This became obvious as they hit Jackson with a barrage of questions regarding hot button social topics, or, more accurately wedge issues, such as transgender youth, Critical Race Theory, or what they deemed as such, but this was really about the 2024 midterm election where those issues would be paramount, as the senators played to their base.
Joined by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri who was hellbent on her so-called leniency in sentencing non-producing child phonography possessors, was a definite dog whistle to the base that Democrats were soft on crime, an old trope, but one that was resurrected by Donald Trump repeatedly during his one term presidency.
The truth was that there were two cases out of seven that bore a closer look and that involved the crucial role of judicial oversight and analysis, and were only two, not the five that Hawley described, but as Factcheck.org pointed out, “Jackson’s sentences in five of the seven cases mentioned by Hawley were consistent with, or above, probation’s recommendation. The reality was that there were two of Jackson’s sentences were below the government and probation’s recommendations.”
Moreover, this bipartisan group “compared Jackson’s average sentence in those seven cases to the government prosecutors, who on average sought a minimum of 71 months. That means Jackson’s average was more than two years below the minimum.”
Underneath the political play was a seemingly frail woman who handled the barrage of questions, accusations, and pointed fingers, in a dignified manner; one that many Black professionals have come to experience, over a lifetime of job interviews, job performances; and, by Black women in particular, who, in recognition, have rallied to her cause.
As we were told, “Watching her brought back every nightmare from my corporate life, and service to the government. My heart bled for her.”
Listening to the audio, it was also clear that Judge Jackson had some delays, hesitation and even sighs, in her answers, or multiple attempts to answer; as she was constantly interrupted, when she tried, especially with Graham and his demand to state her faith, to which she flatly replied, “Protestant.”
Graham, perhaps not realizing, or maybe intentionally not remembering, that there was no religious test for lawmakers, continued on a rampage, as he later revisited a case of sour grapes for California Sen. Diane Feinstein's prior questioning of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, and her conservative Catholicism, with the signature tagline, ‘The dogma lives loudly within you.”
Graham’s level of chicanery was the opening salvo in the battle for control of the House, and Senate in the seven months leading to the midterm elections.
The Republican party, still stinging from the loss of the White House to Joe Biden, is now at a stalemate, in their attempt to regain the presidency as well as to retake the House and overcome the Senate.
As we’ve noted before the road ahead is paved with far less good intentions, than even realized, and earlier efforts had placed abortion on the hot seat, and centered by not only antiabortionists, but wearing the robes of gerrymandering to take states like Texas who had no overwhelming opposition to abortion, as a way to leapfrog over local positions.
Now, racism a la Ted Cruz, and his “racist babies” is tilting in the much maligned and mostly misunderstood realm of Critical Race Theory, which is taught in some colleges, and graduate school programs since the 1970s, but is hardly mainstream, in elementary schools.
That torch was clearly handed off this week to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with his legislative bill, titled the “Parental Rights in Education” bill [which] prohibits teachers from leading classroom lessons on gender identity or sexual orientation for students in kindergarten through third grade. It also bans such lessons for older students unless they are “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate, “ reported Politico.
DeSantis, of course is positioning himself as a 2024 presidential candidate, in case Trump decides, or is forced to not run; but, this bill and others, takes a relatively new phenomenon and upends it for political gain, thus proving that all politics are local.
While the bill has many moving parts,” it became apparent after the Virginia governor’s race, where Republican Glenn Younkin beat Terry McAuliffe in large part by pushing parental rights in education, that Florida Republicans had tapped into a growing sense of frustration from parents.”
This was sharply evident with Blackburn’s questioning of Jackson, when she asked, “What is a woman?”, and not satisfied with Jackson’s reply that she was not a biologist, the senator feigned genteel shock, and bewilderment.
Finally, the elephant in the room question: abortion, or more specifically Roe v. Wade, and with correspondingly conservative justices on the Supreme Court in recent memory, and with many pro-lifers wanting, and even expecting a reversal, Jackson was again the scapegoat.
The National Catholic Reporter noted that, “Jackson was asked a few times March 22 about her abortion views. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Jackson, as she has asked the last three court nominees, if Roe v. Wade, the court's 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationwide, was settled law. Jackson, as other nominees before her have done, agreed that the court's decision was a binding precedent.”
Sensing a possible trap, when “Later when she was asked by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., if she has a personal belief on when life begins, she said she did.
"I have a religious belief that I set aside when I am ruling on cases," she told the committee.
With Blackburn rounding the coroner and questioning her for her belief should Roe be overturned, Jackson replied, she replied, as she would “as any other precedent.”
It’s not as if the November midterms are just around the corner, or are they? Graham has since said that he would not vote for Jackson’ ‘I will oppose her and I will vote ‘no’” Graham stated from the Senate floor, and weakened the Biden’s administration for bipartisan support, and to avoid a tie breaker from Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile Maine Senator Susan Collins has said that she will vote yes for the judge, but cynics have noted a familiar pattern for her, when the die is cast, and she faces no great political loss, unlike her support for Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
As we have noted before, it’s all over but for the fighting.
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