Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. Jacquelyn Martin (AP)
The statement of intent by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a candidate for the Supreme Court of the United States, has come at the end of an intense day on Capitol Hill.
After listening, patiently and silently, to 24 people assessing her achievements and exposing without fear of repetition what they expect from her work in the high court, Jackson has sentenced: "I have been a judge for almost a decade and I take very seriously that responsibility and my duty of independence.
I make decisions about my cases from neutrality.
I evaluate the facts, and interpret and apply the law based on those facts, without fear or bias, and always consistently with my oath.”
Jackson responded at the end of an emotional intervention, in which he recalled that his passion for law was born when he saw his father study law in the kitchen of the modest family home in Miami, to a question that has flown over from the Republican side the first of the four days of hearings to examine his suitability for one of the nine life positions of the Supreme Court.
What defines philosophically her performance as a judge?
The 11 conservative members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have demanded over and over again that it rule on this issue, while lamenting that the Supreme Court has become too politicized in recent times.
With the Democrats, at least, they have agreed on two things: on the professional preparation of the candidate (who has just served nine years as a federal judge in Washington) and on the use of the well-worn adjective "historical."
It has been the most listened to this Monday in the United States Senate.
The occasion advised him for once: Jackson, 51, will be, if the appointment of Joe Biden as president to a position of this importance prospers, the first African-American woman to sit on the high court in 232 years.
She will also count as the sixth judge and as the third black person among the 115 elected to the position in history.
The process has begun in one of the committees with the highest media profile in the Chamber;
several high-profile senators, and, why not, certain presidential aspirations, are among its members, and this process, which informed Americans passionately follow, is a good showcase to show their vision of the world before the cameras.
The nomination has aroused great interest in Washington these days, despite the informative priority of the war (Biden had toyed with the idea of attending the debate, but a call with European leaders has prevented him) and despite the fact that, even if he is elected ( and everything indicates that this will be the case, since in principle he has the Democratic support of the block), Jackson will not change the dynamics of the Supreme Court.
The court is made up of six conservative and three progressive justices,
after Donald Trump squeezed his time in the White House by managing to sneak three magistrates off his rope in a single legislature.
That has left a conservative supermajority unprecedented in the last eight decades.
The new judge will replace Stephen G. Breyer, a member of the progressive slate, who decided to retire at the age of 81 last January to allow the Democratic Party to find a replacement for him before it is too late;
it is very likely that in the legislative elections they will lose control of one or both chambers.
Jackson has remembered Breyer especially in his speech.
It was at that moment that he was able to contain his tears.
He briefly worked on his team in the '90s and is now about to succeed him.
Jackson has also thought of her parents, two public school teachers who gave her "an African name that means 'the lovely one'" and convinced her that she would be capable of achieving whatever she set her mind to.
Also, from her brother, a veteran of the Iraq war, from her uncle, her police officer, from her husband,
Five hours before he took the floor, the expectation was felt at around 11:00 in the halls of the Capitol.
Jackson, 51, appeared on time, with a wide smile that has not left her all day and flanked by the chairman of the committee, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (Illinois), and by the oldest of the Republicans, Chuck Grassley (Iowa).
The committee is made up of 22 members, half from each party, who spoke alternately, before hearing a
laudatio
from two people chosen by Jackson.
Not an "activist"
The Democrats, who defended that she is not an “activist”, “nor a puppet of the radical left”, congratulated her on her record and for what her appointment implies for this country.
“There has never been an African-American woman in the Supreme Court.
You could be the first.
It is not easy to be the first.
Often that means having to be the best and, in a way, the bravest.
Many are not prepared to face that pressure, that scrutiny in full view of everyone, ”said Durbin in his introductory speech.
The Republicans, for their part, have presented the arguments that will guide their strategy and their questions for the sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that they have been advancing in recent days.
They will look for evidence that it has been “soft on crime”, that it is endorsed by “dubiously financed far-left groups”, as Grassley has said in reference to the organization Demand Justice, that when it was public defender defended terrorists in Guantánamo with a "suspicious" dedication, and that she has shown benevolence when it comes to prosecuting child pornography cases.
On that last point she has fought Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri,
that he has promised a "frank interrogation" and has detailed a series of files in which Jackson imposed a sentence for these crimes that is less than that proposed by the prosecution and that recommended by the federal system's action guidelines.
Hawley's attacks have been discredited as "demagoguery" by the White House and even by conservative media such as the magazine
NationalReview.
Supporters of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson demonstrate this Monday at the gates of the Supreme Court of the United States, in Washington. Samuel Corum (AFP)
Hawley is one of those senators with presidential aspirations for 2024. Another is Ted Cruz (Texas), who was the most expeditious in presenting one of the most repeated arguments this Monday by Republicans: they do not plan to turn this process into a "political circus" .
Paradoxically, much of this morning's audience has gone into remembering how the 2018 appointment of another judge, the conservative Brett Kavannaugh, unfolded.
During the process, a psychologist named Christine Blassey Ford accused him of a sexual assault that happened decades ago, when they were both students at the same institute outside Washington.
"We're not going to ask him about who he dated in school," Cruz told Jackson.
Lindsey Graham (representative of North Carolina) has gone further to say, with defiant folksy:
The process will last until Thursday.
The Democrats, who have 50 seats in the Senate, enough for a vote that does not require a qualified majority, hope that the appointment will be resolved in the plenary session of the House before April 8, the day the spring recess begins in the sessions.
They are also confident that it will receive bipartisan support.
Jackson has already gone through this process three times: when she was appointed vice president of the United States Sentencing Commission (an independent agency that ensures unifying the criteria of the federal courts) and when she was elected as a judge in the District of Columbia (where she is finds Washington) and its appeals court (it was last year, when it was endorsed by three Republicans, including Graham).
But this time it could be different.
The Supreme Court is one of the most controversial and disputed places in the US system, which is why its decisions influence issues such as abortion, possession of weapons or positive discrimination in universities (three issues in question right now), as well as by the philosophy that governs them (whether originalist, faithful to the letter of the Constitution, or freer in its interpretation).
Who makes it up affects people's lives.
People like the hundred citizens (mostly African-American women) who this morning have gathered in front of the high court building to demonstrate in favor of KBJ (Jackson has already received his acronym, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg had hers: RBG) or , certainly less, against.
The posters read: "A Justice For All", a judge for all,
Subscribe here
to the 'newsletter' of EL PAÍS America and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region.