The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson over the course of two days, and it was marked by tense exchanges between Senators, the airing of grievances over confirmations past, and inflammatory descriptions of gruesome child porn cases that Jackson once ruled on.
New insights into Judge Jackson's record, decision-making process, and approach to her work were also illuminated.
Jackson is the first former federal public defender to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court. She would be the only justice with trial experience on the high court. She was the vice chair of the bipartisan Sentencing Commission, which waded into controversial issues like child porn sentencing. Each of these professional experiences were aggressively probed during Jackson's 22 hours of questioning, as Republicans sought to suggest she is weak on crime. Jackson referred to her family in the audience who had served in law enforcement. She was asked questions about controversial topics, such as abortion, and whether she has a judicial philosophy.
We learned a lot from Jackson's confirmation hearings.
Jackson told Cruz that she would not be involved in the affirmative action case if she were confirmed to the Supreme Court. Jackson sits on the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, which is accused of discriminating against Asian American applicants.
Senators on both sides of the aisle asked Jackson about abortion. The Supreme Court decided in 1973 that a woman's right to abortion is protected by the constitution.
Jackson would take the bench after the Supreme Court decides the fate of abortion. Jackson was asked by Senator Dianne Feinstein if she thought the decision to allow abortion was a super precedent. When the court is asked to revisit a precedent, reliance is one of the factors that it considers.
If the court overturns the decision, Marsha asked if she would respect the decision.
The president of the Supreme Court will be decided by the Supreme Court.
Jackson was asked about her views on abortion by the judge, and she was also asked about a 2001 brief she co-authored for reproductive rights groups that supported a law in Massachusetts that created a buffer zone around abortion providers. Jackson was asked about the language in the brief that said few American citizens who seek to exercise constitutionally protected rights must run a gauntlet through a hostile, noisy crowd of protesters.
When you go to church, do you think about the pro-life women there?
Jackson was pressed on her judicial philosophy by both sides of the aisle, which she characterized as a judicial methodology. She makes sure she is evaluating the facts. She applies the law to the facts.
Jackson did not explain how she would approach interpreting the Constitution according to multiple Republican Senators. Jackson said she doesn't have a justice she resembles, when asked by Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska which Supreme Court justice she most closely resembles.
Jackson said that the philosophy was her methodology and that she had developed it from practice.
She said that she approach cases from experience, from practice and consistent with her constitutional obligations.
If Jackson is confirmed to the Supreme Court, she is expected to fill Justice Stephen Breyer's seat in the liberal minority of the 6-3 bench. Jackson said there have been many justices in history that have used the Dissent mechanism to describe their views.
She mentioned that Justice Thurgood Marshall should make arguments to overturn the Board of Education's decision to desegregate.
The topic of effective sentencing guidelines for child pornography offenders was brought up by multiple GOP Senators in light of decisions Jackson had made earlier in her career. Jackson was accused of issuing shorter sentences to child porn offenders than federal guidelines. The White House called the allegation weak.
The American legal community has debated whether the federal guidelines for child porn offenders are appropriate for the age of the internet. The internet has changed how much and how easy it is to get such material.
The Supreme Court decided in 2005 that the sentence for child pornography cases would be up to the judge. Jackson said that she always tried to use her discretion as a judge in child porn cases.
Jackson told Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, that the internet has changed child porn sentencing because it can be done for 15 minutes. It is designed to help judges do justice in terrible circumstances by eliminating unwarranted disparity and ensuring that the most serious defendants get the longest periods of time.
Jackson told Graham that she regretted that she had spent a lot of time on the hearing about her qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, as the focus from GOP lawmakers on her child porn sentencing record seemed to frustrate her.
Jackson didn't weigh in on the proposed reforms to the high court.
Jackson was asked about the Supreme Court's use of emergency orders and summary decisions. The emergency docket of the high court has been called for reform by some progressive groups.
Jackson was asked when it would be appropriate to use the shadow docket. The court has to consider a balance when deciding when to use emergency powers.
The ability to get answers to the party at issue is something that is important in our system and it has always had an emergency docket. She said that if she were confirmed, she would look into why and how the justices use the emergency docket.
Jackson was pressed on her views on the size of the Supreme Court, which GOP lawmakers argued would threaten the court's legitimacy.
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia, asked Jackson about her ruling in which she ruled that former President Donald Trump could not prevent White House counsel Don McGahn from responding to a legislative subpoena on the grounds of absolute immunity.
Ossoff asked the judge what that meant.
The design of the government is built to prevent tyranny, she said.
Graham brought up another ruling in which Jackson temporarily blocked Trump's attempt to fast-track deportations of people in the country illegally, which was later overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court. Graham told the judge that she had reached a conclusion because she disagreed with the Trump administration.
She said that her decision was overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court.
Madeleine Carlisle can be reached at madeleine.carlisle@time.com.
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