Biden marks Judge Jackson’s historic confirmation at White House event

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke of the responsibility she will have as the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, while also paying homage to those who paved the path for her along the way.

“My grandparents on both sides, who had only a grade school education but instilled in my parents the importance of learning. To my parents who went to racially segregated schools growing up and were the first in their families to have the chance to go to college,” Jackson said.

As her emotional address continued, the soon-to-be Supreme Court justice noted other specific figures who have had an influence on her career.

“I am also ever buoyed by the leadership of generations past who helped to light the way. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall, and my personal heroine, Judge Constance Baker Motley,” Jackson said. “They and so many others did the heavy lifting that made this day possible. … I think of them as the true path-breakers.”

Jackson quoted one of the nation’s most gifted and heralded writers.

“No one does this on their own. The path was cleared for me so that I might rise to this occasion,” she said.

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In her speech at the White House on Friday, Ketanji Brown Jackson noted the long road it took to have a Black woman appointed to the US Supreme Court.

“Our children are telling me that they see now more than ever that here in America, anything is possible,” she said.

She acknowledged that she has been “flooded with thousands of notes” from people, but the ones from children are “especially meaningful.”

“Because more than anything, they speak directly to the hope and promise of America,” she said.

The justice-to-be paid tribute to her role models as she recognized that children now see her as one.

Children “also tell me that I am a role model, which I take both as an opportunity and as a huge responsibility,” she said. “I am feeling up to the task, primarily because I know that I am not alone. I am standing on the shoulders of my own role models — generations of Americans who never had anything close to this kind of opportunity, but who got up every day and went to work believing in the promise of America.”

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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson opened her remarks at a White House event celebrating her historic Supreme Court confirmation by marking the significance of the moment and expressing her “heartfelt thanks.”

“Over these past few weeks, you have heard a lot from me and about me so I hope to use this time primarily to do something that I have not had sufficient time to do — which is to extend my heartfelt thanks to the many, many people who have helped me as part of this incredible journey,” she said.

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President Biden spoke at the White House event celebrating the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next Supreme Court justice, and said he knew she would have to go through “a painful and difficult confirmation process,” but the actual confirmation went “well beyond that.”

But she showed “incredible character and integrity” in the face of it all, he added.

“Poise and composure. Patience and restraint. And, yes, perseverance and even joy,” he said amid applause and cheer for the judge. “Judge, you are the very definition of what we Irish refer to as dignity. You have enormous dignity.”

Biden shared that when he decided to run to be the President of the United States, he could see that nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court would be a “day of hope.”

“A day of promise, a day of progress, a day when once again the moral arc of the universe… bends a little more toward justice,” he said.

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Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a White House event to celebrate the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court justice.

Harris noted that the confirmation “reaffirmed” former President George Washington’s belief that the United States could “form a more perfect union.”

“Judge Jackson, you will inspire generations of leaders. They will watch your confirmation hearings and read your decisions,” Harris said Friday.

Harris applauded that Americans will see four women justices at the Supreme Court for the first time and shared that she wrote a letter to her goddaughter after the confirmation vote.

“I told her that I felt such a deep sense of pride and joy. And about what this moment means for our nation and for her future,” she said.

“I will tell you, her braids are just a little longer than yours. But as I wrote to her, I told her what I knew this would mean for her life and all that she has in terms of potential,” Harris said. “So indeed the road toward our more perfect union is not always straight. And it is not always smooth. But sometimes it leads to a day like today.”

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As Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson stood beside him, President Biden praised her confirmation to the Supreme Court and the impact it will have on the country.

“Yesterday we all witnessed a truly historic moment, presided over by the vice president. There are moments that people go back in history and they’re literally historic. Consequential. Fundamental shifts in American policy,” Biden said.

“And today is a good day. A day that history is going to remember, and in the years to come they are going to be proud of what we did — what Dick Durbin did as chairman of the committee,” Biden said.

President Biden is hosting an event at the White House to mark the historic confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Jackson will all deliver remarks at the event on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Jackson in a vote that paves the way for her to become the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. Jackson’s confirmation is a significant bipartisan victory for Democrats that comes at a time when the US faces a number of challenges at home and abroad, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sky-high inflation.

Vice President Kamala Harris tested negative for Covid-19 today, a White House official said, adding that the vice president will not wear a mask while “distanced” but will when she is around others.

Harris is at the White House’s confirmation celebration for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson currently being held outside on the South Lawn.

This guidance comes after her office faced questions about her lack of mask use in the Senate chamber Thursday when she presided over the vote to confirm Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court. A White House official said Harris had consulted with a White House physician, was “practicing social distancing” and had “limited and brief interactions from her chair.”

But current CDC recommendations specify that an individual who is considered to be a close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19 should wear a mask around others for 10 days after from the date of the last contact. The guidelines do not say that person can be maskless around others if they are practicing social distancing. 

In revealing communications director Jamal Simmons’ positive Covid test and Harris’ close contact with him, the vice president’s office said yesterday that Harris would “follow CDC guidance for those that have been in close contact with a positive individual.” It separately pointed CNN to specific CDC guidance that Harris would follow, which in part says the person should “wear a well-fitting mask while around other people for 10 days from the date of last close contact.”

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed by the Senate to be the next Supreme Court Justice on Thursday, will remain in her current position on the US Court of Appeals until she is sworn in this summer following Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement, the White House says.

Jackson will appear alongside President Biden at an event today at the White House.

After Breyer retires, Jackson will take two oaths and eventually have an investiture ceremony, which generally entails having the chief justice administer the Constitutional Oath privately to the new justice in the justices’ conference room, the commission is presented and read aloud in the courtroom and the chief justice administers the Judicial Oath in the courtroom, according to the Supreme Court’s website.

Guests begin to gather on the South Lawn of the White House where President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, will speak and celebrate the confirmation of Jackson as the first Black woman to reach the Supreme Court, Friday, April 8, 2022 in Washington.

As President Biden is set to celebrate the historic confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court, the Covid-19 pandemic will loom over the event on the South Lawn of the White House.

The event comes days after two members of Biden’s Cabinet — Attorney General Merrick Garland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo — announced they tested positive for Covid-19.

Several high-profile Washington figures, including lawmakers and other White House and administration staffers, also tested positive after attending the annual Gridiron dinner, an event that brings together some of the city’s most prominent journalists, including from CNN, and the government officials they cover.

Last year, a White House event where former President Trump announced his choice to nominate then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court was ultimately labeled by public health experts as a coronavirus superspreader event. At least a dozen people who were at the Rose Garden event — including Trump — confirmed they had contracted Covid-19 shortly after their attendance. Vaccinations for Covid-19 were not yet available and would be authorized months later.

At the time, the tightly packed ceremony where public health guidance was flouted and many went maskless and social distancing went largely unobserved underscored the Trump White House’s mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis. Trump had suggested in conversations with advisers that masked and socially distanced events would project weakness against the pandemic and could contradict his claims the outbreak was “rounding the corner.”

White House communications director Kate Bedingfield on Friday told CNN’s John Berman that the country is in a “very different place” in the pandemic than it was when Trump hosted the White House event for Barrett.

She continued, “But I do think it is important to note that, you know, it is possible he will test positive for Covid at some point. And we’re in a very different place than we were for example when they held that event for Justice Barrett. Which is to say we have vaccines, we have treatments. The President is vaccinated and double boosted, and so protected from severe Covid.”

The President on Wednesday interacted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has since tested positive for Covid-19. The two were seen next to each other at a bill signing event. The White House has said Biden was not considered a close contact of Pelosi.

The White House also said the President tested negative Wednesday night as part of regularly scheduled testing and that Biden will continue to be tested regularly.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has shifted its guidance on various parts of the pandemic response a few times throughout the last two years, currently says that in general people do not need to wear masks when they are outdoors. The CDC recommends people who are not fully vaccinated wear a mask in crowded outdoor settings or during activities that involve sustained close contact with other people.

CNN analysts Laura Coates and Gloria Borger said many Senate Republicans were not showing Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson proper respect when most of them silently left the Senate chamber during a standing ovation after she was confirmed as the first Black female Supreme Court justice.

In her analysis, Borger noted CNN’s reporting that GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma voted from the GOP cloakroom because they weren’t wearing ties as is required by Senate rules on the floor.

Graham was in a quarter zip and a blazer. He stuck his thumb down and receded into the cloakroom to cast a no vote.

“This is a moment in history, and you ought to show up. Whether you agree with the outcome or not. You need to pay this woman the respect that she is due. And you need to do that for any Supreme Court nominee,” she said on CNN Thursday.

While three GOP senators voted in favor of Jackson’s confirmation, her nomination and confirmation hearings were marked by partisan divides.

Watch the analysis here.

Those invited to this afternoon’s event at the White House include Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s family, current and former Supreme Court justices, Cabinet members and lawmakers. 

From the White House:

The succession of Ketanji Brown Jackson, age 51, for Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, will add a shot of youthfulness to the Supreme Court and may present an opportunity for a reset at an institution whose reputation has slipped.

Five of the nine justices will be under 65, four of them of Generation X. They will be the face of the court in the upcoming decades.

For the immediate future, the addition of Jackson could prompt the court to reassess its response to diminishing public confidence. It has experienced a sharp drop in opinion polls. And the justices’ lack of transparency on recent procedural and ethical issues has accelerated criticism.

Chief Justice John Roberts has made clear his concerns about the integrity of the bench. He may believe — and be able to persuade his colleagues — that with a new justice in place, it is time to try to shore up public confidence, perhaps by formally adopting an ethics code.

A new junior justice, even one who is making history as the first Black woman on the court, would have limited impact within the marble walls. But, as Roberts has observed, a new justice can cause the rest to rethink old patterns.

“I think it can cause you to take a fresh look at how things are decided,” he told C-SPAN in 2009, in a rare expansive on-the-record interview. “The new member is going to have a particular view about how issues should be addressed that may be very different from what we’ve been following for some time.”

He was speaking about the substance of cases, but such a theory could hold for other practices at a life-tenured, black-robed institution that often seems behind the times.

Jackson is 32 years younger than Breyer and of a different generation, which would naturally affect the dynamic around the justices’ private conference table. The 51-year-old Jackson will join fellow Gen X-ers Amy Coney Barrett, 50, Neil Gorsuch, 54, and Brett Kavanaugh, 57. Elena Kagan, at 61, is the only other justice under age 65.

Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor are 67, Samuel Alito is 72 and Clarence Thomas is 73.

Read the full analysis here.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Democrats to vote in favor of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

In announcing that they would support the nomination, Murkowski and Collins both expressed concern over what they described as the politicization of the Supreme Court confirmation process.

Murkowski said that she rejects “the corrosive politicization of the review process for Supreme Court nominees, which, on both sides of the aisle, is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year” in her statement.

Collins said in her statement, “No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, anyone who has watched several of the last Supreme Court confirmation hearings would reach the conclusion that the process is broken.”

“It used to be common for Senators to give the President, regardless of political party, considerable deference in the choice of a nominee,” Collins said.

The Maine Republican said that approach “instilled confidence in the independence and the integrity of the judiciary and helped keep the Court above the political fray,” adding, “this is the approach that I plan to continue to use for Supreme Court nominations because it runs counter to the disturbing trend of politicizing the judicial nomination process.”

Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday evening, Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, described what the scene was like inside the chamber when the Senate voted to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

“And it is almost like you could witness the arc of the moral universe bending a little bit more towards justice in our country and a long pathway of struggle to be a more perfect union, really be advanced,” the senator continued.

Booker, who is one of only three Black senators, and Jackson had several memorable exchanges during her confirmation hearings.

At one point during the hearings last month, the judge became visibly emotional and could be seen wiping away tears as Booker talked about her path to the nomination and the obstacles she has had to overcome.

“My parents grew up in a time in this country in which Black children and White children were not allowed to go to school together,” Jackson told Booker after the senator asked what values her parents had impressed upon her. “They taught me hard work. They taught me perseverance. They taught me that anything is possible in this great country.”

Watch Booker’s interview on CNN:

CNN’s Clare Foran, Ted Barrett and Ali Zaslav contributed reporting to this post.

The Senate confirmed President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday in a historic vote that paves the way for her to become the first Black woman to serve on the highest court in the nation.

The tally was 53-47, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining Democrats to vote in favor.

Jackson will be sworn in after Justice Stephen Breyer retires sometime this summer.

The confirmation represents a significant victory for Democrats, which they can tout as bipartisan, and a way for the President to deliver on a campaign promise at a time when the US faces a number of challenges at home and abroad, including soaring inflation and the crisis in Ukraine. Democrats broke out into loud applause and cheers when the vote was gaveled.

The vote also marks a major milestone for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, although Jackson’s confirmation won’t change the ideological balance of the court.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice president, presided over the chamber during the historic vote in her capacity as president of the Senate.

Senate Democrats and the White House have continually highlighted the historic nature of the nomination.

Ahead of the final vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the moment a “joyous, momentous, groundbreaking day.”

Schumer went on to say, “In the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, never, never has a Black woman held the title of Justice. Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the first and I believe the first of more to come.”

Biden had said during his 2020 presidential campaign that he was committed to nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court if elected.

At one point during her Senate confirmation hearings, Jackson became visibly emotional and could be seen wiping away tears as Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is one of only three Black senators, talked about her path to the nomination and the obstacles she has had to overcome.

“My parents grew up in a time in this country in which Black children and White children were not allowed to go to school together,” Jackson told Booker after the senator asked what values her parents had impressed upon her. “They taught me hard work. They taught me perseverance. They taught me that anything is possible in this great country.”

Read more about the confirmation vote here.