Cortez Masto says she’ll vote to confirm Jackson

WASHINGTON — Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said Thursday she would vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson after the two spoke in private meeting.

Jackson appears to have bipartisan support for confirmation after Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced this week that she would vote in support of the first Black woman nominated to sit on the Supreme Court.

“This is a historic one,” Cortez Masto told the Review-Journal of the nomination and likely confirmation of Jackson.

Cortez Masto, said Jackson is a qualified candidate “who represents the interests of this country and the diversity of this country.”

With being the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, confirmation would give the bench a 5-4 gender balance, another historic first.

The senator said she spoke with Jackson “about issues that affect all Nevadans.”

“I believe she will carefully apply our laws and the Constitution to cases that come before her, and I’m proud to support her historic confirmation to the highest court of the land,” Cortez Masto said following the meeting.

Jackson is expected to sit down with Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., early next week.

President Joe Biden nominated Jackson to the bench after Justice Stephen Breyer announced in February that he would step down at the end of the current term of the court. Jackson once clerked for Breyer.

Republican criticism

During a contentious week of hearings, Republicans targeted Jackson’s role as a public defender of terrorist suspects held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and sentences she handed down as a federal district judge in child pornography cases.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, declared that Jackson was “lenient” in her sentences of child pornographers, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Jackson accused former President George W. Bush of war crimes while she was defending a terror suspect.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee produced U.S. Sentencing Commission data to show Jackson’s sentences to suspects in similar cases was in the norm of those handed down nationwide, and court filings showed that Jackson never accused Bush of being a war criminal.

“It’s been discredited,” Cortez Masto, a Democrat, said of the GOP criticism of Jackson.

“So much of the attacks around her experience and background as a public defender and the work she did on the bench have been discredited,” said Cortez Masto, a former U.S. prosecutor and former Nevada attorney general.

The senator said she relied on experts and those who worked in the field and her meeting with Jackson to come to the conclusion to vote for her confirmation.

A potential GOP Senate challenger to Cortez Masto, Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general, echoed Republican attacks on Jackson made during the hearing.

“Jackson repeatedly granted lower sentences to child pornographers, attempted rapists, and sex offenders, at times even against the urging of prosecutors,” Laxalt said in a statement from his campaign.

“It’s an affront to the rule of law, and Nevadans will not stand for this,” Laxalt said.

Attacks rebutted

But Collins also dismissed attacks by her GOP colleagues. Collins said Jackson never singled out Bush or then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as alleged war criminals in a court filing about conditions and detention practices of detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Collins’ vote for Jackson’s confirmation would give Democrats the 51 votes needed to seat Jackson on the nation’s highest court without the need for a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the nomination Monday, and a full Senate confirmation vote is expected to be held before the chamber begins its Easter recess.

Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he is hopeful several Republicans would vote in favor of the nominee, who received bipartisan support last year when she was elevated to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.

With Collins, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voted to confirm Jackson last year for the appellate court seat.

But Graham said Thursday he won’t vote to confirm Jackson.

Graham’s announcement was expected after he signaled during Jackson’s confirmation process last week that he favored another Black jurist from his home state, Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina, who was not nominated. Graham accused left-leaning groups and organized labor of a coordinated smear to stop her.

Murkowski has remained tight-lipped about her vote.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has said he is open to Jackson’s confirmation after a meeting with her Tuesday. But he said he would not announce his intention until the vote next week.

Several outgoing GOP senators also are being lobbied by the White House ahead of the confirmation vote.

Republican support in addition to Collins is expected, said Carl Tobias with the University of Richmond School of Law and a founding faculty member of UNLV’s Boyd Law School.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.