GOP Senators Meet With Biden SCOTUS Nominee

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson continued her meetings with lawmakers on Wednesday as she approaches her confirmation hearings, convening with Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Mike Lee.

Lee and Hawley have recently expressed concerns about her nomination to succeed retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who will step down from the high court later this year. Hawley recounted that he was troubled by Jackson’s “record on crime and criminal justice” in a statement last month, while Lee has “grave concerns” about the “precedent she would seek to set” as a justice, he said in a Feb. 25 statement.

“It’s an honor to have Judge Jackson with me,” said Lee, a Utah Republican, on Wednesday morning. “Anytime a judge from the D.C. Circuit wants to stop by, it’s an honor, especially one who has been nominated to the Supreme Court.”

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Jackson is slated to meet with Hawley, a Missouri Republican, at 11:45 a.m.

During Jackson’s confirmation hearings before her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Hawley questioned her views on religious liberty in reference to a mission statement of a now-defunct Maryland Christian school whose board she once advised.

Hawley drew Jackson’s attention to the school’s statement of faith, which was drawn from a similar Southern Baptist Convention statement. It espoused traditional values with regard to sexuality and abortion, stating that Christians should speak “on behalf of the unborn” and that marriage is the “uniting of one man and one woman.”

While Hawley said those were positions he agreed with, he nonetheless drew comparisons to the criticism Justice Amy Coney Barrett received from Democrats during her confirmation process, saying she was “attacked for serving on the board of Trinity School, which took similar positions.”

“I defended her at the time,” Hawley said of Barrett. “I would defend your right to religious liberty and to serve on this board, whatever your opinions may be.”

Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court comes as the current nine justices are slated to deliver rulings in two high-profile cases involving restrictive abortion laws in Texas and Mississippi.

The rulings are set to come down this summer and could ultimately weaken or overturn the landmark cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, two high court cases that previously established the option for women to terminate pregnancies.

On Tuesday, Jackson met with Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Ted Cruz of Texas. Jackson also met with Sen. Rick Scott, who is not on the committee but represents Jackson’s home state of Florida. Jackson’s hearings before the committee are slated to begin March 21.

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The White House also reiterated its claims Tuesday that Jackson should receive bipartisan support.

Speaking to the press on Tuesday aboard Air Force One, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Jackson “is someone who has ruled in favor of Democrats and Republicans, served under Democrats and Republicans, and [is] very much in the model of Justice Breyer.”