Will McConnell actually do it?
On Sunday (March 20), in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell revealed that he was still undecided on whether or not he would be voting for Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Jackson, who is the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court, had a one-on-one meeting with McConnell earlier in the month. McConnell revealed that during that meeting, Jackson declined to object to court-packing.
Following the meeting, McConnell praised Biden’s history-making nominee for her qualification and intellect, despite having voted against her nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last June.
But, in Sunday’s interview, McConnell revealed more details about the one-on-one meeting, saying that he began the meeting by asking Jackson “to defend the court” by opposing “court-packing.”
Court-packing is a process that would increase the number of Justices on the Supreme Court to give the party controlling the White House more sway.
However, in the interview, McConnell said, “she wouldn’t do that” when referencing whether Jackson would defend the court against court-packing but didn’t specify if she took a position on the matter.
McConnell emphasized that “in the meantime, the [Senate Judiciary] Committee will ask her all the tough questions,” adding that he hadn’t “made a final decision as to how I’m going to vote.”
McConnell noted that Supreme Court Justices Judge Stephen Breyer and the late Judge Ruth Bader-Ginsburg had objected to packing the court, saying “it would have been an easy thing for [Jacson] to do to defend the court.”
The minority leader, who had been instrumental in establishing a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, mentioned that he is “going to listen to the evidence” and the hearings when asked if he could be persuaded to vote for Jackson.
