Their real complaint is against constitutional democracy.
Jackson
has had a distinguished 10 year career as a respected federal judge. Before
that, the Harvard Law graduate was a lawyer at a large law firm, a public
defender, and a member of the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Nonetheless,
most Republican senators will vote against confirming her.
Jackson’s
work as a federal judge offers no real basis for senators to oppose her
appointment — if one accepts that presidents are entitled to appoint qualified
justices whose judicial philosophies they agree with.
That
principle is actually a bedrock of American democracy.
The Supreme Court asserts authority to override legislatures, determine individual rights, and shape the structure of our democracy. Its claim to legitimacy is ultimately based on its ability to reflect, indirectly and over time, the values the American people ratify when they elect the presidents who appoint the Court’s members.
When
a party thwarts that right — as Republicans did when they refused even to
consider President Obama’s nominee in 2016 — they negate the Supreme Court’s
legitimacy.
Although
Republicans may conjure new excuses, the GOP’s current objection to Judge
Jackson is that Biden had promised to appoint a Black woman. They’ll say he
should have appointed the “most qualified” candidate, whatever their race or
gender.
Since 94 percent of Supreme Court justices to date have
been white men, we who fall into that category can scarcely claim we’ve been
discriminated against. If it takes a conscious decision for the first Black
woman ever to be seated on the Supreme Court, so be it. Jackson is more than
qualified.
Besides,
the Court is best served when its members bring different experiences and
strengths. Jackson has insights and perspectives from her life as a Black woman
and her work as a public defender that are different from those who’ve come
before her. That can only strengthen the Court.
The
GOP argument that it’s “reverse discrimination” to consider gender and race
ignores the fact that their own party has done it.
In
1980, Ronald Reagan promised to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court,
and he did. In 2020, Donald Trump said he would appoint a woman to replace the
late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. He did. No conservative outcries ensued.
As
for race, when Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice, retired, President
George H. W. Bush nominated a Black man to fill his position. No one can say
with a straight face that Bush didn’t consider Clarence Thomas’s race when he
made the appointment.
They
weren’t the first to consider nominees’ race and gender. It’s no coincidence
that of the 115 justices the U.S. has ever had, 108 have been white men. For
nearly two centuries, presidents thought being white and male were necessary
qualifications.
Republican
opposition to Judge Jackson’s appointment is worse than hypocrisy.
They
resist because they spurn the fundamental principles of American constitutional
democracy, beginning with the president’s constitutional right to nominate
Supreme Court justices and ending with the right of the people, in a free and
fair election, to remove a president.
When
the voters rejected Trump in 2020, most Republican officeholders supported
Trump’s lawless and dishonest effort — through frivolous litigation, attempted
fraud, and finally mob violence — to steal the White House. And they’ve
shamelessly followed up with state laws designed to disenfranchise citizens the
GOP deems likely to vote for Democrats.
Opposing
the seating of this qualified Supreme Court nominee is the Republican way of
saying that those they disagree with must have no role
in government at all, regardless of what the voters say and regardless of what
the Constitution provides.
Confirming
Ketanji Brown Jackson over their objections will represent an affirmation of
American constitutional democracy.
is
an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism
thriller Mississippi
Reckoning. This op-ed was distributed by
OtherWords.org. Read Progressive Charlestown's review of Mitchell's book HERE.