“I believe that the Constitution is fixed in its meaning,” said the Supreme Court nominee.
Supreme Court confirmation hearings have become a mostly pointless exercise, characterized by bloviating senators asking rambling and frequently incoherent questions while the squirming nominee dutifully recites case law and tries to avoid revealing any of his or her own legal views. But every now and again the judicial confirmation process does shed a little light on what a justice-to-be actually thinks. One such moment may have occurred in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday when Sen. Ben Sasse (R–Neb.) asked Ketanji Brown Jackson to elaborate on what she has called her “judicial methodology.” “Earlier today you said that you ‘do not believe there is a living Constitution’ and you also said that you are constrained to interpret the text and that, I think you said, sometimes that’s enough to resolve the issue,” Sasse observed. “So I think I’ve heard you pay partial tribute to the judicial philosophy of originalism.
