WLBT-TV Jackson
Miss. Senators will vote no on Supreme Court nominee
By Jacob Gallant
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Mississippi’s U.S. Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, both Republicans, plan to vote no during a confirmation hearing on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Jackson is expected to pass the Senate, given the 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans, with three GOP Senators thus far declaring their support for her nomination: Mitt Romney (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine).
Democrats are hoping for a vote before the end of the week. She would be the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court’s more than 200-year history.
But Wicker and Hyde-Smith have called to question Jackson’s credentials.
Hyde-Smith, in a statement released Monday, said she could not “in good conscience” vote in support of the confirmation.
“Judge Jackson’s record indicates a readiness to legislate from the bench, at times in a manner that risks some of the basic freedoms that are at the core of our Constitution. Such activism, for example, has threatened free speech rights and other individual American liberties,” Hyde-Smith said.
Wicker has laid out more specifics on why he feels Jackson is unqualified.
In a statement also released Monday, Wicker pointed out three reasons he will vote no: He says Jackson will not disavow court packing, her record is too thin, and she has “a pattern of judicial overreach.”
“It is telling that some of her most significant rulings have been reversed by the D.C. Circuit Court, hardly a bastion of conservatism. In one instance, Judge Jackson ruled that House Democrats could force President Trump’s chief counsel to testify before congressional investigators. That ruling was promptly overturned,” Wicker said in part.
President Joe Biden nominated Jackson to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, who will step down after the court’s session ends this summer.