U.S. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney announced Monday night they will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's historic elevation to the Supreme Court, giving President Joe Biden's nominee a burst of bipartisan support and all but assuring she'll become the first Black female justice. The senators from Alaska and Utah announced their decisions ahead of a procedural vote to advance the nomination and as Democrats pressed to confirm Jackson by the end of the week. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announced last week that she would back Jackson.
All three Republicans said they did not expect to agree with all of Jackson's decisions, but that they found her well qualified. Romney said she "more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity."
With three Republicans supporting her in the 50-50 split Senate, Jackson is on a glidepath to confirmation and on the brink of making history as the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court's more than 200-year history. Beyond the historic element, Democrats have cited her deep experience in nine years on the federal bench and the chance for her to become the first former public defender on the court.
'Corrosive politicization'
Both Collins and Murkowski said they believed that the Senate nomination process has become broken as it has become more partisan in the past several decades.
Murkowski said her decision partly rests "on my rejection of the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year."
Biden nominated Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. Biden has sought bipartisan backing for his pick, making repeated calls to senators and inviting Republicans to the White House.
The Senate's 53-47 vote Monday evening was to "discharge" Jackson's nomination from the Senate judiciary committee after the panel deadlocked, 11-11, on whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor.
The committee vote, split along party lines, was the first deadlock on a Supreme Court nomination in three decades.
"Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect, and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court," Biden tweeted Monday. "She deserves to be confirmed as the next justice."
She deserves to be confirmed as the next Justice.—@POTUS
The chairman of the judiciary committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, said at Monday's meeting that Jackson has "the highest level of skill, integrity, civility and grace."
"This committee's action today in nothing less than making history," Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said. "I'm honoured to be a part of it. I will strongly and proudly support Judge Jackson's nomination."
The committee's top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, said he was opposing Jackson's nomination because "she and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government."
'Descent into dysfunction'
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the committee, said last week that a panel tie vote on Jackson would be "a truly unfortunate signal of the continued descent into dysfunction of our confirmation process."
Republicans on the judiciary panel continued their push Monday to paint Jackson as soft on crime, defending their repeated questions about her sentencing on sex crimes.
"Questions are not attacks," said Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, one of several Republican senators on the panel who hammered the point in the hearings two weeks ago.
Jackson pushed back on that narrative, declaring that "nothing could be further from the truth." Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions, and on Monday they criticized their counterparts' questioning.
"You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold," said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
The questioning was filled with "absurdities of disrespect," said Booker, who also is Black, and he said he will "rejoice" when she is confirmed.
Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, expressed disappointment with the tie, even as he noted that Jackson had cleared an important hurdle. He said "history will be watching" during the full Senate vote later this week.
"It's a stain on the committee that this vote was not unanimous but instead was a tied vote along party lines," Johnson said.
