Senate Republicans have been hesitant to express support for Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court, including those who previously backed her in earlier confirmations.
Although Senate Democrats don’t need Republican votes to confirm Jackson, some have appealed to conservative lawmakers to join them in confirming Jackson.
“Judge Jackson’s various nominations have won bipartisan support in the past, and her nomination now merits bipartisan support in the present,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in February after Jackson’s nomination. “I hope both sides can work together in a fair and expeditious way to make it happen.”
But Republican lawmakers have been vocal about their concerns and potential reasons for opposing Jackson’s nomination.
“I suppose what bothers some of us Republicans is that she’s the favorite candidate of these left-wing, dark money groups that are also advocating packing of the Supreme Court,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in February on Fox News.
And Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who backed Jackson last year when she was nominated for a federal appeals court for the D.C. circuit, was critical of the president’s choice. After Jackson was named as Biden’s pick to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Graham tweeted that the “radical left has won President Biden over yet again.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) released a statement in February after Jackson was nominated saying she planned to “thoroughly vet” the judge she previously helped to confirm and that her previous expression of support “does not signal how I will vote for a Supreme Court justice.”
