COLUMBIA – Today, South Carolina Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham announced he will oppose Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Senator Graham previously voted in favor of Judge Jackson on three separate occasions as recently as last year. Now, Senator Graham claims he opposes her nomination based on her “judicial activism, flawed sentencing methodology…and a belief that Judge Jackson will not be deterred by the plain meaning of the law when it comes to liberal causes.” Unsurprisingly, none of Graham’s justifications survives scrutiny.
Graham claims that Judge Jackson engages in “judicial activism” on behalf of the “radical left”. But an American Bar Association evaluation of Jackon’s career based on “qualities of integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament” found Jackson unanimously “well qualified.”
Graham claims Judge Jackson exercises a flawed sentencing methodology when dealing with child pornography cases because she deviated from decades-old guidelines allowing sentence enhancements under some circumstances. But 70% of judges divert from federal guidelines, including judges Lindsey Graham has voted for in the past.
Graham paints Judge Jackson as anti-American for defending indefinitely held Guantanamo Bay prisoners in a lawsuit that accused former President Bush of war crimes. But that case was against the federal government, not President Bush personally, and even conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that “freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive” represents the “very core of liberty.”
“Lindsey Graham opposing Judge Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court is shameful but frankly not surprising,” said SCDP Chair Trav Robertson, Jr. “After years of supporting Judge Jackson based on her merit, now he must fabricate reasons to reject her nomination just to oppose President Biden and appease his base. This is just another example of Graham choosing party over country. Once again, Lindsey Graham embarrasses South Carolina with his hypocrisy.”
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