Washington – The Senate on Monday approved the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the District of Columbia Federal Court of Appeals, confirming President Biden’s first candidate in the United States Court of Appeals.
Jackson received bipartisan support from the upper house in a 53-54 vote. Three Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats to confirm that Jackson, a DC Federal District Court Judge will fill the vacant seat for Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The DC Circuit is considered the second most powerful court in the country and a springboard for the Supreme Court. Three of the nine members of the high court, Court President John Roberts and Judges Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, served on the appeals court in the country’s capital before being promoted to the highest court.
Jackson is considered a candidate for the Supreme Court if a vacancy arises during Mr Biden’s presidency, mainly because the president has pledged to appoint the country’s first black woman to the top court if there is an open seat.
This perspective has led progressive judicial groups to sue Judge Stephen Breyer, who has been on the Supreme Court for 27 years and for whom Jackson was secretary, is retiring and allowing Mr. Biden to appoint a successor while Democrats have little control of the Senate.
The president announced his intention to nominate Jackson to the DC Circuit in March as part of it first tranche of judicial candidates, and the selection was widely applauded by Democrats. Jackson has served on the U.S. District Court in DC since 2013 and was vice chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. She also worked as an assistant federal attorney for DC for two years, a professional experience that judicial groups say is lacking on the federal bench.
With Jackson’s confirmation, there are eight vacancies in federal appeals courts, which are the last stop for thousands of cases. The president has announced the candidates for six of those seats.
Of the more than 80 places open in federal courts, Mr. Biden has nominated 13 candidates, who are diverse in terms of both background and professional experience. The Senate last week confirmed Zahid Quraishi in the U.S. District Court in New Jersey, making him the first Muslim-American federal judge in the country’s history.
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