Padilla and Feinstein were California ‘firsts.’ They want Ketanji Brown Jackson to be one, too
It was not lost on California’s senators Monday that they were witnessing a shift in history, whether or not the United States Senate confirms President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Jackson, a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, would be the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court if confirmed. She would also be the first former federal public defender to preside on the bench.
“Judge Jackson, even before your next opinion or dissent, your appearance before us today already begins a new chapter in our nation’s history,” Sen. Alex Padilla said during opening remarks of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing on Monday.
Both Padilla and Sen. Dianne Feinstein sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee which will consider sending the president’s pick for the Supreme Court to the Senate following hearings this week. If approved, the full Senate will vote on her appointment.
Feinstein, the first woman to represent California in the U.S. Senate, remarked on Jackson’s judicial record.
“Looking at your record, it is clear you have the qualifications and the experience and the knowledge needed to serve on the Supreme Court,” Feinstein said. “And as a woman, it makes me very proud of that.”
This is Jackson’s fourth time sitting before the Senate Judiciary Committee for an appointment. She was approved by a bipartisan Senate to become the Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which writes sentencing guidelines for federal courts, in 2010. She was then approved to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2013 and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last year, also with bipartisan support.
Feinstein stressed the importance of her time as a public defender.
“If you are confirmed, you would be the first-ever federal public defender to sit on the court and the first justice since Thurgood Marshall with significant experience representing low-income defendants in criminal cases,” she said.
Padilla told Jackson that the “men who wrote our founding documents could never have imagined that you would one day be here.”
“They could never have imagined that the senators sitting before you would include the first women to represent California, Hawaii and Tennessee; the first Jewish man to represent Georgia; the first Hispanic man to represent Texas; and the first Black man to represent New Jersey,” Padilla said in his opening remarks.
“Nor could they have imagined that list to include me,” said Padilla, who is California’s first Latino U.S. senator.
Padilla thanked his parents, who met in the U.S. after emigrating from Mexico, for inspiring his American dream. And he said that he, like Jackson, believes “in the greatness and promise of this nation.”
Jackson smiled and watched each senator intently as they either gushed about her accomplishments or expressed skepticism about what her “judicial philosophy” was.
In her remarks, Jackson said that she was humbled by the opportunity and that she would work to defend the Constitution if confirmed.
She talked about standing “on the shoulders of so many who have come before” her, including Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship who Jackson shares a birthday with.
“And like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building ‘equal justice under law’ are a reality and not just an idea,” Jackson said.
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Padilla and Feinstein were California ‘firsts.’ They want Ketanji Brown Jackson to be one, too."
