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While the nation’s focus should be on the fact that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is the first Black woman to ascend to the U.S. Supreme Court bench, political theater takes center stage once again. Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s lone Black Republican Party member, elected not to vote to confirm Justice Brown Jackson, prompting Scott’s name to trend on Twitter.
Justice Brown Jackson’s confirmation vote enjoyed full support from all Democratic Party senators along with independents Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Angus King; Sen. Mitt Romney, Sen. Susan Collins, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski were the only votes from GOP senators.
Justice Brown Jackson faced grueling questions from GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings ahead of her confirmation, with Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Tom Cotton, and Sen. Josh Hawley using various angles to dig deeper into the judicial philosophy of Brown Jackson. At times, the questioning from GOP senators bordered in vehemence even while Brown Jackson remained composed despite the barrage.
Sen. Scott has been a frequent target of criticism by those in the media after announcing he would be voting no in Justice Brown Jackson’s confirmation, including MSNBC host Joy Reid who wrote via Twitter this past Tuesday (April 5), “All accuracy here. Not surprised by anything @SenatorTimScott does. He let @LindseyGrahamSC & the sheriffs dog-walk him
and destroy police reform after pretending to work on it and now he’ll go along with Lindsey’s barking-dog racism against Judge Jackson because: he’s Tim Scott.”
Scott’s office released a statement after the senator pushed back at Reid’s comments during an appearance on Fox & Friends.
From Sen. Tim Scott’s office:
I did not vote for her for a lower court because I believe that her judicial philosophy is inconsistent [with] what is in the best interest of our judiciary. It’s not Biden’s Supreme Court; it’s America’s Supreme Court. The number of her cases that have been overturned only reinforces the fact that this requires a deeper look. And the deeper I look, the more I realize that her judicial philosophy is antithetical to mine.
Law experts have mentioned repeatedly that Justice Brown Jackson’s record on sentencing falls in line with other federal judges with the time handed out falling just short of the guidelines laid out in court. This was a sticking point for the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and also that of Scott, who claimed in his statement that Justice Brown Jackson’s “judicial philosophy is antithetical to mine.”
On Twitter, folks are aiming harsh words toward Sen. Tim Scott. We’ve got those reactions below.
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