On Wednesday, Republican Senator Susan Collins declared that she will vote in favor of confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court.
The declaration from Collins makes her the first Republican to proclaim her support for Democrat President Joe Biden’s top choice for the highest court.
“I have decided to support the confirmation of Judge Jackson to be a member of the Supreme Court,” Collins proclaimed after she met with Jackson personally for a second time, according to the New York Times.
If Jackson is successfully confirmed, she will become the first Black female to serve on the Supreme Court.
Collins, who is generally considered to be moderate, announced her intentions to vote in favor of confirming a Jackson, a federal appellate judge, via an official statement released through her office.
The Republican Senator from Maine asserted that she carefully reviewed the record of Jackson, and she also observed her testify over the course of her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, which took place over the past week.
Additionally, Collins has also met Biden’s nominee twice in person, and she ultimately concluded that Jackson demonstrates the requisite “experience, qualifications, and integrity” that justify her lifelong appointment to the Supreme Court.
After expressing her support, Collins also added that she was troubled by the ongoing trend of politicizing the Supreme Court judicial nomination process.
“Anyone who has watched several of the last Supreme Court confirmation hearings would reach the conclusion that the process is broken,” Collins declared, adding that this observation should be clear to everyone, regardless of where they may “fall on the ideological spectrum.”
Senator Collins also noted that “the Constitution clearly assigns to the Senate is to examine the experience, qualifications, and integrity of the nominee.”
“It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the ideology of an individual senator or would rule exactly as an individual senator would want,” Collins concluded.
