Senator Marsha Blackburn joins the podcast to preview next week’s SCOTUS hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson. We discuss the interesting timing of Biden’s nomination, Judge Brown Jackson’s judicial philosophy, and what we can expect the overall tone of the hearings to be.
In 2018, the people of Tennessee elected Marsha Blackburn as the first woman to represent the Volunteer State in the United States Senate. She is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee, and the Judiciary Committee, and serves as the Ranking Member on the Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee. Before her election to the Senate, Marsha represented Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, where she became a leader in the fight for a small, efficient federal government that is accountable to its citizens.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
Welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, we’re honored to have on Senator Marsha Blackburn to preview next week’s SCOTUS hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson. We’ll discuss the interesting timing of Biden’s nomination, Judge Brown Jackson’s judicial philosophy, and what we can expect the overall tone of the hearings to be.
But before we bring her on, a little bit more about the senator: In 2018, the people of Tennessee elected Marsha Blackburn as the first woman to represent The Volunteer State in the U.S. Senate. She is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee, and the Judiciary Committee. Before her election to the Senate, Senator Blackburn represented Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District and the U.S. House of Representatives, and it’s an honor to have you on today. Thank you so much for being here, Senator.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
I’m delighted to join you. Thank you for having me.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, we have a busy week next week; the hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson begin. I first just want to start with what people are describing, and rightly so, as a historic moment. This is the first black woman who’s been nominated to the Supreme Court. President Biden did make it clear that this was his priority to nominate a black woman. What are your thoughts on gender and race being a major aspect of consideration?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
It’s always the president’s choice. They’re going to be able to nominate whomever they would like to nominate for the Supreme Court or for any of the federal or appellate court positions. As president, that is their responsibility and it is their choice. What Tennesseans regularly tell me is they want judges who have experience. They think any judge going to the federal bench, whether it’s a district court, appellate court, or Supreme Court, that they need to have been a judge. They’ll say, “This is not the time for on-the-job training.”
Secondly, they want people who are going to be constitutionalists, who are going to look first to the Constitution and what it says, that they are going to be people that honor and respect the rule of law, and they want it to be individuals who are going to bring some humility with them to the job. They don’t want activist judges. They want people who are going to say, “Justice is blind. Justice is equal. It is fair. Everyone should have equal access to the courts, and the courts should provide equal justice to all.”
Beverly Hallberg:
We are going to get into the judge’s judicial philosophy, but I want to backtrack to a few weeks when this nomination was first announced. It was right when the chaos and Russia started talking about moving into Ukraine. It’s when we first saw that aggression. What did you make of the timing? Personally, I found it kind of offensive to this nominee, where any nominee should have a shining moment, and I felt like it detracted some from what should be a focus, a spotlight on somebody who’s gotten to this level.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
Yeah. It was one of those things; the timing was very odd on this. One would have thought that since the vacancy is not even going to occur until June, that the announcement would’ve been delayed and that the hearing process would have been delayed. Of course, we know the Democrats are concerned that in a 50-50 Senate, that they may have a tough time getting the votes to get her out of committee or to do the confirmation, and they’re wanting to push forward and have her confirmed by April 10th.
And then she would wait until Justice Breyer actually does retire and the position is open, and we have never had that occur. We’ve had some district judges that were placed and other federal court judges that were placed up for a confirmation vote and confirmed prior to the vacancy, but we’ve never had this for the Supreme Court.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, and we do have a major Supreme Court case that will be decided in June more than likely, and that is on Roe v. Wade, so the abortion case. But as you just mentioned, she will not be presiding over this. She would be coming in after that. I know a lot of people are talking about what this means with having her on the bench in reference to abortion. But again, Roe v. Wade will be decided before then. But I want to get to the meetings that are currently taking place prior to these hearings. So senators do meet with a nominee. So have you met with her, and what have those conversations been like?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
Yes. I had a one-hour meeting with her last week, and we talked about different things that she has written. We’ve discussed her time on the Sentencing Commission, her judicial philosophy, the process that she likes to follow when she gets a case. We talked some about her opinions that she has written as a district court judge.
Beverly Hallberg:
How would you decipher her judicial philosophy? How would you explain her approach to the law?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
One of the things that interested me was she talked more about process and less about her judicial philosophy. Anyone who has been on a district court and then on an appellate court, they have to have a judicial philosophy, and that’s what people want to know, is what philosophy are you going to bring? How are going to look at this? You talk about judging people and judging character, what is important to you as you make those assessments?
Beverly Hallberg:
So looking forward to the hearings and how you plan to approach that, how your colleagues plan to approach it, what type of questions do you want to ask? What information are you hoping to find?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
What we are going to want to know is where she stands on reading the Constitution, that she is a constitutionalist. This is, as I said, Tennesseans, this is very important to them: somebody that is going to abide by the Constitution. So that will be something that we talk about with her. What is she going to do to uphold the rights and the privileges that we have in this country, making certain that we keep our freedoms and those rights that are articulated in the Bill of Rights? Those are the kind of foundational questions that, when it comes down to it, people want to know.
There are going to be a host of different issues. You’re going to have all sorts of things that come before the court. Anything that we legislate on, you’re going to have those things going to the court. Businesses are always seeing cases in district court. So what you want to know is what is that philosophy? What underpins them? How do they respect the Constitution? When they’re approaching a case, do they look first at precedent or do they look at the Constitution? Do they look at the statute before they look at court precedent? Are they open if they feel that a precedent was wrongly decided and needs to be revisited?
Beverly Hallberg:
I know that she also has a background as being a public defender. She actually represented some detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Do you think that there will be questions along the lines of whether or not she has a perspective that’s a little bit softer on crime, or will this be focused mostly just on how she interprets the Constitution, how she applies that?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
There will be questions about her work on the Sentencing Commission and also her work as a public defender, and why she chose to represent some of the people that she chose to represent. And you’re going to see those questions come up. I’m certain that you’re going to have several members of the Judiciary Committee talk about some of that work.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I think when we look back at the past hearings that we have had with the previous two judges that were nominated — that’s Judge Kavanaugh, who’s now of course a justice, and also Justice Amy Coney Barrett — these are very tense hearings, especially Judge Kavanaugh, very hostile in nature, mostly because of questions from Democrats towards the nominee. How do you see Republicans, the tone, the demeanor in approaching these hearings?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
What Judge Jackson is going to receive is a very respectful, very thorough vetting. It is our responsibility to do that, but you’re not going to see the antics that the Democrats carried out that were so disrespectful of Justice Kavanaugh, that were disrespectful of the process, the Senate Committee, the process that we moved forward with. You will see a different demeanor, a more respectful demeanor, that is going to come from the Republicans.
Beverly Hallberg:
As a whole, you mentioned something earlier that I think is an important aspect to the judiciary and that’s this idea of being careful about judicial activism, that that’s not what the branch was intended to be. We’ve had a lot of questions about whether or not the court or the amount of judges on the bench will be increased. We think about justices as far as who nominated them, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, right-leaning, left-leaning. How do you feel about the perception of the Supreme Court as a whole? Is it something that hopefully we can repair some of the damage done and hopefully people do view it as not being activists, because hopefully the judges won’t be activists.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
Well, and on so many issues, the Supreme Court is the last stop that somebody has in order to receive justice, and they want to make certain that this is going to be a court that, as something goes into argument before the court, and that those arguments are going to be thoroughly heard and that the consideration given them will be a just and fair consideration. So what people are looking for is to have a justice who is not going to be an activist. So questioning Judge Jackson about some of her rhetoric, about some of her writings; indeed, that is appropriate, and I’m certain you will see us do that.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, before you go, I’m wondering if you will give us a prediction — I doubt you will — but any predictions on whether or not she will be nominated?
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
No, let’s let the hearings take place. It’s going to be our job to thoroughly vet her, to make certain that placing her on the bench is the appropriate thing to do.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I think it’s definitely must-see TV as the Supreme Court is a very important aspect of how our government works. It’s even how people even vote for president these days, thinking about nominations that could come from a president. So we know that this is important. We appreciate you as being the sole woman up there on the Republican side asking questions. Senator Marsha Blackburn, thanks for joining us, and good luck on all that you have next week.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
Thank you.
Beverly Hallberg:
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