47 Senate Republicans join team QAnon, reject the most qualified Supreme Court nominee in decades

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Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court has advanced to the full Senate, with an extra procedural step forced by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who decided to go with Team QAnon. That tactic was blessed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell when he told his members to go after Jackson as soft on crime, a vile, racist lie that consumed hours of the hearings.

So when three Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Mitt Romney (UT) announced they would support Jackson’s confirmation and voted with Democrats to bring her nomination to the floor, the inevitable happened. The vilest QAnon House member, Georgia’s Majorie Taylor Greene, smeared them on Twitter, calling them “pro-pedophile.” Thanks, Mitch, for endorsing that.

In the middle of all that is Judge Jackson, objectively the most qualified nominee to the court in nearly a century. She has had more years on the bench as a trial court judge than any nominee since 1923. When she’s elevated to the Supreme Court, she will become just the second justice to sit on all three levels of the federal judiciary: District, Circuit, and the Supreme Court.

Judge Jackson also has more time on the bench—more than eight years—than Justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, and Barrett had combined when they were confirmed. She will be the first justice who has also worked as a public defenders and is the first since Thurgood Marshall retired in 1991 to have substantial criminal defense experience.

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She rose to where she is as a Black woman in this society. She sat calmly and stoically through 20 hours of abuse from foaming-at-the-mouth Republicans. Contrast that with Brett Kavanaugh, who yelled, insulted, and temper-tantrumed his way through his hearings. Judge Jackson clearly has the temperament to sit on the court. And she will, beginning in the October term of the court when Justice Stephen Breyer steps down.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filed for cloture Tuesday, and the Senate voted 53-47 to proceed to the nomination. The next step is the cloture vote Thursday morning, after the requisite time under Senate procedure has passed. Following the cloture vote Thursday, there are up to 30 hours of “debate” on the nomination.

We’ll see then whether Republicans are really intent upon doing all they can to obstruct the inevitable—her confirmation—or if they’ll decide they’re rather start their two-week spring recess early, and allow the vote on Thursday instead of Friday.