Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) came out firing with a pretty simple question during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing Tuesday: Why are all the woke activists on the left backing her?
“Every group that wants to pack the court, that believes the court is a bunch of right-wing nuts who are going to destroy America, that considers the Constitution ‘trash’ — all wanted you picked,” Graham said. “That is all I can say. That so many of these left-wing radical groups who would destroy the law as we know it . . . supported you is problematic for me.”
Graham makes a compelling point. Why would radical organizations like Demand Justice — the most influential group on the left fighting to pack the court, funded by Arabella Advisors, a massive progressive dark-money group, and the Open Society Policy Center, one of George Soros’ nonprofit advocacy arms — cheer Jackson’s nomination?
Why would leftist groups like American Atheists, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association and the Southern Poverty Law Center push the White House to nominate Jackson and the Senate to confirm?
The answer is obvious. The left’s replacement for old reliable Justice Stephen Breyer is not going to be a modern Sandra Day O’Connor. Ketanji Brown Jackson is a woke Trojan horse, as the preponderance of evidence suggests.
As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) demonstrated during his questioning, Jackson is a radical when it comes to issues of race.
In a 2020 speech, she cited favorably the example of “acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones,” of widely debunked 1619 Project fame, and her “provocative thesis.”
Shortly after her time as vice chair of the US Sentencing Commission, Jackson informed students at the University of Chicago that “sentencing is just plain interesting” because it involves so many different fields — among them criminal law, constitutional law and, yes, “critical race theory.”
After detailing her record on the issue, Cruz asked Jackson: “Is critical race theory taught in schools? Is it taught in kindergarten through 12th?”
Jackson responded, “Senator, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I believe it’s an academic theory that’s at the law school level.”
But Jackson sits on the board of a school that assigns and recommends numerous books on critical race theory, among them “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,” “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi and “The End of Policing,” a tract advocating the abolition of police. Summer reading for third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students includes another Kendi book, which states that racial colorblindness is really just a convenient cover for racism. For pre-K students, Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby” urges infants to confess their supposed racism.
And given all the criticism of Jackson’s weak record on crime and sentencing — not to mention the White House withholding 48,000 pages of documents related to her time on the Sentencing Commission — it should be noted that the model legislation advanced by many of these same left-wing groups that endorsed her, the BREATHE Act, would make soft-on-crime policies law.
As my organization’s 2020 report noted, the legislation “would fundamentally upend the rule of law.” Its radical provisions would abolish: pretrial detention for all misdemeanors and class C, D and E felonies; incarceration for individuals under age 24; and mandatory-minimum and three-strikes sentencing. It would even put the minimum age for trial as an adult to 24.
On abortion and religious liberty, it’s clear where she stands. Jackson co-authored an amicus brief for the Massachusetts NARAL chapter characterizing pro-life sidewalk counselors as “indisputably harmful” and supporting the notion that they should not be allowed anywhere near an abortion clinic.
When pressed Tuesday by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on the looming conflicts between religious dissenters and the Supreme Court’s invention of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Jackson blithely replied, “That is the nature of a right.”
Senate Republicans shouldn’t fall for the Democrats’ coordinated effort to portray this nominee as a reasonable judge with mainstream views. Follow the money and see where it goes. If the craziest woke activists and their billionaire donors are supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, it’s a safe bet that she will do everything she can to push the court further to the radical left.
Jon Schweppe is director of policy and government affairs at American Principles Project. Twitter: @JonSchweppe.
