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Jackson, COVID, retirement, show Congress’ partisan path

Jackson

Democrats rejoiced Thursday when the Senate by 53-47 confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female justice, whose confirmation was helped along by three Republican senators who voted for publicity headlines, rather than what is best for their country.  Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah have once again proved they belong to no party, but also, they showed they love the limelight rather than doing what is right. As reported by the AP:

The vote underscored the recent trend of Supreme Court confirmations becoming loyalty tests on party ideology

WASHINGTON (AP) — A milestone Supreme Court confirmation that endured a flawed process. The collapse of a bipartisan compromise for more pandemic funds. The departure of a stalwart of the dwindling band of moderate House Republicans.

FILE – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., talks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)

Party-line fights on Capitol Hill are as old as the republic, and they routinely escalate as elections approach. Yet three events from a notable week illustrate how Congress’ near- and long-term paths point toward intensifying partisanship.

THE SENATE’S SUPREME COURT BATTLE

Democrats rejoiced Thursday when the Senate by 53-47 confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female justice. They crowed about a bipartisan stamp of approval from the trio of Republicans who supported it: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah.

FILE – Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, arrives to watch a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy live-streamed into the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, March 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Yet by historical standards, the three opposition party votes were paltry and underscored the recent trend of Supreme Court confirmations becoming loyalty tests on party ideology. That’s a departure from a decades-long norm when senators might dislike a nominee’s judicial philosophy but defer to a president’s pick, barring a disqualifying revelation.

FILE – Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson meets with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 8, 2022. Collins will vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson, giving Democrats at least one Republican vote and all but assuring that she will become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Murkowski said her support for Jackson was partly “rejection of the corrosive politicization” of how both parties consider Supreme Court nominations, which “is growing worse and more detached from reality by the year.”

Republicans said they would treat Jackson respectfully, and many did. Their questions and criticisms of her were pointed and partisan, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., saying “the Senate views itself as a co-partner in this process” with the president.

jackson
Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, left, and Mitt Romney of Utah, who say they will vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic nomination to the Supreme Court, smile as they greet each other outside the chamber, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. Murkowski and Romney join Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is also bucking the GOP leadership in giving President Joe Biden’s nominee a new burst of bipartisan support to become the first Black woman on the high court. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Yet some potential 2024 GOP presidential contenders seemed to use Jackson’s confirmation to woo hard-right support. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., misleadingly accused her of being unusually lenient on child pornography offenders. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., suggested she might have defended Nazis at the Nuremburg trials after World War II.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said some Republicans “went overboard, as far as I’m concerned, to the extreme,” reflecting “the reality of politics on Capitol Hill.” Cotton was “fundamentally unfair, but that is his tradition,” said Durbin.

Murkowski
FILE – Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, walks to the chamber at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021. Murkowski, who voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial and has repeatedly bumped heads with the former president, announced Friday, Nov. 12, that she will run for reelection. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

SUPREME COURT BATTLES PAST

Senate approval of high court nominees by voice vote, without bothering to hold roll calls, was standard for most of the 20th Century. Conservative Antonin Scalia sailed into the Supreme Court by 98-0 in 1986, while liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg won 96-3 approval seven years later.

There were bitter fights. Democrats blocked conservative Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987 and unsuccessfully opposed Clarence Thomas’ ascension in 1991 after he was accused of sexual harassment.

prisons
FILE – Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, on Aug. 3, 2021. An inmate at the largest federal prison in the U.S. was stabbed in the eyeball by a fellow prisoner earlier this month. It’s the latest gruesome example of violence in a prison system plagued by chronic unrest, understaffing, corruption and abuse. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Hard feelings intensified in early 2016. McConnell, then majority leader, blocked the Senate from even considering President Barack Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland to replace the deceased Scalia. McConnell cited the upcoming presidential election nearly nine months away, infuriating Democrats.

Donald Trump was elected and ultimately filled three vacancies over near-unanimous Democratic opposition.

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Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, walks to meet Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on Capitol Hill, Monday, April 4, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

They opposed Brett Kavanaugh after he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman decades earlier. They voted solidly against Amy Coney Barrett after Trump and McConnell rushed through her nomination when a vacancy occurred just weeks before Election Day 2020, a sprint Democrats called hypocritical.

COVID SPENDING FIGHT, TRANSFORMED

Senators from both parties agreed to a $10 billion COVID-19 package Monday that President Joe Biden wants for more therapeutics, vaccines, and tests. With BA.2, the new omicron variant, washing across the country, it seemed poised for congressional approval.

Hours later, bargainers led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, seemed blindsided when their compromise was derailed. Republicans wanted to add an extension of an expiring crackdown on migrants crossing the Mexican border that Trump imposed in 2020, citing the pandemic’s public health threat.

FILE – President Joe Biden speaks at the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) Legislative Conference at the Washington Hilton in Washington, April 6, 2022. The U.S. economy faces plenty of threats: War in Ukraine, high grocery bills, spiking gasoline prices, splintered supply chains, the lingering pandemic and rising interest rates that slow growth. The Biden White House is betting the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand these threats, but there are growing fears of a coming economic slump among voters and some Wall Street analysts. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Many Republicans were skeptical that more COVID-19 money was necessary. But their demand for an immigration amendment transformed a fight over how much more to spend on a disease that’s killed 980,000 Americans into a battle over border security, tailor-made for upcoming GOP political campaigns.

Immigration divides Democrats, and Republicans believe the issue can further solidify their chances of winning congressional control in November’s elections. Playing defense, Schumer postponed debate on the COVID-19 bill.

FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks at a news conference following a Democratic policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 8, 2022. In comments and votes in the Senate last week, Republicans and Democrats fleshed out themes they’ll use to compete for voters in this fall’s voting for control of Congress. Schumer said Democrats will focus on pushing “solutions that will lower costs and leave more money in people’s pockets.” (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Democrats deserved some blame for being outmaneuvered. House Democrats shot down a $15 billion agreement in March, rejecting compromise budget savings to pay for it.

And in glaringly tone-deaf political timing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week, just as bargainers were finalizing their latest compromise, that the Trump-era immigration curbs would lapse on May 23.

That gave Republicans an irresistible political gift to pursue.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., questions Attorney General Merrick Garland during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining the Department of Justice on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. (Tasos Katopodis/Pool via AP)

A MODERATE’S FAREWELL

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., announced his retirement Tuesday. He’s the fourth of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year to say they won’t seek reelection.

Upton attributed his departure to running in a new district, but that didn’t stop Trump from proclaiming: “UPTON QUITS! 4 down and 6 to go.” The House impeached Trump over his incitement of supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but the GOP-run Senate acquitted him.

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during the committee’s business meeting to consider the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, April 4, 2022. The Senate Judiciary Committee kicks off Monday morning with a vote on whether to move Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Now in his 18th term, Upton’s departure subtracts another moderate from a GOP that’s shifted rightward in recent years, particularly when it comes to showing fealty to Trump.

The pro-business Upton, 68, was a driving force on one law spurring pharmaceutical development and has worked with Democrats on legislation affecting energy and the auto industry. His work across the aisle and his affability placed him in the ever-smaller group of Republicans who draw Democrats’ praise.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, March 21, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

“To him, bipartisan and compromise are not forbidden words,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich.

PARTY DIFFERENCES, THEN AND NOW

Pitched battles are now habitual over bills financing federal agencies and extending the government’s borrowing authority. When those disputes are resolved and federal shutdowns and defaults averted, lawmakers hail as triumphs what is their most rudimentary task — keeping government functioning.

FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., emerges from the chamber to cheer the vote confirming Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court, at the Capitol in Washington, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Despite the divisions over COVID-19 money and Jackson, there has also been cooperation.

Congress overwhelmingly voted Thursday to ban Russian oil and downgrade trade relations with that country following its invasion of Ukraine. There’s progress on bipartisan trade and technology legislation, and a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure measure became law last year.

By ALAN FRAM

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