It’s not often we can describe a Senate vote as ‘joyous,’ but that’s exactly what this was – for the first time in the Supreme Court’s 233-year history, a Black woman will serve as a justice.
As the Senate moves closer to a floor vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, two things are blatantly obvious: her qualifications are impeccable and despite that, Republicans are committed to making a fool of themselves. In the midst of their thoroughly disrespectful questioning of Judge Jackson, she nevertheless displayed her sharp intellect, patience, and commitment to the law.
We’ll be keeping up the heat on President Biden to move his legislative agenda through the Senate while simultaneously using his executive authority to swiftly and significantly improve people’s lives through climate action, lower drug prices, fighting predatory loans and more. And as the results in tonight’s primaries showed, there’s a new guard of progressive voices that need our support to make it to Congress and help Biden deliver on his agenda.
Judge Jackson’s nomination is an inspiring step forward in ensuring the Supreme Court looks like the country it represents, but she is not a token or a savior. We must confirm Judge Jackson, and then we must expand the Court and send her four new colleagues.
As excited as we are to see Judge Jackson make history, we know that one new justice won’t be enough to restore balance to the Supreme Court itself, whose conservative justices have happily turned the institution into a weapon in our new culture wars. The Court is no longer an institution that we can count on to protect our constitutional rights or our democracy. Judge Jackson will be a welcome addition to the Court, but if we really want to change things, we must add seats as well.
While Republicans across the country are engaging in some of the most brazen attacks on our democracy and our right to vote, two Democrats – Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin – joined Mitch McConnell in blocking what would have been the most consequential suite of democracy reforms since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a result of Sinema and Manchin’s betrayal, the likelihood of constitutional crises, democratic breakdowns, and rightwing political violence are higher today than it was yesterday. That is their legacy now.
Senator Mark Kelly’s addition to Indivisible’s “Give No Ground” program comes just after he announced his support of a rules change in order to pass voting rights in the Senate, and one day after Indivisible’s flash poll of Arizonans that showed 94% of Indivisibles in Arizona support finding a Democratic primary challenger to Senator Sinema in 2024 if she does not join Senator Kelly in his support of changing the rules to pass voting rights.
This was the most important speech of Joe Biden’s presidency. He nailed it. A clear moral case and call to action. The vote is coming on Martin Luther King Day. The President wants it. The Speaker of the House wants it. The Senate Majority Leader wants it. The American people want it. It’s time to fix the senate, protect our democracy, and guarantee the right to vote. Time to get it done.
Our democracy is on a knife’s edge. It’s clear that Republicans will do nothing to protect our democracy, so Democrats must act alone to save it. We support and applaud Majority Leader Schumer’s decision to hold a vote to change Senate rules to pass critical voting rights and democracy reform legislation by January 17, and we urge all Senate Democrats to do whatever it takes to get it done.
Based on the Commission’s report, you’d hardly know there was anything wrong with the Court, let alone that the six conservative extremist justices are casually preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade and 50 years of precedent on abortion rights, not because there’s a constitutional reason to do so, but because their loyalty to Republican politics and power demands it.