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SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson meets with Schumer, McConnell

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sen. Mitch McConnell
Posted at 11:38 AM, Mar 02, 2022
and last updated 2022-03-02 11:38:54-05

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday as she takes her first steps toward confirmation.

Democrats and the White House are pushing for a swift timeline, hoping they can vote on her confirmation to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer by mid-April.

Jackson first met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.

"I've read and studied the judge's career. I've heard so many good things from so many people, and now I look forward to meeting her in person and sort of fleshing out all the great things that we've read about," Schumer said Wednesday prior to his meeting with Jackson. "Seeing her in person is a great thing. I am just so pleased the president has nominated someone with such amazing qualification and breadth of experience."

She also met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, who posed for photographs with the judge.

Jackson will continue to make the customary rounds of Senate visits Wednesday as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for hearings. She'll also meet with the committee's chairman, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, its ranking member, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.

If confirmed, Jackson would be the court's first Black female justice. Confirmation hearings are expected to start in mid-March

President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night that Jackson was "one of our nation's top legal minds."