WASHINGTON (GA Recorder) — President Joe Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling her “one of the nation’s brightest legal minds.”
“Today, as we watch freedom and liberty under attack abroad, I’m here to fulfill my responsibilities under the Constitution, to preserve freedom and liberty here in the United States of America,” Biden said at the White House as he introduced Jackson.
If confirmed by the Senate, Jackson will be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring this summer.
White House statement on Jackson’s appointment
“I congratulate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on her historic nomination to the Supreme Court,” Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a statement. “I look forward to meeting with Judge Jackson soon and seeing her before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where I will perform my Constitutional duties of advice and consent with diligence and care.”
Jackson, a top contender from the start, currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She was previously on President Barack Obama’s short list for a Supreme Court pick in 2016 after Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of that year.
Jackson, who was born in Washington, D.C., but grew up in Miami, has worked as a public defender and was confirmed by Congress in 2009 to serve as vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 2010 to 2014. During her tenure, the commission reduced sentences for many crack cocaine offenses, where research has consistently shown disproportionate sentencing rates between Black and white offenders.
Updated 2/25/22@2:45pm
