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McConnell Will Not Support Biden’s SCOTUS Nominee

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says that he will not vote to approve President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court, meaning that  Ketanji Brown Jackson will likely face unified opposition from Republican senators. The confirmation battle is bound to be an intense one given the current party split in the Senate, but the Democrats may have the votes to  confirm their nominee even with unanimous Republican opposition.

Biden’s SCOTUS nominee meets opposition

Democrats have said that Jackson’s only apparent flaw is the fact that she may intimidate her peers with how exceptionally qualified and talented she is.

Republicans have disagreed. McConnell’s opposition follows mounting criticism of Jackson from other senators, who have made it clear that they will not vote to confirm Biden’s nominee.

Jackson would be replacing Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring. Breyer is a liberal justice but has strongly opposed leftist proposals to expand the court.

McConnell cited as his main reason for opposing Jackson the fact that she refused to echo Breyer’s condemnations of the idea.

“Judge Jackson was the court-packers’ pick, and she testified like it,” McConnell said. Jackson has not openly embraced the idea, but she hasn’t disavowed it and she is supported by those who have embraced it openly.

Her confirmation would not change the current ideological composition of the court, but that confirmation would be for life and she might become a supporter of court packing if confirmed.

Democrats may already have enough votes

Other Republican senators opposed the nominee on the grounds that she has been soft on crime, particularly in sentencing those convicted of crimes related to child pornography.

McConnell and most other Republicans opposed her nomination as a D.C. Circuit judge last year, though a few broke with the party to support her.

Senators Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski all joined with the Democrats to confirm Jackson then, which raises the possibility that they might vote to confirm her again.

Graham, at least, has appeared to be much more skeptical about Jackson this time. None of the three have announced which way they intend to vote yet.

The Democrats may not need any Republican support;  provided none of their own senators defect they can rely on Kamala Harris to break a tie in their favor as vice president.

West Virginia’s Joe Manchin would have been the most likely to desert the party and vote against Jackson, but the senator has said that he will indeed vote to confirm her. This means that the Democrats may already have enough support to confirm Biden’s first SCOTUS nominee.

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