President Joe Biden spoke on the legacy of retiring Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Stephen Breyer and celebrated his recent nomination to the bench, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, during Tuesday night's State of the Union address.
"Tonight, I'd like to honor someone who has dedicated his life to serve this country: Justice Breyer—an Army veteran, Constitutional scholar, and retiring Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Breyer, thank you for your service," he said.
And while Biden may have flattered Breyer from the House floor Tuesday night, Democrats spent big and lobbied hard to get Breyer to retire so Biden could nominate a leftist activist jurist to the country's highest court — something the Judicial Crisis Network has begun highlighting ahead of Jackson's confirmation hearings.
Make no mistake, the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court is payback to the Arabella Advisors' dark money network that paid over one billion dollars to help elect Joe Biden and Senate Democrats.pic.twitter.com/Ivh3d2DBNZ
— JCN (@judicialnetwork) March 1, 2022
Biden declared during a Democratic primary debate in February 2020 that he would nominate a black woman to the high court should a vacancy arise, and later reaffirmed his stance when Breyer announced in January his plans to retire at the end of the current term.
The president announced Friday that he had nominated Jackson — someone whose name senior White House staff have repeatedly and embarrassingly misspelled — to replace Breyer on the Supreme Court.
Jackson, currently serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, would make history as the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court should she be confirmed despite the opposition to what conservatives have called the prospects of a "politician in robes" ascending to the high court.
"One of the most serious constitutional responsibilities a president has is nominating someone to serve on the United States Supreme Court, as I did four days ago when I nominated Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson," Biden said during his SOTU address. "One of our nation's top legal minds, who will continue Justice Breyer's legacy of excellence."
"A former top litigator in private practice. A former federal public defender. And from a family of public school educators and police officers. A consensus builder. Since she's been nominated, she's received a broad range of support—from the Fraternal Order of Police to former judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans," the president continued.
Jackson was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2021 by a 53-44 vote. Three Republican senators – Lindsey Graham (SC), Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) – voted in favor of her confirmation at the time.
Graham said in a statement last week that Jackson's nomination "means the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again."