Fresh off her Senate confirmation tour where she successfully avoided answering every question put to her including the time of day, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has secured the support of Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.
After meeting with Judge Jackson today to discuss her record and extensive career, I’m confident that she has the character, experience & commitment to the rule of law to serve on the Supreme Court.
I fully support her nomination & hope she is confirmed with bipartisan support. pic.twitter.com/VtG6DGxjye
— Michael Bennet (@SenatorBennet) March 24, 2022
The confirmation would make history, as Jackson would be the first Black adult female to sit on the highest court of the land.
If confirmed, Jackson would sit in judgement of cases that involve women’s rights and discrimination.
She could be determining the outcome of a number of cases, like a student’s right to use the bathroom of their gender identity at school.
In an interview with Colorado Public Radio, Bennet suggested her treatment during this week’s confirmation hearings was “just one more partisan food fight around this place.”
In addition to being asked to define a woman, Jackson was questioned about her sentencing of child pornographers and whether she regretted handing down a three-month sentence, rather than the two years recommended by prosecutors.
“What I regret is that in the hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences.”
Then there was this exchange with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on the matter of child porn on computers:
“Senator, with respect to the computer, one of the most effective deterrents is one that I imposed in every case – and that judges across the country impose in every case – which is substantial, substantial supervision…” Jackson said.
“It is a bigger deterrent to take somebody who’s on a computer looking at sexual images of children in the most disgusting way to supervise their computer habits versus putting them in jail?” Graham asked, interrupting again.
“Now, Senator, I didn’t say exactly what you said,” Jackson shot back.
“I think the best way to deter people from getting on a computer and viewing thousands and hundreds … of children being exploited and abused … is to put their ass in jail, not supervise their computer usage!” Graham said.
But Bennet was fine with Jackson’s answers on that, too, Colorado Public Radio reported.
Bennet said he thought it was important to hear directly from Jackson. “It wasn’t different from what we heard yesterday. She explained how the sentencing guidelines work and the way in which they interact with other statues.” In the end, he said he was satisfied with her answer.
These were legitimate questions Jackson refused to answer, and far from the “food fight” suggested by Bennet.
It’s not like Jackson was asked whether she drank a beer on July 1 during her time in college as a calendar marked “brewski” suggested, or to explain references from her high school yearbook. Or accused of rape.
It was interesting Bennet complained about the atmosphere of “full-on partisan politics” during the confirmation process.
Colorado Public Radio at least had the decency to note:
Bennet did not meet with or vote for two of President Trump’s nominees, Brett Kavanah or Amy Coney Barrett, when they were up for confirmation. And while Bennet did follow tradition and introduce fellow Coloradan Neil Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing, in the end, he did not support that nomination either. He said at the time, “Judge Gorsuch is a very conservative judge and not one that I would have chosen…I had concerns about his approach to the law.”