The most noteworthy Republican objections to confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court

The arguments used by those who refuse to confirm a Supreme Court justice often register as little more than a historical footnote in the years and decades following an appointment, but the vehemence of some of the Republican opposition to Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman justice on the high court, may not quickly recede from popular memory.

While Clarence Thomas, the country’s second Black justice on the Supreme Court, described his 1991 confirmation hearings as a “high-tech lynching” after a former assistant, Anita Hill, brought forward allegations that Thomas had sexually harassed her, Hill’s assessment was markedly different. In a Thursday op-ed for the Washington Post, Hill wrote that by coming forward, she was subjected to “attacks on my intelligence, truthfulness and even my sanity.”

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina used much of their time to question Jackson by recounting what they saw as unfair Democratic attacks on Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. Accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexual assault when the two were both in high school, Kavanaugh, like Thomas, offered a bitter assessment of the Judiciary Committee hearings.

“This confirmation process has become a national disgrace,” Kavanaugh said of the objections made over allegations of sexual misconduct.

While Hill, who is now a professor at Brandeis University, concurred in her op-ed that the confirmation process is “broken,” she wrote that she was still “shocked by the interrogation of Jackson, a nominee with stellar credentials and more judicial experience than any of the sitting justices when they were nominated.”

Perhaps one thing is sure: The most notable attacks against Jackson will be sure to be employed by and against the senators who made them in the coming months and years. Here is a shortlist of the standout moments.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn

For Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., two issues that have resonated with Republican voters made up the bulk of her time questioning Jackson: abortion and transgender rights. Blackburn sought to paint Jackson as having characterized all anti-abortion women in a negative light, saying she had “attacked pro-life women.”

She quoted a line from a legal brief co-signed by Jackson that described anti-abortion protesters outside an abortion clinic as a “hostile, noisy crowd of in-your-face-protesters,” to suggest Jackson viewed all anti-abortion women in the same way.

“When you go to church and knowing there are pro-life women there, do you look at them, thinking of them in that way — that they’re noisy, hostile, in your face? Do you think of them, do you think of pro-life women like me that way?”

“Senator, that was a statement in a brief made in argument for my client. It’s not the way I think of or characterize people,” Jackson responded.

In a subsequent exchange on transgender rights, Blackburn made headlines by asking Jackson, “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”

“I’m not a biologist,” Jackson, who seemed taken aback by the question, replied.

Later, Blackburn explained that the reason she would not vote for Jackson was that “dark-money leftist groups” were “trying to erase woman.”

Sen. Tom Cotton

Not every Republican is convinced that then-President Donald Trump was right to sign the First Step Act, the criminal justice reform law that helps reduce prison sentences and improves conditions in federal jails. One of those is Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who went after Jackson for reducing the sentence of convicted drug dealer Keith Young using the guidelines established by the new law.

“Congress changed the law, Congress decided the old penalty, the old crime was no longer eligible for the increased sentence,” Jackson told Cotton. “So what I determined, under those circumstances, was that I would resentence Mr. Young to the penalty that Congress had decided was the appropriate penalty for the conduct that he committed as of the time of his motion.”

In response, Cotton said Jackson “chose to rewrite the law because you were sympathetic to a drug fentanyl kingpin.”

Cotton also criticized Jackson for defending terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay prison, claiming that Jackson had called former President George W. Bush a “war criminal.” As with Blackburn’s allegation, that wording was contained in a legal brief that Jackson noted was part of the due process afforded all criminal suspects.

In summing up his opposition to Jackson’s confirmation days after the hearing, Cotton went even further, comparing her in an unfavorable light with former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who participated in the Nuremberg trials.

“The last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis. This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.”

Sen. Josh Hawley

In addition to the accusations of holding sympathies for terrorists and drug dealers, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tried to make the case that Jackson, the mother of two children, had a habit of being too lenient on convicted pedophiles.

During the confirmation hearings, Hawley said Jackson gave “child porn offenders below the guidelines and below what the prosecutors were requesting.” As he continued, he zeroed in on specific cases in which he concluded Jackson had gone “soft” on pedophiles.

“In every case of these seven, Judge Jackson handed down a lenient sentence which was below what the federal guidelines recommended and below what prosecutors requested,” Hawley said.

Numerous fact checks deemed Hawley’s line of reasoning to be misleading, and the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy called the strategy “meritless to the point of demagoguery.”

Moreover, Jackson was far from the only federal judge to hand down sentences for child sex offenders that were lower than those sought by prosecutors and below federal guidelines, including three judges who Hawley voted to confirm.

Sen. Ted Cruz

A fixture of Fox News primetime shows in recent months, the teaching of critical race theory has become a hot-button issue for many Republicans. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas ran with that ball during his questioning of Jackson, who serves as a member of the board for Georgetown Day School, a private institution.

“If you look at the Georgetown Day School’s curriculum, it is filled and overflowing with critical race theory,” Cruz said, displaying copies of books he said the school had included in its curriculum.

“I have not reviewed any of those books, any of those ideas — they don’t come up in my work as a judge, which I am, respectfully, here to address,” Jackson responded.

The New York Times reported that Cruz sends his own daughter to a private school in Houston that describes itself as antiracist.

For Hill, Cruz’s fixation on critical race theory stood out.

“A confirmation hearing should be about learning how a person will judge, not how well she handles specious browbeating,” she wrote in her op-ed about Cruz’s line of questioning.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Never one to be outdone by her Republican colleagues, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who, as a House member, did not vote on Jackson’s confirmation, expressed her outrage at Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine for breaking ranks and voting to confirm Jackson. To hear Greene tell it, Jackson, the three lawmakers and President Biden had all shown themselves to be “pro-pedophile,” an insult that resonates with followers of QAnon conspiracy theories.

Cover thumbnail photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Alex Brandon/AP, J. Scott Applewhite (2), Evan Vucci/AP, J. Scott Applewhite/AP