The Senate Judiciary Committee has completed its hearings and will vote April 4 on confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court. Leadership aims to hold a floor vote before the recess that begins April 11.
I found the hearings both exhilarating and painful to watch. Judge Jackson’s responses were calm, measured, and thoughtful—the embodiment of judicial temperament. But several Republican senators ranted, bullied, and interrupted her as she attempted to address the issues they raised.
Judge Jackson wiped away tears when Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) noted her “grace and grit,” and expressed his own joy over her success. In his words, “You got here how every Black woman in America who’s gotten anywhere has done—by being, like Ginger Rogers said, ‘I did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels.’”
In her opening remarks to the committee Judge Jackson said, “I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building—Equal Justice Under Law—are a reality and not just an ideal.”
I share that hope. I also believe that having Judge Jackson join the Supreme Court will help make it happen.
In solidarity,
Marc Egan
Government Relations Director
National Education Association
The daughter of public school teachers and a public high school graduate herself, she represents the best of the legal profession and the best of America.
Support the Social Security Fairness Act and the Social Security 2100 Act to repeal the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) that deprive educators of benefits they have earned.
Urge your representative to push for a floor vote on the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act (H.R. 5727) to allow public service workers to form a union and bargain collectively.
CHEER: Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked Judge Jackson how public school shaped her. “I was very fortunate to go to public school in Miami, Florida. I had a wide range of classmates and it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know people who were different than me and to learn, at the end of the day, that they were not so different than I am even if they came from different backgrounds,” Judge Jackson said.
JEER: Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO), and Tom Cotton (R-AK) for their failure to treat Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson with the courtesy and respect she deserves during Judiciary Committee hearings on confirming her to the United States Supreme Court.
