Most republicans back off nominee fight
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump spent an hour channeling the mood of conservative voters last week when, during a freewheeling rally in South Carolina, he riffed on favorite subjects ranging from Ukraine to Mark Zuckerberg.
Entirely absent during his hourlong appearance? Any mention of would-be Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
He’s not the only Republican whose attention is elsewhere right now.
Less than a week before Jackson is set to begin confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, the Republican Party and broader conservative movement are signaling they’re not interested in a knock-down, drag-out fight over the nomination. Most Republicans have avoided sustained personal attacks, TV ad campaigns have run dry, and even leading Republican media figures — on Fox News and other outlets — have largely focused on other topics.
Their lack of focus has transformed what many once expected to be a marquee ideological fight over the Miami-raised judge into a relatively subdued process, at least thus far. And even Republicans acknowledge that’s indicative of the fact that Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to serve on the Supreme Court, is likely to win confirmation.
“Every battle you get into you have to measure the cost of the battle and what is to be gained by the battle,” said former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. “And I don’t think there’s much to be gained by engaging in a full-scale assault on this nominee.”
GOP officials like Santorum caution that even if Jackson is likely to be confirmed by the Senate, she’ll do so with at most a couple of Republican votes. They warn that her confirmation hearings will still be contentious, as GOP lawmakers zero in on what many of them consider her overly liberal judicial philosophy. And one member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO., indicated Wednesday that he was ready to criticize Jackson in more severe terms, accusing her of taking a soft approach on sex offenders.
But compared to the recent marquee ideological showdowns of other Supreme Court confirmations, including those of recently appointed Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the fight over Jackson has thus far been conspicuously dormant.
“It’s pretty clear that the Republican establishment has not swung into action in any sort of genuine effort to block this nomination, or even raise serious questions about Judge Jackson,” said Clark Neily, senior vice president for legal studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
President Joe Biden nominated Jackson in February to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. Just a year earlier, Biden had nominated Jackson to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where she won confirmation in the Senate with every Democratic vote and the support of three Republicans: Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
White House officials point to endorsements
Jackson has received, including from the International Association of Chiefs of Police and Thomas Griffith, a former circuit court judge appointed by George W. Bush, as proof of the strength of her nomination.
Senate GOP response
Senate Republicans have grumbled about her confirmation’s quick timeline and scrutinized Jackson’s past decisions.
But there’s little indication that they’re heading into next week’s hearings with a plan to employ scorched earth tactics to scuttle the nomination.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-texas, one of the Senate’s foremost firebrands, said this week that viewers shouldn’t expect the same level of contention that took place in 2018 with the hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination when Democrats on the committee probed into allegations of sexual misconduct.
“I am confident we will thoroughly consider every aspect of our record. What we will not be doing is repeating the spectacle of character assassination,” Cruz, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Mcclatchy.
But a focus on Jackson’s record doesn’t guarantee civility or a lack of controversy. Hawley, who along with Cruz sought to overturn Biden’s Electoral College victory, accused Jackson of being overly lenient in sex offense cases.
“Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker. She’s been advocating for it since law school. This goes beyond ‘soft on crime.’ I’m concerned that this a record that endangers our children,” Hawley said on Twitter.