Monthly Archives: March 2022

“You are worthy. You are a great American. I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”

Sen. Cory Booker, during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing

Booker chose to praise Jackson instead of asking her questions.  Booker also railed against his Republican colleagues who highlighted specific cases from Jackson’s past. The senator referenced abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge in 1966, as role models in his life and who paved the way for Jackson’s historic path.

“That is the nature of a right.  When there is a right, it means that there are limitations on regulation.”

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in response to Sen. John Cornyn’s question whether a 2015 Supreme Court ruling establishing a right to same-sex marriage conflicts with the beliefs of some religions

Cornyn was referring to the High Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which compels states to recognize same-gender marriage under the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“At some point, you have to follow the rules!”

Sen. Dick Durbin, to Sen. Ted Cruz, as the latter went beyond his time limit during the Jackson confirmation hearing

Frustrated with Durbin’s repeated gavel-banging, Cruz shouted, “You can bang it as loud as you want!”

“It shows considerable effort when somebody goes to that much trouble to create that many organizations to hide how much money they’ve spent to control the nominations process to the court.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, comparing the efforts of some conservative groups to the Republican Party’s recent attacks on progressive groups, such as Demand Justice, as well as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

Demand Justice supports Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Whitehouse also specifically named The Federalist Society and Judicial Crisis Network among the conservative groups he claims encompass a vast network of secretive “dark money” groups that have played a major covert role in seating five of the Supreme Court’s current justices.

All told, he said, these groups have spent at least $400 million to help select and confirm Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.