The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson concluded as of March 24, having served as a great reminder of how ridiculous these hearings can get.
Over four days of what can only be described as the weirdest job interview ever, I was reminded that these hearings can often serve as a bizarre platform for senators to attempt to create echo chambers of their own beliefs while asking nominees questions they can’t possibly answer or have no reason to.
An example of this is when Sen. Lindsay Graham used the first three of his 30 minutes of questioning discussing, or rather criticizing, Jackson’s faith. After Graham asked, Jackson said she was a nondenominational protestant. Graham followed up by asking if Jackson felt she could fairly judge a catholic, further pressing Jackson to discuss her faith. Jackson responded by saying “Senator, personally, my faith is very important, but as you know, there is no religious test under Article Six, and it is very important to set aside one’s personal views about things in the role of a judge.”
Graham immediately agreed but continued to press the issue, asking Jackson to rate her faith on a scale of one to ten. “Well, Senator, I am reluctant to talk about my faith in this way just because I want to be mindful of the need for the public to have confidence in my ability to separate out my personal views,” Jackson responded. As Jackson said, her faith should have no pertinence to her job as a judge or justice and Graham should know this after being a part of past confirmation hearings.
Sen. Ted Cruz also used his time to highlight unnecessary issues, such as children’s books being taught at Georgetown Day School, where Jackson is on the board, and one of her daughters attends. The book Cruz chose was called “Antiracist Baby” and it explicitly states that no one is born racist, but rather it is a taught behavior.
“Do you agree with this book that is being taught to kids that babies are racist?” Cruz asked Jackson after wrongly interpreting this book. Jackson responded by saying she did not agree with the concept as Cruz had phrased it. “I have not reviewed any of those books, any of those ideas. They don’t come up in my work as a judge, which I’m respectfully here to address,” said Jackson, perfectly summing up just how ridiculous and unnecessary Cruz’s entire line of questioning was.
The vote on Jackson’s confirmation is set for April 4. If confirmed, Jackson would be the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. I hope this milestone is achieved and I hope the ridiculousness of the questions highlighted and many others can be reflected on by the Senate and confirmations in the future can be an intelligent discussion over the judge’s work, not a back and forth over personal beliefs, hypotheticals and children’s books.
Tracy Mullinax can be reached at [email protected]