Hakeem Jeffries Demands That The Senate Treat Biden’s SCOTUS Pick With ‘Dignity and Respect’ As Confirmation Hearings Begin

As confirmation hearings begin today for Joe Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, some are suggesting that they could “produce fireworks.”

As POLITICO reported, Senate Republicans have vowed that they will treat Jackson respectfully and won’t lob personal attacks, an apparent reference to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s acrimonious 2018 confirmation hearings.

Progressive U.S. House Rep Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wanted to reiterate that stance, though, and demanded in a tweet, “The Senate must treat Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson with dignity and respect.”

The Senate must treat Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson with dignity and respect.

— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) March 21, 2022

Ironically, Democrats in the replies seemed oblivious to the way that Kavanaugh was treated in the past and some even suggested that he and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett were treated well.

As we previously reported, there has not been much in the way of dissenting views as to why Jackson potentially shouldn’t be confirmed or in coverage at all as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has dominated the headlines.

U.S. Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) has sought to change that however, as he recently brought to light that Jackson “has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”

It has also been reported that Jackson represented Guantanamo Bay detainees during her time as a public defender; later, while in private practice, she filed friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of groups that opposed former President George W. Bush’s detention policies.

Jackson’s representation of Guantanamo prisoners accused of terrorism-related offenses came up during her circuit court confirmation hearing, and Senate Republicans are expected to raise it again this week, according to POLITICO.

Additionally, Jackson got her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard which is also a defendant in a major affirmative action case the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this fall over whether the school’s admissions practices aimed at increasing racial diversity actually penalize applicants of Asian descent.