointing a Black woman to the Supreme Court.Jackson won’t be sworn in until this summer, when Breyer officially retires.When she does take her seat, the nine-member court will comprise four women — Jackson and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett — the most ever at one time. It will also be the first time in U.S. history that white men won’t be the majority on the Supreme Court. The bench will include five men, four of them white.Jackson, though, won’t change the ideological makeup of the court, as conservatives will still hold a 6-3 majority.“My very earliest memories are of watching my father study,” Jackson said during her confirmation hearings. “He had his stack of law books on the kitchen table while I sat across from him with my stack of coloring books.” She graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, where she met her future husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson, a gastrointestinal surgeon. They married in 1996 and have two daughters, Leila and Talia.In addition to her public defender work, Jackson served as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, working to reduce the penalties for crack cocaine offenders.She was appointed to that post in 2009 by then-President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president.Obama also nominated Jackson to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2012. She was confirmed with bipartisan support in 2013.