Biden’s promise
“Historic candidate”: Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes the first black judge on the US Supreme Court
US President Joe Biden celebrates entering the Supreme Court with Ketanji Brown Jackson
© Mandel Ngan / AFP
US President Biden had promised to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time. Now the Senate has confirmed the “historic candidate” Ketanji Brown Jackson.
She will become the first black woman in history to serve as a Supreme Court Justice: The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday by a majority of 53 to 47. In addition to the 50 senators from Biden’s Democrats, three senators from the opposition Republicans also voted for the 51-year-old.
This is the first time in its 233-year history that the Supreme Court has had a black female constitutional judge. Loud applause erupted in the Senate as Vice President Kamala Harris, herself the first African-American woman to take office, read the results of the vote in her capacity as Senate President.
Biden, who followed the vote in the White House with Jackson, spoke of one via Twitter “historic moment for our country”. “We took another step in making our Supreme Court reflect the diversity of America.” Jackson will be an “incredible” constitutional judge.
Supreme Court: Out of 115 judges, 108 were white males
The President nominated Jackson in February to succeed 83-year-old Constitutional Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who will retire in the summer. The graduate of the elite Harvard University and former public defender most recently worked as a judge at the federal appeals court in the capital Washington. She is considered a brilliant lawyer and highly qualified for the office of constitutional judge.
In the history of the Supreme Court, out of a total of 115 judges, 108 have been white men. Only two African Americans, both men, have made it to the court so far. Biden had already promised during the election campaign that he would nominate a black woman if a position on the Supreme Court with its nine judges became vacant.
Constitutional judges in the United States are nominated by the President and then confirmed for life by the Senate. The selection and confirmation of the candidates are politically highly contested processes, because the powerful Supreme Court plays a central role in the institutional structure of the USA. The Court rules on the constitutionality of laws and government actions and generally has the final say in legal disputes. This includes highly contentious issues such as abortion rights, gun laws, immigration laws and the death penalty.
Republicans labeled Jackson a ‘left activist’
Jackson’s entry into the Supreme Court will not change anything in the majority of the court, because the liberal lawyer will replace the liberal Breyer. A clear majority of six of the nine constitutional judges belong to the conservative camp. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump had been able to nominate three new constitutional judges during his four-year term. Biden has now filled a vacancy for the first time.
The opposition Republicans had praised the high qualifications of the judge at the Senate hearings on Jackson’s confirmation. However, they described her as a left-wing activist and accused her of having made too lenient judgments against child pornography offenders as a judge. Jackson, the Democrats and independent fact-checkers have denied that.
In the final vote in the Senate on Thursday, only Republicans Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and Senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney voted for Jackson. They belong to the moderate camp of the Republican Party, which has shifted to the right under Trump.