WASHINGTON — South Carolina's senior U.S. senator announced on Thursday that he would vote against the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
In a multi-part statement, Senator Lindsey Graham said that he opposed the nomination on multiple fronts, the first among them related to child pornography sentences and two cases of "sentencing enhancement factors" that Jackson had previously come out against. These involved enhancing a sentence based on the amount of material someone possessed and the perpetrator's use of a computer.
“These decisions destroy deterrence in this area and show a lack of appreciation for how the internet has become the venue of choice for child pornographers,” Graham said in a prepared statement from his office.
Regarding her record in these cases, Graham added that Chairman Dick Durbin had refused to release presentence reports, even confidentially in these cases.
"Every senator deserves to know facts pertinent to the nominee’s record as a judge and the consequences of their decisions," he said in the prepared statement.
He also took offense to Jackson's alleged characterization of the Bush Administration as "war criminals" in legal briefs while she represented Guantanamo detainees.
Graham also accused Jackson of legislating from the bench in at least one case involving expedited deportations and former president Donald Trump's administration where she ruled for the other party. The case was Make the Road New York, et all. v. McAleenan. That ruling, Graham said, was later overturned.
Graham said that, while he does support the idea of an African American woman on the Supreme Court, he believed Jackson's nomination and the Democratic Party's aims were political in nature. He said Democrats blocked George W. Bush's nomination of an African American woman to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals for two years.
“It speaks volumes about their true desire," he said in a statement. "The true goal of Democrats is to make the Court liberal, not diverse."
He reiterated that he fully supported another African American woman who wasn't nominated, U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Childs from South Carolina.
"There's no doubt in my mind that Judge Childs would have been a reliable vote for the liberal bloc of the Court, but I do believe that she possesses the open mind and balance that all Americans are looking for," Graham said. "She would have received a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate.”