WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s meeting with Sen. Lindsey Graham concluded after roughly 15 minutes, a strikingly brief sit-down with a key Republican a week before her confirmation hearings begin.
Graham, a South Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was one of three Republicans to support Jackson’s confirmation last year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a traditional launching pad to the Supreme Court.
But the senator appears less likely to support the judge’s elevation to the high court. Graham had publicly campaigned for Biden to select another judge for his historic pick to be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, federal Judge J. Michelle Childs, a fellow South Carolinian, and last month criticized Jackson’s selection over Childs.
As Graham sat down with Jackson at his Washington office Tuesday, he did not respond to a reporter’s question on what he would need to hear from the judge to support her again. He instead joked with reporters not to take anything from his office as they were ushered out so he could begin his closed-door meeting with Jackson.
Jackson emerged from the office just 15 minutes later. For comparison, the judge’s meeting last week with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of the other Republicans who supported her for the D.C. Circuit, lasted more than 90 minutes.
Jackson did not respond to questions about the briefness of the meeting. Graham remained in his office after the judge’s exit and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Former Sen. Doug Jones, the Alabama Democrat tasked by the White House to shepherd Jackson’s nomination through the confirmation process, downplayed the significance of the meeting’s brevity.
“Yeah, it was a good meeting,” Jones said with a shrug when asked about the quick conclusion.
Jackson will require 51 votes for confirmation to the court, which Democrats can provide on their own through Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking votes. But Democratic leadership has repeatedly expressed its desire for bipartisan support for the judge who has been confirmed by the Senate for other positions three times in the past with bipartisan support.
Jackson is set to meet with South Carolina’s other Republican senator, Tim Scott, on Thursday.
Graham will be one of the 22 senators with an opportunity to question Jackson publicly next week during her four days of confirmation hearings. Graham had chaired the Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2021, a period that saw the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, until Democrats assumed control of the Senate.
Graham had repeatedly praised Childs’ background as a graduate of public universities, the University of South Florida and the University of South Carolina, as a way to bring education diversity to a court dominated by Harvard and Yale graduates.
Jackson grew up in Miami and has spent most of her professional career in Washington after earning her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.
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(The State’s Caitlin Byrd contributed to this report.)
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