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SCOTUS WATCH

KBJ Day Three: What we’re watching

After spending more than 13 hours on Tuesday being grilled by senators, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is back in front of the Judiciary Committee today as she seeks to become the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

The big positive for Jackson? Senators will only have 20 minutes each in the second round of questions today versus 30 minutes on Tuesday.

Also, this is Jackson’s last day of testimony before the Judiciary panel. Tomorrow’s hearing will feature outside groups testifying on her nomination.

During yesterday’s marathon session, Jackson parried questions from Republicans on an enormous array of issues: whether she called former President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “war criminals” (she didn’t); is she “soft” on crime and individuals possessing child pornography; does she support expanding the Supreme Court; whether she agrees with Critical Race Theory and the “1619 Project”; whether she supports Supreme Court rulings on abortion and same-sex marriage; how many murders and rapes there were in the United States last year; and even what her defintion of the word “woman” is.

As with recent GOP Supreme Court nominees, Jackson declined to answer many of the controversial questions not related directly to her judicial history. At one point, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) pushed the 51-year-old appeals court judge to name the Supreme Court justice “she is closest to” or patterns herself after. Jackson responded that she is proceeding “from a neutral posture in every case.”

However, it was the child porn issue – an ugly topic that infuriated Democrats and progressive groups backing her nomination – that led to Jackson’s only really difficult moments. It’s likely to resurface again today, Republicans warned.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) first raised the topic during the hearing, breaking out a chart that he used to allege Jackson had repeatedly handed out lighter sentences than called for under federal sentencing guidelines in such cases. Jackson was able to deflect Cruz’s comments.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) – who initially raised the issue of Jackson and child porn cases last week – challenged her over a 2013 case in which Jackson had sentenced a then 18-year-old defendant to only three months in prison, far below what the guidelines and federal prosecutors sought. Hawley pressed Jackson repeatedly on why she’d given the defendant, Wesley Hawkins, that sentence, and the nominee seemed to struggle to rebut his inquiries.

It wasn’t that Hawley and Cruz seriously damaged Jackson’s chances of getting confirmed. They didn’t. If all 50 Democrats stick with her, Jackson will be confirmed.

The issue, though, is whether these attacks will make it harder for any Senate Republicans to back Jackson on the Senate floor, such as Sens. Susan Collins of Maine or Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who voted in favor of Jackson’s appeals court nomination, sounds like a “No” at this point, although he told reporters to watch his comments today. Having Jackson confirmed with a bipartisan 51 or 52 votes is better for the White House than Vice President Kamala Harris having to cast the deciding vote to break a 50-50 tie.

It’s unclear whether the issue is resonating with the handful of Republicans who could potentially support Jackson.

“It struck me that it was off course, meaning the attacks were off course that came from some. And there is no there, there,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told our friend Paul Kane at the Washington Post. Murkowski declined to speak to reporters, while Collins was running around at committee hearings all day.

Democrats and the White House also pushed back hard on the Hawley and Cruz allegations. Democrats circulated fact checks refuting the claim that Jackson is lenient on child porn defendants. You can read some of them here, here and here. They also pushed out a Wall Street Journal editorial praising Jackson.

“It seemed like it was just continuing to go to sort of a salacious set of facts and [Jackson] had a perfectly legitimate explanation,” complained Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). Whitehouse suggested the two Republicans “were grandstanding for right-wing media.”

Overall, Senate Democrats and the White House described themselves as very happy with Jackson’s performance. Jackson was poised and professional throughout the lengthy ordeal, starting almost every answer with “Thank you, senator,” no matter how brutal some of the questions were.

“I thought the judge did a remarkable job, showed strength all the way and grace under pressure many times,” Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin said afterward.

Here’s a White House official on Jackson:

COVID FUNDING

Republicans still want more info on Covid funding request

While the White House continues to push for billions of dollars in new Covid prep funding, Republicans insist the Biden administration still hasn’t accounted for the trillions already appropriated by Congress, or fully justified its request.

The standoff comes as a new Covid variant, Omicron BA.2, is sweeping through the nation, although it doesn’t appear to cause more serious illness. Most states are dropping their Covid restrictions at this point in spite of this latest development.

White House officials turned over information Tuesday to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the ranking member of the HELP Committee, on the current federal stockpile of tests, vaccines and therapeutics. Burr told us his staff was still analyzing the data, and he noted White House officials hadn’t projected how long those supplies would last.

“It looks like they’ve got enough vaccines,” Burr said, although he didn’t have a number available. “They didn’t provide any projections… You would think that would be useful from a standpoint on what we want to purchase.”

Burr:

The White House requested $22.5 billion in new Covid prep funding as part of the $1.5 trillion spending package recently passed by Congress. Democrats pared that back to $15 billion, which would be offset by rescinding previous Covid funding.

But House Democrats – spurred on by their governors – rebelled at the offsets, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pull the Covid funding. And Senate Republicans won’t agree to declaring the new Covid funding an emergency that doesn’t need to be offset.

“If we need to have some legislation to make that possible, fine, but the offsets are going to have to come from what’s already been appropriated,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), said. “My colleagues are convinced that with that kind of investment, they ought to be able to find the $22 billion they’re looking for.”

So there’s a stalemate at this moment. The FY 2023 budget will be released by the White House next week, and we’d expect to see a lot more on the issue

Here’s Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:

The proposal from Barnes — a Milwaukee native — makes clear that he sees the strategy as an investment in both urban and rural areas of Wisconsin.

Here’s a statement from Barnes:

Check out the plan here. Some notable tidbits:

“Mandela will continue the fight to reverse Oshkosh Corporation’s decision to send 1,000 jobs to S.C. instead of creating good-paying union jobs for Wisconsin workers,” according to the plan.

MOMENTS

9:00 a.m.: President Joe Biden will depart Washington for travel to Brussels, Belgium. Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will gaggle aboard Air Force One.

10:30 a.m.: The Senate will take a procedural vote on the USICA bill.

12:00 p.m.: Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) will hold a press conference on gas prices.

3:00 p.m.: The White House COVID-19 Response Team will brief.

3:50 p.m.: Biden will arrive in Brussels.

CLIP FILE

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