Jackson on course for confirmation, with 2 more GOP senators in favor

The Senate put Ketanji Brown Jackson on a clear track to be confirmed later this week as the Supreme Court’s 116th justice — and its first Black woman — after three Republicans joined Democrats to advance her nomination in a Monday vote.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah become the second and third Republicans to announce support for Jackson, joining Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who publicly backed the judge last month.

All 50 members of the Democratic caucus also backed Jackson in a 53-to-47 procedural vote Monday evening, but the late-breaking support of the two GOP senators represented a minor triumph for President Biden and congressional Democrats who were eager to put a bipartisan stamp of approval on a nominee whom many Republicans had eagerly painted as a soft-on-crime leftist radical.

In a statement, Murkowski praised Jackson’s qualifications and temperament, as well as her “demonstrated judicial independence” and “the important perspective she would bring to the court” as a former Supreme Court law clerk, federal public defender, trial judge and now appeals court judge.