Ketanji Brown Jackson joins a Supreme Court in turmoil

CNN – Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Supreme Court on Thursday, making history as the first female African-American justice and beginning what could be a decades-long tenure.

But as she starts her job, the court is in turmoil.

The country is reeling from the aftereffects of the most consequential term in decades, where the majority upended a half century of law on abortion by reversing Roe v. Wade and expanded gun rights for the first time in more than a decade.

I wanted until now to do a feature on Katanji. It’s no surprise in the timing. And there has NEVER been any Scotus with her qualifications. Yet, she has come into a hostile High Court that has lost it’s clout, with more people than not distrusting them than ever before. I’m sure most haven’t read this CNN report, so I am copying it for you to see what she will be facing in the coming months ahead.
AND VOTE! Our lives depend on it!

The justices work to maintain civility in public, but this term’s opinions revealed an underbelly of rage. Not only were the justices attacking the reasoning of their opponents in the case at hand, but they renewed grievances aired in previous opinions.

Things will not calm down anytime soon. New challenges related to women’s reproductive health, the Second Amendment and even same-sex marriage are likely to swirl in state and federal courts across the country. Related disputes will make their way back to the high court in some form, greeting the nine justices who are irretrievably divided on many social issues.

After her confirmation, in a stirring speech in the South Lawn in April, Jackson noted that in her family “it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

“It is an honor of a lifetime,” she said, “to have this chance to join the court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level, and to do my part to carry out shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward, into the future.”

“She has reached the apex of her profession, but she is walking into a role in which it is not clear that she will have much influence, joining co-workers who clearly have deteriorating relationships,” said one friend who asked for anonymity.

Next term will be dramatic:
Although summers are usually a time for the justices to flee Washington, the next term starts in three short months, and there are momentous cases on the docket. 

On the very first day of the term, Jackson will take the seat reserved for the court’s junior-most justice and hear a case that could limit the federal government’s jurisdiction over wetlands protected under the Clean Water Act.

The next day, they will hear a redistricting case out of Alabama and explore the contours of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that bars voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race.

Liberals will remember the words of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2013, when the court gutted a separate provision of the Voting Rights Act which led to the “Notorious RBG” nickname. Back then, Ginsburg wrote that throwing out the protection was akin to “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Jackson was chosen by President Joe Biden not only for her sterling Ivy League credentials but for her diversity of experience, including time served as an assistant federal public defender, a commissioner on the US Sentencing Commission, a lawyer in private practice, and two stints on prestigious federal courts. She is the court’s first African-American woman, and will join Justice Amy Coney Barrett as the only other mother of school-age children. Jackson hails from Florida, originally where her own mother served as public school teacher and her father was a teacher who graduated from law school as an adult and later became chief counsel to the Miami Dade County School Board.

“It is a powerful thing when people can see themselves in others,” Biden said after Jackson was confirmed, saying that belief was “one of the reasons I believe so strongly that we needed a court that looks like America.”

Biden said Jackson endured “verbal abuse” during her Senate confirmation hearings, and praised her for her “poise and composure” in the face of the attacks from Republicans.

“The anger, the constant interruptions, the most vile, baseless assertions and accusations. In the face of it all, Judge Jackson showed the incredible character and integrity she possesses. Poise. Poise and composure. Patience and restraint. And yes, perseverance, and even joy,” Biden said.

Why are the conservative GOP so angry and why are they getting away with such disgusting behaviors? Christian Nationalists, really? They are loud, crude and they have zero answers to making anything better. Let their actions speak, since their words fall apart upon utterance. VOTE!

 

The rest of the story By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter

Ketanji Brown Jackson joins a Supreme Court in turmoil | CNN Politics