WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — The Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination on Thursday, securing her place as the court’s first Black female justice.
Jackson, a 51-year-old appeals court judge with nine years of experience on the federal bench, was confirmed 53-47, mostly along party lines.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney voted to confirm Jackson.
In her confirmation, Jackson made history by becoming the third Black justice and only the sixth woman in the court’s more than 200-year history.
Jackson will take her seat when Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer.
Jackson joined President Joe Biden and other White House senior staff in the Roosevelt Room to watch the results of the Senate vote.
After the vote, Biden tweeted, “Judge Jackson’s confirmation was a historic moment for our nation. We’ve taken another step toward making our highest court reflect the diversity of America. She will be an incredible Justice, and I was honored to share this moment with her.”
“This is a wonderful day, a joyous day, an inspiring day — for the Senate, for the Supreme Court and for the United States of America,” exulted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Supporters cite her deep experience in her nine years on the federal bench and the chance for her to become the first former public defender on the court.
President Joe Biden has sought bipartisan backing for his pick, making repeated calls to senators and inviting Republicans to the White House.
While the vote was far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, it was still a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the narrow 50-50 Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.
“Judge Jackson will bring extraordinary qualifications, deep experience and intellect and a rigorous judicial record to the Supreme Court,” Biden tweeted Monday. “She deserves to be confirmed as the next justice.”
Jackson faced a bruising 30 hours of hearings in which Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee aggressively interrogated her sentencing record.
Republicans spent the hearings attacking her record on the federal bench, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.
Jackson would be the current court’s second Black justice — Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, is the other — and just the third in history. Jackson would replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Breyer. Biden nominated Jackson in February.
The 51-year-old federal appeals court judge would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal side of the current 6-3 conservative court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett sitting at the other end of the bench, four of the nine justices would be women for the first time in history.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Jackson said her life was shaped by her parents’ experiences with racial segregation and civil rights laws that were enacted a decade before she was born.
With her parents and family sitting behind her, she told the panel that her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American. Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in addition to her nine years on the federal bench.
“I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously,” Jackson said. “I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.”
Once sworn in, Jackson would be the second-youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She would join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.
Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson greets Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, watches, as she arrives for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, March 21, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) 
Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson listens as she is asked a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., front left, during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022, during her confirmation hearing. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) 
American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary’s D. Jean Veta, from left, Ann Claire Williams and Joseph Drayton, are sworn in during a Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) 
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson smiles during a meeting with Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., in his office at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 29, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) 
Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson gets up at the conclusion of her confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) 
The path to confirmation to the Supreme Court can be speedy or take months. (AP Graphic) 
FILE – Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson smiles as Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., arrives for a meeting in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 31, 2022. Democrats are launching a whirlwind of votes and Senate floor action Monday with the goal of confirming Judge Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court by the end of the week. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) 
The path to Supreme Court confirmation can be a grueling one. (AP Graphic) 
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, center, accompanied by her husband Dr. Patrick Jackson, right, steps out during a break in her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March 21, 2022. The 51-year-old federal judge would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) 
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson wipes away tears as she is questioned by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) 
FILE – Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 23, 2022. Empathy is not a quality many senators want to see in the next Supreme Court justice. The ability to empathize with another’s plight has become a touchstone for Republican opposition to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) 
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, looks as a visual aid is displayed as he questions Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, March 22, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) 
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) 
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) 
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies on her nomination to become an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 22, 2022. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)