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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Sam Levin (now) and Lauren Gambino (earlier)

Ketanji Brown Jackson says Roe v Wade ‘the settled law of the supreme court’ – as it happened

Ketanji Brown Jackson

We are ending our live coverage for the day, thanks for following along. The hearing is on another break, but will continue at around 8.20pm local time with several more senators. For more reading on the hearings:

Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, has followed Tom Cotton by pointing out that that Jackson is supported by victims’ advocacy groups and law enforcement groups. The two then had an emotional exchange about the impact of their parents and ancestors.

“I was born here with an African name that my parents gave me to demonstrate their pride in who they were, and their pride and hope in what I could be,” Jackson said, adding later, “I stand on the shoulders of people from that generation, and I focus at times on my faith when I’m going through hard times. Those are the kinds of things I learned from my grandmother.”

Later, Booker asked her to reflect on her earlier comments about the challenge of being a working mother. She said, in part:

I had struggled like so many working moms to juggle motherhood and my career ... There will be hearings during your daughter’s recital. There will be emergencies on birthdays that you have to handle. I know so many young women in this country, especially who have small kids, who have these momentous events, and they have to make a choice ... I hope for [my daughters] ... seeing me move to the Supreme Court, that they can know you don’t have to be perfect in your career trajectory and you can still end up doing what you want to do. You just have to understand that there are lots of responsibilities in the world. You don’t have to be a perfect mom, but if you do your best and you love your children, things will turn out okay.”

As Tom Cotton sought to paint Judge Jackson as soft on crime in drug cases, he asked the judge about her decisions in a specific case and whether she “contacted the victims”. Jackson responded that in the particular case he was describing, there were no specific victims to contact. Cotton then suggested she was saying there are no victims in drug crimes, which is not what the judge said or implied.

Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, is focusing on crime in his questions, starting with, “Does the United States need more police or fewer police?”

Jackson responded: “The determination about whether there should be more or fewer police is a policy decision by another branch of government ... I will stay in my lane.”

Cotton then moved on to a series of questions about whether Jackson thinks the US should “catch” more criminals and whether sentencing should become harsher, and Jackson has responded that it is up to Congress to make laws and that judges review individual cases. She reiterated that she believes people should be held accountable for their crimes.

Josh Hawley is dismissing reporters who have fact checked his claims about Judge Jackson’s sentencing record, according to PBS journalist Lisa Desjardins, who said she just asked the Republican senator for comment:

The Washington Post fact check said that Hawley had taken some of Jackson’s comments out of context, had mischaracterized the work of the US Sentencing Commission on which Jackson served, and is twisting her record.

We are now on a short break from the hearings. Meanwhile, Senator Mike Braun, a Republican from Indiana, has walked back his earlier comments at a press conference suggesting that the US Supreme Court should have left interracial marriage to the states to decide. In a written statement now, he said, according to NBC News, “There is no question the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race, that is not something that is even up for debate, and I condemn racism in any form.”

In his statement, Braun said he “misunderstood a line of questioning that ended up being about interracial marriage”.

Fact checks of Josh Hawley's attacks

Fact checkers across several news organizations have found Republican senator Josh Hawley’s attacks on Jackson to be misleading and a twisting of her record. Hawley, on Twitter and in his remarks today, has repeatedly suggested that Jackson has not been tough enough in her handling of child sexual abuse cases and has not taken this category of crimes seriously.

In response to Hawley’s tweet alleging that Jackson has “opined there may be a type of ‘less-serious child pornography offender’”, the Associated Press concluded, “She opined no such thing. She asked questions about it.” From the AP:

Jackson was vice chair of the US Sentencing Commission when it held a hearing on sentencing guidelines in 2012.

She told the hearing she was surprised at a Justice Department expert’s testimony that, as she put it, some child-sex offenders may actually “not be pedophiles” but perhaps “loners” looking for like-minded company in child pornography circles. Being surprised by an assertion and wanting to know more are not the same as endorsing it.

“So I’m wondering whether you could say that there is a – that there could be a – less-serious child pornography offender who is engaging in the type of conduct in the group experience level?” she asked the expert witness. “They’re very sophisticated technologically, but they aren’t necessarily that interested in the child pornography piece of it?”

From those questions, Hawley extrapolated that Jackson had drawn conclusions, when she hadn’t.

The AP also noted that in 2020 Jackson denied compassionate release on medical grounds to a man convicted in a sex offense case, with the judge saying, “The possession and distribution of [child sexual abuse images] is an extremely serious crime because it involves trading depictions of the actual sexual assault of children, and the abuse that these child victims endure will remain available on the internet forever.”

The New York Times fact-checker said GOP lawmakers were “misleadingly portraying” Jackson “as uncommonly lenient” on people convicted of possessing child sexual abuse images. The Times noted that a conservative writer in the National Review has characterized Hawley’s attack as a “smear”, writing, “It is not soft on porn to call for sensible line-drawing. Plenty of hard-nosed prosecutors and Republican-appointed judges have long believed that this mandatory minimum is too draconian.”

And here’s another fact check from a constitutional law scholar, via The Recount:

Senator Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, is now up and has started by asking Jackson whether she has been accused of sexual assault or harassment. Jackson confirms she has not.

Hirono went on to counter Josh Hawley’s attack by noting other judges confirmed by GOP members on the Senate judiciary committee also departed from child sexual abuse sentencing guidelines:

Updated

In response to Hawley’s insinuations that she was not tough enough on defendants in child sexual abuse cases, Jackson has explained in detail how sentencing works, saying, “What a judge has to do is determine how to sentence defendants proportionately consistent with the elements that the statutes include, with the requirements Congress has set forward ... Judges are doing the work of assessing in each case a number of factors that are set forward by Congress, all against the backdrop of heinous criminal behavior ... and Congress has given judges factors to consider.”

Jackson said she has to consider the facts and the recommendations of government and the probation department in sentencing, adding, “You’re questioning whether or not I take them seriously or if I have some reason to handle them in a different way than my peers or in a different way than other cases, but I assure you I do not.”

Hawley said: “I am questioning your discretion and judgment.” He asked her why she was not tougher on an 18-year-old in a case involving child sexual abuse images.

Jackson explained that she was following guidelines and responding to specific facts in the case, and sentenced him to three months in federal prison.

Josh Hawley, Republican senator from Missouri, started his questions with detailed descriptions of child sexual abuse cases and accusing Jackson of not being tough enough on offenders. Here’s the response from a White House spokesperson, saying Halwey’s remarks are “embarrassing” and a signal to QAnon conspiracy theorists:

Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, is now questioning Jackson. There was an interesting nugget from Punchbowl News this morning, on Hawley and why he is pressing his attack on the judge over her past sentencing of offenders convicted over child sexual abuse images.

Josh Hawley.
Josh Hawley. Photograph: Lenin Nolly/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock

Hawley’s attacks have been widely judged to lack substance or fairness and the White House and senior Democrats have pushed back forcefully.

But Hawley is widely held to be among Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee who may wish to grandstand for the purpose of boosting their credentials as possible contenders for the presidential nomination in 2024.

On Monday, Hawley told Punchbowl: “I’m not going to run for president. I’m not a candidate in 2024. Hopefully for the Senate, if the people of Missouri will have me.”

Hawley also told Punchbowl he “liked” Jackson, and added: “I want to be careful here not to cast aspersions on her personally because I like her, and I think she’s a good person. I want to be clear on that.

“But she may [have] a philosophy of the law. To me, that’s what this is about – her record, and her philosophy.

“This way, [Jackson] knows exactly what I’m going to ask. And we’ll have an informed conversation … This is a smart person. She will come, and she will have her notes and whatever else on these cases. And she’ll say, ‘Here’s why I did what I did, here’s my thinking,’ and that’ll be illuminating.”

Hawley also responded to criticism from the White House and Democrats including Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate judiciary committee chair, regarding his use of the child sexual abuse images issue as an attack line.

“It tells me that they, the White House and Democrats, are really worried about this issue,” he said. “You’ll notice that they wouldn’t actually talk about it on the committee.”

On Tuesday, Jackson did talk about it, after being teed up by Durbin.

“As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, nothing could be further from the truth,” she said, adding that child abuse cases were among the most difficult she dealt with. She described child pornography as a “sickening and egregious crime”.

Jackson said she imposed “significant sentences” and emphasised that she always told offenders the consequences of their crimes by reading them victims’ statements.

Here’s some more about Hawley:

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, has asked Jackson to clarify the context of her Harvard Law Review article she wrote in 1996 while she was in law school about child sexual abuse cases (an article that some Republicans have seized on). The judge responded:

I was trying to do what law school students do, which is analyze a new set of legal provisions. These laws were new, and I was trying to assess what criteria courts could use to look at them. I was not making an argument about them at all.

As the hearing unfolds in the Hart building, senators are reacting to Jackson’s testimony in real time.

Senator Mike Braun, a Republican of Indiana who is not on the Judiciary committee, told reporters today that the court should have left the decision of abortion up to states. Asked if he applies that view to other landmark decisions, including interracial marriage, Braun said yes. “If you are not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you are not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too,” he said.

Updated

The judge is back in the hearing room. Up first after the break is senator Ben Sasse, a Republican of Nebraska, who begins by telling Jackson that she’s “51% “of the way to the finish line.

Acknowledging how grueling nominations can be, Sasse, in a moment of levity, told her: “These processes are a lot like a proctology exam.”

Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware who is known as a bipartisan broker, emphasized the broadness and diversity of the support for Jackson’s nomination. He touted letters of support from conservative lawyers and judges as well as support from the law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police.

Reviewing her record, he said nothing suggests she would be an activist judge or that she was in any way swayed by partisanship or politics. At one point, he quoted the Republican National Committee, which has opposed Jackson’s nomination, claiming she was a “radical” who would be unable to set aside her personal beliefs to rule objectively. Coons then recalled a court case brought by the RNC in 2016, just before the party conventions, in which the Republican organization filed a lawsuit to obtain thousands of documents related to emails sent by Hillary Clinton, at the time the Democratic presidential nominee. Jackson sided with the RNC, and the documents were turned over, Coons explained.

When Coon finished, Durbin announced that the committee would take a brief break. This is expected to be the longest day of the four-day confirmation process.

Updated

In a contentious back and forth with Cruz, Jackson forcefully defended her sentencing decisions in cases involving offenders convicted of child sexual abuse.

Cruz brought a chart in which he calculated the difference between maximum sentencing guidelines and the sentence Jackson handed down, in an effort to make the case that she lenient on defendants of child sex crimes, a characterization she rejected. Responding carefully and pointedly, Jackson told Cruz: “Your chart does not include all of the factors,” namely the way in which Congress has told judges to consider sentences in such cases. As a mother and a judge, “I take these cases very seriously,” she said.

Speaking personally, she said the cases were awful to review. She said the evidence in such cases were some of the worst images she’s ever had to review.

“I sometimes still have nightmares” about a woman who she told the committee earlier “cannot leave her house” because of her victimization as a child, Jackson said.

Updated

Back to the Hart building, where senator Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas, is up. He appears to have posters. Cruz was Jackson’s law school classmate at Harvard, where he said they weren’t close but were cordial.

After exchanging niceties, he immediately dove into a culture war question about the 1619 project, which she mentioned in a speech she was asked to give on Martin Luther King Day. Jackson explained the context for the reference and said the project and is not relevant to her work.

Cruz pressed on, asking her to define critical race theory, an academic theory that has sparked conservative outrage in schools. He then held up a series of children’s books about antiracism that are suggested reading as part of the curriculum at Georgetown Day School, a liberal, private school in Washington, where she is a member of its board. Singling out Antiracist Baby, a children’s book by Ibram X Kendi, he tried to get Jackson to say that the school taught critical race theory.

In her first signs of exasperation thus far, she sighed before responding to Cruz that she does not believe children should be made to feel as if they are racist or an oppressor.

Jackson noted that there was a difference between the curriculums for private and public schools and that this was outside her purview as a member of the school’s board, and that none of this had any bearing on her record or jurisprudence.

Cruz’s line of questioning is a reminder that supreme court hearings offer ambitious senators a high-profile platform to score political points. The Texas senator ran for president in 2016 and has expressed interest in running again in 2024.

Updated

We’re taking a brief detour from Capitol Hill to the White House’s James Brady Press Briefing Room, where national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to reporters ahead of Joe Biden’s trip to Europe on Wednesday, where he will meet with Nato and European Union leaders in Brussels and then go to Poland, amid the devastating Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He said that Russia “is never going to take Ukraine away from the Ukrainian people” and that “they are never going to complete their mission to subjugate this country.”

Sullivan noted that with Nato and Europe “we are unwavering in our commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty”, no matter the outcome of day to day military conflict or Russian efforts to occupy territory.He also said, in response to a reporter’s question, that in terms of Nato’s Article Five, where an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, that held also for a cyber attack.

And Sullivan said that since Joe Biden’s almost two-hour long call with Chinese president Xi Jinping last week, in which the US president warned his counterpart not to accede to Russian requests for assistance in its war on Ukraine, the US has not become aware of “the provision of any military equipment by China to Russia”.

He added that Biden intended to consult with allies at his meetings later this week to ensure a tightening of unity on this topic, ahead of a planned summit between European and Chinese leaders next month.It was a short briefing, without press secretary Jen Psaki, who has tested positive for coronavirus.

Updated

Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and a former prosecutor, asked Jackson a series of questions about voting rights, antitrust law, press freedom and waning public confidence in the court.

Jackson said public confidence in the supreme court is fundamental because that it is all it has to enforce its decision. She said she accepted Biden’s nomination in part because it would demonstrate to the public that the court works for and is reflective of all Americans.

I am here standing on the shoulders of generations of Americans who never had anything close to this kind of opportunity, from my grandparents who had just a grade-school education but instilled in my parents the importance of learning. And my parents, who I’ve mentioned here many times already, were the first in their families to go to college. So this nomination, against that backdrop, is significant to a lot of people and I hope that it will bring confidence, it will help inspire people to understand that our courts are like them, our judges are like them.

Earlier today, Psaki said that the president watched Jackson’s opening statement, and found it to be “strong, forceful and effective.”

Updated

Senator Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah and a lawyer who clerked for justice Samuel Alito, asked Jackson about how she decided sentences in cases involving child sexual abuse offenders.

Republicans have highlighted a handful of cases in which they say she handed down sentences below the maximum allowed by statue. She said earlier that these 10 cases do not reflect the full scope of her decisions and sentencing determinations.

“The guidelines are one factor,” she said. “The court is told you look at the guidelines, but you also look at the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and characteristics of the offender.”

The nuance is unlikely to satisfy her critics, particularly Republican senator Josh Hawley who has yet to question her.

Updated

Jen Psaki said she is experiencing “mild symptoms” after testing positive for coronavirus, and she will work from home until her isolation period ends and she receives a negative test result.

The news of Psaki’s Covid diagnosis came as White House reporters were waiting for the start of her daily briefing, and the announcement caught the press off-guard, according to Bloomberg News’ Jennifer Epstein.

In a bizarre coincidence, this is the second time that a positive coronavirus test result has prevented Psaki from joining Joe Biden on an international trip. The press secretary first tested positive for the virus in the fall, right before Biden was scheduled to leave for Rome, Italy, to attend the G-20 summit.

Updated

Psaki tests positive for Covid-19

Jen Psaki has tested positive for Covid, just one day before the White House press secretary was supposed to travel with Joe Biden to Brussels, Belgium.
“Today, in preparation for travel to Europe, I took a PCR test this morning,” Psaki said in a statement. “That test came back positive, which means I will be adhering to CDC guidance and no longer be traveling on the President’s trip to Europe.”

Psaki noted Biden took a coronavirus test today, which was negative. Biden has been consistently testing since last week, when the president spent time with the Irish taoiseach just before the prime minister tested positive.

”I had two socially-distanced meetings with the President yesterday, and the President is not considered a close contact as defined by CDC guidance,” Psaki added.

Biden is scheduled to leave tomorrow for Brussels, where he will meet with Nato allies and European leaders to discuss the war in Ukraine. He will then travel on to Warsaw, Poland.

Senate judiciary committee chair and Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin had something to say at the top of the afternoon session.

He expanded on the point we just posted about, whether, as Texas Republican John Cornyn just charged, Kentani Brown Jackson previously called president George W Bush and his then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld war criminals.

Durbin made clear that, while she was a public defender, Jackson filed several habeas petitions naming Bush and Rumsfeld in their official capacities when she was arguing on behalf of civilians being held at Guantanamo Bay who claimed they were wrongly classified as enemy combatants.

Durbin said that Jackson filed the petitions as part of her responsibility and they included claims for relief by the detainees as a result of them being tortured, which they considered and Jackson argues in her filings, is a war crime.

“There was no time when you called President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal,” Durbin said.

Jackson thanked Durbin for making the clarification.

Some observations from those watching the hearings.

Role model to the lawyers of tomorrow.

A moment for feelings.

Classic Lindsey Graham calculated-combustion for the cameras (about whether detainees should ever be released from Guantanamo).

To which someone said this:

Aaaaand, Kerry Washington.

Updated

Ketanji Brown Jackson was peppered with questions from Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee about her previous representation of certain suspected terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

And John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, asked her about a reference to war crimes by the Bush administration at that time, when she was a public defender (something GoP members are constantly signaling is, by itself, in their views very controversial...)

Here’s some fresh context:

The hearing is about to restart. White House press secretary Jen Psaki is also due to hold her daily media briefing very shortly.

Lunch break. The committee is now taking a roughly half an hour break for lunch. Durbin asks that the senators return promptly at 1:30 to resume questioning. There are still 15 members who have yet to ask questions during the first round.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island and a longtime critic of the way undisclosed “dark” money shapes the judiciary, is up now. He is using his time to expand on his comments from yesterday, in which he said the current conservative supermajority on the supreme court was effectively underwritten by dark money groups such as the Federalist Society.

Those comments offended some Republicans, even as those same senators complained about the influence of much smaller and less organized progressive groups on Biden’s supreme court nomination.

Replete with posters, Whitehouse explained the way dark money influences the supreme court, apologizing for his digression, but stating that it was important to use the platform to demonstrate the shadowy financing that goes into a supreme court nomination.

He acknowledged that both parties use dark money to push their respective judicial nominees, but explained that there is a particularly powerful and well-financed operation among conservatives.

There is a drastic difference between rooting for somebody and controlling the turnstile that decides who gets on the court, controlling the funding of the political campaigns that pursue the folks on the court and actually once you get on the court ... that same anonymous money appearing before the court through phony front groups that file amicus briefs in little flotillas or if it’s an important enough case, a full armada of dark money-funded front groups,” Whitehouse said.

Updated

Cornyn squeezes one last question in before his time is up, asking Jackson why she referred to former president George W Bush and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld as “war criminals.”

“Why would you do that? It seems so out of character,” he asked. Jackson isn’t clear on the reference and asks if that was a word used in a a habeas petition filed as part of a case involving a detainee of the military prison in Guantánamo Bay, to which Cornyn retorts that it was “when you were representing a member of the Taliban.”

“I did not intend to disparage the president or the secretary of defense,” she said.

Cornyn, like many of his white, male colleagues, appear careful about appearing gracious and complementary of Jackson, aware of how it might look to the public if they come across as attacking the first Black woman supreme court nominee. However, it hasn’t stopped them from trying to paint her as an extremist, and in this case, flirting with the idea that she was sympathetic to those accused of terrorism against the United States.

Updated

We’re back with senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas. He is asking about same-sex marriage and specifically the court’s 2015 decision that established the right.

He said that the court’s decision in Obergefell conflicts with the long-held beliefs of religious groups and asks Jackson whether she agrees.

“When the court overrules the decision of the people as they did in 32 of the 35 states that decided to recognize only traditional marriage between a man and a woman, that is an act of judicial policymaking is it not?” he said.

She said the supreme court considered that to be an “application of the substantive due process clause of the 14th amendment,” she said.

He said he’s not arguing the merits of same-sex marriage but said the Obergefell case was an example of the “courts finding a new ‘fundamental right’ that is mentioned no where in the document of the constitution, that’s the product of simply court-made law that we’re all supposed to salute smartly and follow because nine people who are unelected who have lifetime tenure whose salary cannot be reduced, because they decide, five of them decide, that this is the way the world should be.”

The committee is now taking a brief, 15-minute pause. Durbin said the committee would take a longer break for lunch this afternoon.

Feinstein asked Jackson to reflect on what it means to her, the court and the country that her nomination would bring the supreme court closer to gender parity. Here was her response.

[What] having diverse members the court does is it provides for the opportunity for role models.

Since I was nominated to this position, I have received so many notes and letters and photos from little girls around the country who tell me that they are so excited for this opportunity and that they have thought about the law in new ways because I am a woman because I’m a Black woman. All of those things, people have said have been really meaningful to them.

And we want, I think as a country, for everyone to believe that they can do things like sit on the supreme court. And so having meaningful numbers of women and people of color I think matters.

I also think that it supports public confidence in the judiciary, when you have different people because we have such a diverse society.”

Updated

Jackson: Roe v Wade is 'settled law'

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, who is taking part in her tenth supreme court confirmation, asked Jackson whether she viewed Roe v Wade as settled law.

Jackson said that she agreed with previous justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett that Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, is “the settled law of the supreme court”.

She added that stare decisis is “a very important principle” that “provides and establishes predictability, stability” for Americans. She said it also “serves as a restraint” on judicial authority because the court looks at whether precedents.

Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday.
Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Jackson said that Roe, and later Casey, are two decisions that women have relied upon to access abortion for nearly half a century. “Reliance is one of the factors that the court considers when it seeks to revisit or when it’s asked to revisit a precedent,” she said.

The supreme court is weighing a Mississippi case that directly challenges Roe. A decision is expected this summer.

Updated

Graham then spent several minutes peppering her with questions about her representation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

In this context, he asked her whether she found her work as a public defender rewarding. She said: “Yes, I did. Because public service is very important to me.”

But many of his questions were fast-paced and combative. He asked her if she agreed with arguments made by Guantanamo detainees, to which she said: “Respectfully, senator, those are not my arguments.”

“You sign onto this brief making this argument but you say it’s not your position?” he replied.

Updated

Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, is asking a series of combative questions with the intent of using Jackson’s hearing to make a point about Democrats’ handling of past judicial nominations.

He opened with a series of personal questions about Jackson’s faith.

He asked her what faith she was. “Protestant … non-denominational,” she said, adding: “Personally, my faith is very important. But as you know, there is no religious test under article 6—”

Before she could finish her response, he dove in with another question, asking whether she could fairly judge a Catholic and asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how faithful she was and the frequency with she attended church. She said she was reluctant to respond to this line of questioning, to which Graham told her he only goes to church about three times per year.

The point of his questions, he said, was to underscore the inappropriateness of Democrats’ question about the faith of Amy Coney Barrett.

“Just imagine what would happen if people on late-night television called you an effing nut speaking in tongues because you’ve practiced the Catholic faith in a way they couldn’t relate to or found uncomfortable,” he said. “Judge Barrett, I thought, was treated very, very poorly.”

Graham also raised the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown, a Black jurist whose nomination to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit by president George Bush was filibustered by Democratic senators, including by then-senator Joe Biden.

Speaking colorfully as he does, Graham claimed that conservative Black women faced a double standard.

“If you’re an African American conservative woman, you’re fair game to have your life turned upside down, to be filibustered no matter how qualified you are,” Graham said. “And if you express your faith as a conservative, all of a sudden you’re an effing nut.”

“We’re tired of it, and it’s not going to happen to you,” he asserted.

Updated

So far, the Democrats are giving Jackson the opportunity to respond to some of the most contentious issues that Republicans are expected to raise. In doing so, they are allowing her to take her time and answer the questions without interruption.

Leahy asked her to respond to some of the Republican critiques that Jackson is “soft on crime”.

Jackson explained that public safety is an issue that affects her both personally and professionally. She mentioned that she has family members who have served in law enforcement, including her brother who served with the Baltimore Police Department and an uncle who became the chief of police in Miami in the 1990s.

“As someone who has had family members on patrol and in the line of fire, I care deeply about public safety,” she said, adding: “Crime and the effects on the community and the need for law enforcement. Those are not abstract concepts or political slogans to me.”

Of her time as a public defender, she said it was important to ensure that defendants accused of a crime are treated fairly, a cornerstone of the country’s “exemplary” criminal justice system. Lastly, she said that to ensure a “functioning society, we have to have people being held accountable for committing crimes.”

Updated

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, began his remarks with a shot across the aisle. He said he was bemused to see Republicans spend time yesterday airing grievances over past supreme court hearings without mentioning Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s supreme court nominee who never received a hearing.

“Let’s make history this week,” he said. “Let’s not rewrite it.”

Leahy asked her to talk about her experience as a public defender and how it influenced her approach to the law.

“Experience in the criminal justice system, whether, as you say, on the prosecution side or the defense side, having actual experience is an asset as a judge,” she said. “You understand the way the system works and as a defense council you have interacted with defendants in a way that as a judge, at least as a trial judge, I thought was very beneficial.”

She also said the experience helped her understand the need to communicate clearly and directly with defendants, who she said all too often don’t understand the legal process or the judicial system.

“The problem with that from our society’s standpoint is that when people go through the criminal justice system and don’t have a good understanding they tend to not take responsibility for their own actions,” she said. “They tend to be bitter and feel as though the justice system has wronged them and so while they’re doing their time rather than reflecting on the fact that this is the consequence that they have to face for actually committing a crime, instead of doing the work to rehabilitating themselves, they’re focusing on how wronged they are, how victimized they feel.”

Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican member of the Senate judiciary committee, pressed Ketanji Brown Jackson on her views about packing the supreme court.

A number of progressives have called on Joe Biden and congressional Democrats to add seats to the supreme court to help offset conservatives’ significant advantage on the bench. As of now, conservative justices on the court outnumber their liberal colleagues six to three.

Jackson deflected Grassley’s question, instead saying that court-packing is “a policy question for Congress”.

“I am particularly mindful of not speaking to policy issues because I am so committed to staying in my lane of the system,” Jackson said.

Grassley noted that Justice Stephen Breyer, who is now retiring, and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg both spoke out against court-packing. “I think you’re saying Breyer and Ginsburg should not have stated their views on that issue,” Grassley said.

Jackson did not directly respond to Grassley’s assertion.

Updated

Asked about her views of the second amendment’s right to bear arms, Jackson said that the supreme court had already established it as a “fundamental right.”

“There is precedent in the supreme court related to various rights that the court has recognized as fundamental,” she told Grassley. She added: “The court has said that the 14th amendment substantive due process clause does support some fundamental rights, but only things that are implicit in the ordered concept of liberty or deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this country, the kinds of rights that relate to personal individual autonomy.”

The supreme court currently does not allow cameras in the courtroom when it is in session, a policy that is the topic of much debate, including among senators on the committee. Grassley asked Jackson whether she would support allowing cameras into the courtroom. She sidestepped the question, saying she would first need to speak to the justices to better understand the concerns and the potential implications of installing cameras in the courtroom.

Grassley asked her to respond to comments made by senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, who said that the conservative supreme court super-majority was effectively built by “dark money” groups like the Federalist Society. Do you believe that to be true? Grassley asked.

“I don’t have any reason to believe that that’s the case,” she said. “I have only the highest esteem for the members of the supreme court whom I hope to be able to join if I’m confirmed and for all of the members of the judiciary.”

Updated

Grassley asked Jackson about a speech she gave in which she repeated a quote by Dr Martin Luther King, in which he envisioned an America where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

He asked if that still reflects her views of race.

In that speech, I talked about my my parents growing up in Florida, attended and had to attend racially-segregated schools because by law when they were young, white children and black children were not allowed to go to school together.

And my reality, when I was born in 1970 and went to school in Miami, Florida was completely different. I went to a diverse public junior high school, high school elementary school. And the fact that we had come that far was to me a testament to the hope and the promise of this country, the greatness of America that in one generation – one generation – we could go from racially-segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian ever to be nominated to the supreme court of the United States. So yes, senator, that is my belief.

Durbin used his time to defuse some of the expected lines of attack from Republicans, allowing Jackson to use her time responding to these allegations without interruption.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee is now asking her questions. He began light-hearted, letting her know that his wife was very pleased with her opening statement - but had not comment about his own opening remarks on Monday.

“The first thing I heard when I got home last night was my wife telling me you did very well with your opening statement,” he said with a deep chuckle.

He then got to the meat of his questions, asking her views on the second amendment, court-packing and whether she supported allowing cameras during supreme court hearings.

Jackson in the Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday.
Jackson in the Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Updated

Durbin also asked Jackson about her role representing Guantánamo Bay detainees as a federal public defender.

“Federal public defenders don’t get to pick their clients,” she said.

“People accused of crimes are entitled to representation,” she said. “That’s what makes our system the best in the world.”

‘Federal public defenders don’t get to pick their clients,’ Jackson said.
‘Federal public defenders don’t get to pick their clients,’ Jackson said. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Updated

Durbin then asks her to respond to the accusations laid out by Hawley that she handed down sentences that were too lenient for offenders convicted over child sexual abuse images. But he asked her to describe how she felt, as a judge and as a mother, about the accusation that her sentencing decisions somehow endangered children.

“As a mother, and a judge who has had to deal with these cases I was thinking nothing could be further from the truth,” she said.

She said these cases are some of the most difficult a judge must deal with because they involve photographs that show abuse of children.

“I understand how significant, how damaging, how horrible this crime is,” she said. But she said that it’s Congress that sets the sentencing guidelines.

“That statute doesn’t say look only at the guidelines and stop. The statute doesn’t say impose the highest possible penalty for this sickening and egregious crime,” she explained. “The statute says calculate the guidelines, but also look at various aspects of this offense.”

Jackson said in each of these cases she ensured that the offender was aware of the victim statements and how their actions perpetuate child sex abuse. She told the committee about one case that has stayed with her involving a victim who developed agoraphobia out of fear that people have seen images of her online.

Durbin noted that several independent fact checkers had rated Hawley’s claims as misleading or lacking context.

Updated

On court-packing, Jackson pointed to the answer given by justice Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearing and declined to answer.

“My North Star is the consideration of the proper role of a judge in our constitutional system,” Jackson said. “And, in my view, judges should not be speaking to political issues, and certainly not a nominee for a position on the supreme court. So I agree with with Justice Barrett.”

During her hearing in 2020, Barrett told the committee she “could not opine” on questions about expanding the number of justices on the supreme court or other policy issues, especially those that were politically controversial, saying it was outside the scope of a judge or justice to take a position.

Updated

Asked about her judicial philosophy, Jackson said she has developed a methodology – a three-step process, that she said helps ensure that she is ruling impartially and “adhering to the limits on my judicial authority.”

I am acutely aware that as a judge in our system, I have limited power,” she said. “And I am trying in every case to stay in my lane.”

She said as part of her consideration, she refers to original documents and called “adherence to text” a “constraint on my authority.”

“I’m also looking at precedent, which is another constraint on judicial authority.” she said. “I am looking at prior cases and trying to understand what other judges have said.” As a supreme court judge, should she be confirmed, she said she would be bound by stare decisis, the legal principle that is Latin for “to stand by things decided.”

Updated

Senator Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has gaveled in the hearing. He told Jackson that the second day of the confirmation process is affectionately known “by a term of medieval justice known as the trial by ordeal.”

To the members of the committee, he reminded them that the day would be long and asked they to stick to the time limits set for the questioning period. “Speeches don’t have to be eternal to be immortal,” he said, acknowledging senators’ tendency to use this stage to speechify and showboat.

He then begin the first round of questioning asking Jackson about her judicial philosophy, her views on court-packing and, diving right in, asking her about the accusations raised by Missouri senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, who said he will press Jackson on her sentencing decisions in seven child sexual abuse imagery cases.

Updated

The nominee is present and nearly all senators are in their seats. The hearing should be under way soon.

Updated

Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings continue

Good morning and welcome to our politics live blog.

Today we’re taking you straight to Hart Senate Office Building Room 216 for Day Two of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s supreme court confirmation hearing. Today members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will take turns questioning Jackson about her record and her judicial philosophy.

Unlike on Monday, which was reserved for opening statements, Jackson will respond to the senators’ queries in real time. Republicans already signaled that the expect to ask Jackson about her judicial philosophy and whether she will be an “activist judge” on the court. But they also told her that they expected to press her on her sentencing record, trying to discern whether she’s “soft on crime” as well as her representation of Guantanamo detainees and her view of expanding the Supreme Court.

Democrats will likely pose questions that allow Jackson to rebut claims by Republicans.

The questioning will begin at 9am EST on Tuesday and last two days. In the first round of questions, all 22 senators on the committee will get 30 minutes to ask Jackson questions. In the second round, each senator will have 20 minutes.

If confirmed, Jackson will fill the seat vacated by justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring, and become the first Black woman to sit on the supreme court.

Updated

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