Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation: Senators spar on ‘soft on crime;’ Jackson defends child porn sentences

The third day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings Wednesday for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson kicked off with disputes among senators whether the White House was withholding documents from Republicans and whether Jackson was too soft on crime.

But Jackson, with the help of Democrats on Senate Judiciary Committee, sought to pivot to her personal biography by highlighting how far the country has come on civil rights with her parents growing up in “Florida under lawful segregation” and now, a generation later, she’s having the opportunity to become the nation’s 116th Supreme Court justice.

“What my being here,” Jackson told the senators, “… is about the progress that we’ve made in this country in a very short period of time,” Jackson said.

“Seems like a long time but in one generation we’ve gone from the reality of my parents upbringing to the reality of mine,” she continued. “I do consider myself having been born in 1970 to be the first generation to benefit from the civil rights movement,” she said.

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With a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court in the balance, senators sought to drill down her previous record as a federal trial judge and her judicial philosophy but complained they didn’t have the same access to information that Democrats did.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, continued to raise issues that Democratic senators were given additional information about Jackson’s criminal sentences from the White House to discredit information raised by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., but not Republicans.

“I want to address that issue that was raised yesterday about records,” Grassley, the top Republican on the committee, said. “Sen. [Ted] Cruz, R-Texas, raised a very legitimate question about data related to U.S. probation officer recommendations. The White House and members of this committee use that information to attempt to discredit information raised by Senator Hawley and others about the nominee’s sentencing record as a district judge. No one on our side of the aisle had access to this information.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., previously said that the White House would grant the same information to Republicans if requested, to which Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., responded: “So you had to be clairvoyant and know they had it?” The issue is centered on whether Jackson followed recommendations from probation officers, prosecutors and sentencing guidelines when announcing criminals sentences for child porn and drug cases.

Hawley, Cruz, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., spent time Tuesday questioning Jackson’s judgement and whether she deviated from standards to be too lenient. Cruz called her record “deeply concerning,”

“Judge Jackson has a record of activism and advocacy as it concerns sexual predators that stems back decades,” Cruz said on Twitter.

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Jackson has stood by her decisions from the bench and pointed out that “sentencing is discretionary act of a judge.” Democrats and the White House have denounced the criticism as cherry-picked cases that don’t represent the breadth of her record.

Durbin opened Wednesday’s hearing by painting the sentencing hubbub as merely a political tactic for Republicans that’s not rooted in facts.

“For many of senators, yesterday was an opportunity to showcase talking points for the November election,” Durbin said. “For example, all Democrats are soft on crime. Therefore, this nominee must be soft on crime. Well, you’ve made a mess of their stereotype. The endorsement of the Fraternal Order Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police just doesn’t fit with their stereotype of a Harvard grad black woman who is aspiring to the highest court in the land.”

Jackson has police endorsements, and she testified about how law enforcement and public service are in her family. Her younger brother Ketajh served as a Baltimore police officer and then in the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq.

“Law enforcement is on your side because you’ve been on their side at critical moments, and your family has dedicated a big part of their lives to law enforcement and you obviously believe it at your core,” Durbin said. “So the soft on crime charge, which leads all others, falls on its face.”

Wednesday will be the final day of questioning of Jackson. Democrats are optimistic she has the votes in the Senate and Durbin is still hoping she may get some GOP support. She had three GOP votes last year for her confirmation to the federal appellate court.

Democrats have bemoaned that some questioning from GOP colleagues seemed more for show, rather than for substance. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Jackson that a lot of questions have “nothing to do with your qualities of being on the Supreme Court” but rather for GOP senators seeking “a sound bite.”

Still Republicans are trying to pinpoint what exactly guides her judicial decisions before she receives a lifetime appointment to the court.

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“Senator, I do have a philosophy,” Jackson told Grassley Wednesday. “The philosophy is my methodology. It is a philosophy that I have developed from practice.”

The hearing Wednesday will continue well into the night again with each of the 22 members of the Judiciary Committee getting 20-minutes rounds of questions.

Thursday’s hearing will feature testimony from outside groups and character witnesses, but not from Jackson herself.