WASHINGTON — After all of the entreaties from top Republicans to show respect at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday afternoon chose to grill the first Black woman nominated for the Supreme Court on her views on critical race theory and insinuate that she was soft on child sexual abuse.The message from the Texas Republican seemed clear: A Black woman vying for a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land would, Mr. Cruz suggested, coddle criminals, go easy on pedophiles and subject white people to the view that they were, by nature, oppressors.The attack, the most dramatic of several launched from inside and outside the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing room, contained barely coded appeals to racism and clear nods to the fringes of the conservative world. Two other Republican senators, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, had already signaled they would go after Judge Jackson by accusing her of having a soft spot for criminals, especially pedophiles, and an allegiance to “woke” racialized education. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, also pressed the issue on Tuesday night.None of those issues were connected to cases coming before the Supreme Court — or to cases ever decided by the court. They were amplified outside the chamber by institutional Republicans and the conservative media. Fox News ran a headline reading “Ketanji Brown Jackson serves on board of school that promotes critical race theory,” and the Republican National Committee shared a GIF on Twitter showing the judge’s picture with her initials, “KBJ,” crossed out and replaced by “CRT.”“I do think it’s a legitimate question to ask — would they be asking these questions if this were not a Black woman?” bristled Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, who is also Black.The list of skeptical questions about Judge Jackson’s record read like a compendium of political touchstones animating Republican politicians and voters: critical race theory, parental rights, mask mandates and transgender women in sports.Mr. Cruz went after The New York Times’s “1619 Project,” a favorite target of the right, and held up a pile of books that he said had been plucked from the library of the expensive private school in Washington on whose board Judge Jackson sits. All of them, he argued, espoused critical race theory, a graduate school framework that has become a loose shorthand for a contentious debate on how to address race. Mr. Cruz slammed critical race theory as “framing all of society as a fundamental and intractable battle between the races.”But central to the Republican message was the “soft on crime” aspersion, a line of attack that raised the specter of criminal defendants — many of them Black — coddled by a liberal justice system that they suggested Judge Jackson embodied.Along similar lines, Republicans contended that the nominee had been especially lenient on purveyors of child sexual abuse imagery, a claim that spoke to a fixation of those wedded to the QAnon conspiracy theory. Many of its followers — some of whom took note online of the Republican line of questioning at the hearings — falsely believe that former President Donald J. Trump is fighting a cabal of elites including top Democrats who are in fact child traffickers and pedophiles.“I believe you care for children, obviously your children and other children,” Mr. Cruz told the nominee. “But I also see a record of activism and advocacy as it concerns sexual predators that stems back decades, and that is concerning.”ImageWhile he questioned Judge Jackson, Mr. Cruz had an aide display blown-up photos from the book “Antiracist Baby” by Ibram X. Kendi. Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThe characterizations were a far cry from the reputation of a federal judge who has garnered wide respect in legal circles and has already navigated three previous — and far more mild — confirmation processes. Over her nine years as a federal judge, first on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and later on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, her supporters say, Judge Jackson has molded herself after the retiring justice she is to replace, Stephen G. Breyer, for whom she clerked and who was known as a consensus builder.Her younger brother patrolled the streets of Baltimore as a police officer, and two of her uncles were career law enforcement officers. “As someone who has had family members on patrol and in the line of fire, I care deeply about public safety,” Judge Jackson said.Allegations of being soft on crime have been a standard line of attack from Republicans against Democrats’ judicial nominees and candidates since at least the Nixon era, political scientistsBy: Jonathan Weisman and Jazmine Ulloa
Title: Judging a Judge on Race and Crime, G.O.P. Plays to Base and Fringe
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/us/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-race.html
Published Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 23:38:55 +0000
Read More
UK PoliticsWorld PoliticsVideosPrivacy PolicyTerms And Conditions
