In her Supreme Court confirmation hearings this week, the judge will draw on her earlier experiences and those of her predecessors.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s Supreme Court pick, knows her way around Senate confirmation hearings. She has successfully navigated three of them, the most recent one less than a year ago. When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee question her this week, they will be facing a seasoned pro. Based on her smooth performance in April in connection with her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Jackson has mastered the playbook. She knows how to be cordial and noncommittal, to demonstrate mastery of legal materials while avoiding expressing even a hint of an opinion about them. She has also demonstrated a nimble ability to reframe questions. Last year, for instance, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, invited her to take sides in the debate over whether the meaning of the Constitution was fixed when it was adopted and ratified. “Do you believe we have a living Constitution?” he asked. “I believe,” she responded, “that the Constitution is an enduring document.” She was also gracious and capable at hearings on her nominations to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2009 and to the Federal District Court in Washington in 2012. She was confirmed to the first two positions by voice vote and to the appeals court by a vote of 53 to 44, with three Republicans supporting her nomination. In getting ready for this week’s hearings, Judge Jackson has doubtless studied the lessons distilled by her predecessors. More than 40 years ago, for instance, when Sandra Day O’Connor, then an Arizona judge, was preparing for her own Supreme Court confirmation hearings, she was given sound advice by a 26-year-old Justice Department lawyer assigned to help her. In a report to a superior after Justice O’Connor became the first female member of the court, the lawyer sketched out his advice. “The approach was to avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the court,” he wrote, “but demonstrating in the response a firm command of the subject area and awareness of the relevant precedents and arguments.
