The Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing Ketanji Brown Jackson closer to confirmation, setting up a vote next week to recommend her nomination to the full Senate and seat her as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
Durbin criticized the Republican focus on the issue, saying the GOP senators asked “the toughest, meanest questions and then race to Twitter to see if somebody is tweeting.” In a Senate floor speech shortly afterward, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, one of the Republicans who asked Jackson repeatedly about the pornography cases, defended her colleagues, saying the questioning was “not an attack.”
So far, no Republicans have said they will vote for her. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, cited the Republicans’ concerns about her sentencing history, along with her support from liberal advocacy groups, in announcing Thursday that he “cannot and will not” back her. “I’m not letting anybody in the Senate steal my joy,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. “I just look at you, and I start getting full of emotion.”