“It’s going to be an historic moment on Monday, as Judge Jackson appears before the committee,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin said on the Senate floor last week. “Her qualifications are exceptional. In every role she’s held, she has earned a reputation for thoughtfulness, evenhandedness, and collegiality.”
The two days of Jackson questioning will begin Tuesday, after a round of proceedings Monday featuring opening statements and her introduction.
Here is what might come up at her hearing.
‘Soft on crime’ framing
“Even amidst the national crime wave, a disproportionate share of the new judges President (Joe) Biden has nominated share this professional background that liberals say gives special empathy for criminal defendants,” the Kentucky Republican said. He added that Biden “is deliberately working to make the whole federal judiciary soft on crime.”
Jackson may point to her personal background to counter this attack, as she has done before. With an uncle who was prosecuted for a drug offense, and several members of her family — including her brother — who served in law enforcement, Jackson has relationships that she says have helped her see both sides of the issue.
Scrutiny of her approach to child porn offenses
His claims rely on two factors: First is her sentencing record in some cases, which is within the mainstream of how many other judges approach the offenses in question; second are statements she’s made about the legal issues around sex crimes, including in a 1996 law review article and in her role on the sentencing commission.
Some of the sentencing commission comments Hawley highlighted were in response to the testimony of witnesses at commission hearings. A review of the hearing transcript and interviews with two experts who testified belie the claim that Jackson showed leniency toward child pornography during a daylong session that Hawley quoted from in questioning her record. Still, the Missouri Republican has stood by his criticism.
Work on the US Sentencing Commission
In addition to the commission work on child sex crimes, other aspects of Jackson’s tenure there could come up. Before serving as vice chair, she served a two-year stint as an assistant special counsel for the commission in the mid-2000s.
Republicans are poring over thousands of documents for more information on the stances she took while working for the commission.
Support from groups that push Supreme Court expansion
At her 2021 hearing, several Republicans asked her about the support her nomination had received from the left-wing group Demand Justice and other progressive organizations that have advocated for expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Jackson declined to weigh in on the idea.
Her refusal to answer the question in her recent meeting with McConnell, according to his account of their discussion, has prompted criticism from the Kentucky Republican.
Does she have a judicial philosophy?
Republicans say they weren’t satisfied that Jackson did not elaborate on a specific judicial philosophy — such as originalism or the “living Constitution” approach — during her DC Circuit nomination hearing. They’re likely to ask questions that try to suss out more about how she approaches the law.
Advocacy for Guantanamo Bay prisoners
As a public defender, Jackson represented a Guantanamo Bay detainee, but it’s her advocacy for detainees while she worked at a private firm that Republicans are particularly skeptical of.
“Most of the time you have a choice of who your clients are. And sometimes you ought to just say, just say no,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told CNN earlier this month.
Decisions in politically charged cases
Ruling against Trump administration immigration initiatives
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, brought up the case during Jackson’s 2021 circuit court nomination hearing.
“I have a number of immigration cases and in those cases — like the one you mentioned — what I am doing is, I am evaluating the … immigration laws’ very complex scheme, the facts in the particular case and the claims that are being made, the arguments of the parties,” Jackson said at the time. “I am not assessing the policy.”
Jackson also notably dismissed Trump-era lawsuits seeking to challenge the building of a wall along the US Southern border.
Pro-labor rulings against Trump-era public union policies
Service on Montrose Christian School board
The time Jackson spent on the board of Montrose Christian School, a private Christian school in Maryland, between 2010 and 2011 was a topic of Republican questioning in her appellate confirmation hearing, where she distanced herself from the stances the school took against same-sex marriage and abortion.
While asserting her commitment to the principles of religious liberty, she said at the 2021 confirmation hearing, “I have served on many boards and I don’t necessarily agree with all of the statements of all the things that those boards might have in their materials.”
Abortion rights–related advocacy
CNN’s Alex Rogers contributed to this story.
More News
Trump escalates attacks on prosecutors, says Democrats run ‘a Gestapo administration’
Top RNC lawyer resigns after rift grows with Trump
Making Flying Cleaner