By Lawrence Hurley, Andrew Chung and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court in a milestone for the United States and a victory for President Joe Biden, who made good on a campaign promise as he seeks to infuse the federal judiciary with a broader range of backgrounds.
The vote to confirm the 51-year-old federal appellate judge to a lifetime job on the nation’s top judicial body was 53-47, with three Republicans – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney – joining Biden’s fellow Democrats. A simple majority was needed, as Jackson overcame Republican opposition in a Supreme Court confirmation process that remains fiercely partisan.
The Democratic president in February nominated the 51-year-old federal appellate judge to a lifetime job on the nation’s top judicial body to succeed the retiring 83-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer.
Jackson will take the 83-year-old Breyer’s place on the liberal bloc of a court with an increasingly assertive 6-3 conservative majority. Breyer is due to serve until the court’s current term ends – usually in late June – and Jackson would be formally sworn in after that. Jackson served early in her career as a Supreme Court clerk for Breyer.
Before Jackson joins the bench, the Supreme Court is due to rule in major cases including one that could overturn the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide and another that could expand gun rights.
Jackson overcame widespread opposition among Republicans to win confirmation including attacks on her sentencing record as a trial judge and their attempt to paint her as a liberal activist who bends rulings to fit her own beliefs.
Biden appointed Jackson last year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after she spent eight years as a federal district judge. Like the three conservative justices appointed by the Democrat Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump, Jackson is young enough to serve for decades in the lifetime job.
Jackson is set to become the sixth woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court, joining current members Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the retired Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020. Sotomayor is the only Hispanic ever to serve as a justice. The Supreme Court was founded in 1789.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Richard Cowan in Washington and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
