COLUMBIA, S.C. — As Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson prepares to begin her confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court, South Carolina’s junior senator said Friday that he won’t make his decision to vote for her based on the color of her skin.
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate’s only Black Republican, described Jackson as competent and highly educated after meeting with her Thursday in his office in Washington.
Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court if confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“I’m not going to make a judgment based on the color of her skin; I’m going to make a judgment based on the record before me,” Scott told reporters Friday after he filed for reelection in 2022. “Certainly historic nominees are wonderful and perhaps a landmark, but they are not the determining factor. We must make sure our court functions without politics, not based on race, but based on the basic principles, the most powerful principles that govern this great country.”
Jackson’s hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin Monday.
Scott said he is worried about the number of Jackson’s court decisions that have been overturned by higher courts.
“It is our responsibility not to choose someone that (the president) would choose, but to choose someone that we believe is best for the American people,” Scott said. “What we’re going to have to do is we’re going to go through her entire record and understand and appreciate the positions that she has taken.”
Naming a Black woman to the Supreme Court was promised by President Joe Biden, who made the remark on the Charleston debate stage as a candidate in 2020, a day before House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., offered his endorsement.
Clyburn pushed Biden to pick South Carolina federal Judge Michelle Childs, who Biden nominated to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and also also was backed by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Scott and Graham said they were disappointed when Biden didn’t pick Childs as his nominee, because, Graham said, she would have had wide bipartisan support.
Her nomination for the prestigious D.C. Circuit, however, still remains active.
