Manchin supports Ketanji Brown Jackson for Supreme Court
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CHARLESTON - U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin said Friday that he will back federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court, all but securing her seat on the bench as the high court’s first Black female justice.
President Joe Biden nominated Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court last month after Breyer announced his intentions to retire.
“After meeting with (Jackson), considering her record, and closely monitoring her testimony and questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, I have determined I intend to vote for her nomination to serve on the Supreme Court,” Manchin said.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, stops to speak to reporters as he arrives for a lunch meeting with fellow Democrats, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Jackson just wrapped up three days of contentious questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, where Republican senators went over her judicial history and legal philosophies. Questions were raised about her leniency on several cases involving sexual abuse and whether the former federal public defender was soft on crime.
Jackson is a graduate of Harvard University’s law school and once clerked for Breyer, who announced his retirement in January after 27 years on the Supreme Court. She has experience as an attorney in private practice, though most of her career has been as an assistant federal public defender. Former president Barack Obama appointed Jackson to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she became vice chair.
The Senate has confirmed Jackson before. In 2013, Jackson was appointed by Obama for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Last year, the Senate confirmed Jackson’s appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals by Biden.
During a virtual press briefing Thursday, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., had not decided which way she would vote, though Capito did vote against her federal court confirmation last June.