Jackson’s confirmation proceedings show that historically partisan Supreme Court fights are the new normal

CNN — The legal stakes around Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation may be lower than they have been in the past decade of Supreme Court fights. In announcing her support of Jackson, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said explicitly that in addition to being satisfied on Jackson’s individual credentials, she wanted to reject the “corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.” “While I have not and will not agree with all of Judge Jackson’s decisions and opinions, her approach to cases is carefully considered and is generally well-reasoned,” Murkowski said. During the Senate Judiciary Committee vote Monday, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Jackson would “most extreme and the furthest-left justice.” Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons would later say: “She is not a radical liberal activist judge and I don’t think any of us should be making proclamations about what we are certain she would do to the trajectory of American law.” With three Republican expected votes in Jackson’s favor, President Joe Biden’s nominee will have fewer votes from the party that opposes him than than the nine and five respective GOP votes received by Obama Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, one of the other Republicans supporting Jackson, called the Senate confirmation process broken, in part because move away in recent years from judging nominees on their “experience, qualifications, and integrity.” The third GOP senator who will vote in Jackson’s favor this week had, unlike Murkowski and Collins, opposed Jackson when she was nominated last year to the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals. As Jackson moved through the process, Republicans brought up repeatedly not just the recent Senate fights around confirming Barrett and Kavanaugh, but how Democrats approached judicial nominations decades ago – dating back to the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, whose confirmation was narrowly defeated in a bipartisan Senate vote.