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committee, is the short answer. when she was confirmed to the u.s. court of appeals, which everyone regards as the second highest court in the land, she got three republican votes. senator susan collins of maine, senator lisa murkowski of alaska, and senator lindsey graham of south carolina. senator graham is the only one who is on the judiciary committee and it seemed pretty plain after the hearings that he is unlikely to vote for judge jackson this time around. but we do not know about the other two republican senators. as far as whether she is on track to be confirmed, it seems likely that she is. it is going to be a very narrow margin. it will be a very polarized vote along party lines but even some republican senators like senator ben sasse of nebraska who did

not suggest that he was going to vote for her, but really talked about her confirmation as if it was inevitable. there was a line at one point where he was questioning her where he said, you are going to be a hero. host: in the history of confirmation hearings, how often does it happen that something comes up that derails a nominee after the nominee just before the committee -- sits before the committee? is there something that could happen that could change dramatically? guest: there is. we saw that with justice brett kavanaugh. we had the initial set of confirmation hearings and then it reconvened after the allegations by christine ford became public. we had another day of hearings and the vote went forward and he was eventually confirmed, largely along a partyline vote.

we certainly have not had any indication that there is anything that is going to come out that might derail her confirmation. she has already been confirmed to various federal positions as a sentencing commissioner, a district court judge, and quite recently, as a court of appeals judge. so three times, including quite recently. in addition to the fact that she is highly qualified, many people thought that that was one of the reasons why she was such a front runner for the nomination all along. the biden administration is keenly aware that the democrats could lose control of the senate in the 2022 elections in november and they wanted to be sure that they could get someone confirmed. and she has been confirmed very recently and they wanted to make sure that there were no surprises. host: in terms of how much time is left, just take us through the schedule for her confirmation. guest: my understanding is that they are going to have to move

forward starting april 4. they will be back in committee. it is a little unusual because justice stephen breyer has already said that he would like to remain on the supreme court through the end of the supreme court's turn. the justices are still hearing oral argument. they just finished up an argument session this week. they will hear another set in april and they will issue all of their decisions for the current term by the end of june. briar said he would like to remain on the bench until the end of june and then he would step down and if she were confirmed, then justice jackson would replace him presumably in late june or early july. the senate democrats have said they would like to have the vote happen by easter, before the senators go away for their easter break.

she will be waiting in the wings and all that would be left to do would be for the president to sign her commission so that as soon as justice breyer steps down in late june or early july, she could step in. they did not want to leave anything to chance in case something were to happen with some of the senators that would jeopardize their really to get her confirmed. host: amy howe with us for the next 35 minutes on "washington journal." taking your calls as we wrap up four days of supreme court confirmation hearings. judge jackson before that committee for the first three of those days. yesterday's panel featuring outside witnesses, friends of the nominee, and a panel of republican witnesses. the phone lines are open for you to talk about all of this. if you support her confirmation, (202) 748-8000 is the number to call. if you oppose the nomination of judge jackson, it is (202) 748-8001 go ahead and start

calling in. i want to get your view on the confirmation hearings as a whole and maybe not just this one, but the past couple. is this process still a good way of figuring out the motivations of a justice for the public finding out about the history of a potential justice? are they still working? guest: that is a good question. it depends on the perspective from which you are coming at it. on the one hand, in recent years, there has been a trend toward nominees telling us relatively little about how they would vote on a particular issue. we did not hear the phrase during his confirmation hearing. we herded a lot during the hearing for justice amy coney barrett and some of the earlier confirmation hearings, the ginsburg rule, the idea that a

nominee for the supreme court is not going to weigh in on issues that could come before the be fuzz -- because that might make them seem biased if they were confirmed to the supreme court and the issue were to come up. it would seem that they had already prejudged the issue and that dates back to justice ruth bader ginsburg during her confirmation hearing in 1993 when she said she would give no forecast, no preview. there are a couple of journalists who have done stories on this. justice ginsburg during her confirmation hearing said quite a bit against -- about some substantive issues including the right to an abortion. in any event, you have to separate how they might vote on particular issues and what we learn about them more broadly, what comes out of the process. even if they are not giving forecast and previews about how they might vote on a particular

issue, what senators and journalists and people who are going into the hearing have spent a lot of time reading, in the case of judge jackson, all of their opinions. in the case of justice kavanaugh, reading all of his emails and opinions as a court of appeals judge versus what the public -- it does not necessarily have time to read all of these things. what the public learns about a nominee, they do learn a lot more about the issues facing the court, how this nominee has decided these issues in the past , about the candidate's demeanor. in this case, judge jackson sat there, pretty implacable, sometimes during a roller coaster of senators asking her questions and sometimes speaking quite strongly. even if you are not learning how she feels about gun rights or

abortion, you do still learn quite a bit about her. i think your view on whether or not the hearings serve their function kind of depends on what you think their function is. host: taking viewers back to monday to judge jackson's opening statement. this is just one minute of her explaining her role as a judge and her role and view of the law. judge jackson. [video clip] judge jackson: members of this committee, if i am confirmed, i commit to you that i will work productively to support and defend the constitution and this grand experiment of american democracy that has endured over these past 246 years. i have been a judge for nearly a decade now and i take that responsibility and my duty to be

independent very seriously. i decide cases from a neutral pasture. 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 opus. i know that my role as a judge is a limited one, but the constitution empowers me only to decide cases and controversies that are properly presented and i know that my judicial role is further constrained by careful adherence to precedent. [end video clip] host: judge jackson from monday. amy howe, we heard a lot from republicans about her judicial philosophy. is that her judicial philosophy? guest: she said it was more of a

methodology and that was frustrating for republicans, but she stuck to that answer and some democrats said, maybe that is better than a judicial philosophy. it tells us how she will decide cases. host: this is mark. good morning. caller: i do not feel she should be confirmed for many reasons. she lied to the committee several times. there was one case she decided when trump was president about immigration and it was unrepeatable that she should not have taken the case and also that she should not decide on it. she is a political activist and what happened in the case issue but a nationwide injunction on the trump administration and she was overturned in the next court because it was such a bad decision. she should not have taken the case because the statute was so clear that there was no review of the actions of the secretary that did it. that shows that she will not follow the law.

she will not follow the statutes. she will not follow the cost of fusion with separation of powers. -- follow the constitution with separation of powers. not to mention the fact that she lied and she does not even follow her own faith. host: let's focus on the cases that you bring up and her case history. amy howe, on that case and her record in general and how it was explored during the hearings. guest: this is the case called make the road versus natalie involving a copy or policy that was overturned by the u.s. court of appeals. this was a case that she decided that she was a district judge. i actually thought this was an example of a substantive discussion of one of her cases. the hearings were a roller coaster. the democrats focused often, -- senator cory booker focused on

the historic nature of her opponent -- her appointment. republicans focused on portraying her as soft on crime. a couple of senators did bring up this case but i thought it was a substantive discussion. it was a case where she was overturned. the democratic senators response to the discussion of this case would be that she was overturned relatively rarely. there are points to be made on both sides. i am not sure that being overturned in one case disqualifies you as a report justice. reasonable minds can differ. host: oldies, detroit, michigan. -- otis, detroit, michigan. good morning. caller: you need to get some 40 and under time.

host: we appreciate callers of all ages. caller: i am 57-years-old so i understand what the other two were talking about. with the judge, i am an african-american. i'm a black male, 67 years old. from my generation of the baby boomers, we have to be 110% better than white people if we want to be qualified, which is sad because it seems like it is still happening today with the judge. just listening to her, and i have listened to a few of these confirmation hearings in my life , you can tell she is 100%, 110%, 120% better because the charts that seized input of the other day shows that all the other sitting supreme court

judges, that she is way above the heads of them. also, when they talk about the porno pictures case, she kept telling congress it was up to you. i feel like people missed that. you have to set these laws. some of the senators were saying we have dropped the ball on that because it is a hot issue. the republicans constantly would not pick up the issue, would not help create a law that almost 80% of the judges, they even mentioned a few of the republicans, supported judges in their state are within the norm of the 80%. host: we take your point. you bring up a couple of issues. amy howe, which one do you want to focus on? guest: for the listeners, there

was a lot of focus even before the hearing started, senator josh hawley of missouri had a long twitter thread in which he announced that he was going to focus on judge jackson's record in sentencing people who have been convicted of possessing child pornography. he said he was disturbed by the low sentences that she had given to these offenders. experts and fact checkers even before the hearings began look at the issue and said that judge jackson's citizens for these offenders were well within the mainstream for federal judges. as otis suggests, the way visiting guidelines were set up, they were set up really before the advent of the internet when pornography was circulated by mail through magazines and pictures.

with computers, people are now unfortunately able to download large amounts of pornography including child pornography with the click of a button. the guidelines do not account for that. judges have tried to account for that in their sentences so that the sentences are not as harsh as they would otherwise be under the guidelines, which judges field and not take account of this change -- feel do not take account of this change in technology. some of the democrats poked fun at republican senators saying i have not seen your bill to change the guidelines. some of the republican senators said that they actually think that is appropriate if you are downloading large amounts of child pornography, you should be subject to harsher penalties than someone who gets a magazine in the mail. that is a debate that congress can have but perhaps they should have that debate, was what many

people were saying. host: we were doing lines on this topic but the phone lines are split up as usual. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. those are the phone lines for this segment. you can keep calling in to talk with amy howe of "howe on the court" blog. switching from this confirmation as viewers continue to call it to other news out of court this week, do we have an update on justice clarence thomas's health condition? guest: we do not. justice thomas was hospitalized on friday evening with what the office called flulike symptoms. he was admitted to the hospital just inside the washington, dc

line and was deceiving antibiotics through an iv for an infection. we receive this announcement on sunday night. the court said on sunday night that it expected justice thomas to be released within a day or two. the issue of transparency with regard to the justice's health is something that reporters have complained about. we do not know whether we would have learned about justice thomas's admission to the hospital had the supreme court not been scheduled to hear oral arguments on monday morning. so it would have been obvious that something was wrong had he not been on the bench when the justices took the bids for oral arguments on monday morning -- took the bench for oral arguments on monday morning. it has been several days past the day or two with which the courts expected him to be released. the news yesterday, the

questions were not answered. we do not know anything at all. host: speaking of justice thomas, this news broken by "the washington post" and cbs, this on the front page. virginia thomas, a conservative activist married to supreme court justice clarence thomas repeatedly pressed mark meadows to pursue extreme efforts to overturn the 2020 election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote according to copies of those messages obtained by "the washington post" the messages reveal an extraordinary pipeline between virginia thomas and president trump's top aide during a period in which trump and his allies were vowing to go to the subpoena court in an effort to negate the election. text messages that "the washington post" obtained and cbs obtained. your thoughts on that story? guest: it is a big story.

ginni thomas has long been a conservative activist and there has been criticism of her role as a conservative activist in light of her husband's job on the subpoena court and it is a fine line. should a spouse have to stay out of politics because they are married to someone who is on the supreme court? in this case, it becomes a lot less murky and much more problematic because this is an issue of talking to the white house chief of staff at the time about efforts to overturn the 2020 election when trump is vowing to go to the subpoena court. there were at the supreme court cases related to the 2020 election and document related to the 2020 election. we know that the thomases are an extremely close couple.

the fact that justice thomas was voting on these cases raises serious concerns. there has also long been calls for a code of ethics for supreme court justice is because right now, the supreme court justices are not bound by -- this is once again going to raise that issue. host: back to the phone. this is why nita -- juanita out of south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for allowing me to express my opinion. i support judge jackson. my main concern, i thought that during the questioning for the senate she was treated so badly. i thought that they were unnecessarily harsh and brutal and i particularly take issue with our own senator, senator lindsey graham.

he comes on very strong, paying lip service to things that are harmful in south carolina. but south carolina is at the very top of the list in incidents of domestic violence. we lead the nation in that. we are near the bottom with our educational system. if senator graham is so concerned about the families of south carolina, why doesn't he look at his own backyard and use his influence to make things better? south carolina people are wonderful and they deserve much better representation from their elected officials. host: amy howe, brings up the subject of not just the nominee being in the spotlight, but senators on the judiciary committee being in the spotlight as well. guest: i want to start by saying south carolina people are wonderful. my husband went to high school there. we have a lot of family there.

senator lindsey graham has covered a lot of confirmation hearings. it is an interesting one to watch. it has been a while since we have had a supreme court nominee from a democratic president. but when we did, the nominations of elena kagan and sonia sotomayor, lindsay graham supported those nominations. he had this speech he used to give about how elections matter and i can hear it in my head, lindsey graham talking to elana kagan about elections matter. you are not the candidate i would have shows about president obama won the election and you see and qualify so i'm going to support you. that all went out the window. he has had some real grievances at this hearing, one of the related to judge j michelle childs who is a federal district judge in south carolina who lindsey graham and jim clyburn,

the democrat from south carolina , had supported as a potential nominee to replace justice breyer. lindsey graham attributed the fact that judge jackson, rather than judge childs, had been the nominee to campaign by progressive groups against judge childs. he also brought of past confirmation hearings, in particular, the hearings of justice kavanaugh and justice barrett. but also going back to some of the judges on the d.c. circuit judge and someone who was nominated for the d.c. circuit judge, but not confirmed. he is going back in history and talking about what he perceived as a very poor treatment of republican nominees at the hands of democrats. host: to florida, this is jesse on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: yes, i was pleased with

the lady. i think she did a great job. the thing that i really liked about her is she did not seem to hide behind, i may have to woo. she answered the questions. i disagree with the lady who talked about the senator's behavior. although i am of republican, i was ashamed of lindsey graham, ted cruz, and hawley. the way they acted, it is too political. host: that is jesse in florida. amy, you talked about lindsey graham. what about ted cruz and josh hawley? guest: we actually have this debate with some journalists.

on the one hand, he was bringing up the kavanaugh hearings and i know he was bringing that up perhaps to appeal to the republican base. on the other hand, i am not really sure that if you are trying to appeal to suburban women, reminding them of the kavanaugh hearings is necessarily an astute political move because it provokes this sort of reaction. senator josh hawley and senator ted cruz, i'm trying to think -- there was no sense that either of them was ever going to vote for judge jackson to be confirmed. there definitely was a performative quality about it. certainly, they have the rights to raise their concerns, but the manner in which they did it suggested that their audience was not inside the hearing room, but outside the hearing room.

again, it plays both ways. it can get you attention with the republican base, but it can also turn off voters. it is a question of the cost benefit. as your caller suggests, there are certainly costs with some of the voters. host: marcia, pennsylvania, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i thought it was so sad, the republicans behavior overall. i would like to hear comments on the positive side, comments like booker and klobuchar made. and you too, ms. howe. host: amy howe, do you want to talk about your role on your blog? guest: i did not take a position. i am just a reporter, not a pundit. i do not take a position on whether judge jackson should be confirmed. it is unfortunate and all members of the press probably

are equally guilty of it, this sort of fireworks are what tend to get the airtime or the ink, cover nomination hearings. there were the more contentious moments in the hearings but there were moments like cory booker, alex padilla. but there were substantive discussions of the law from senators on both sides of the aisle. as the caller mentioned, amy klobuchar often asks nominees from both sides of the aisle, republican nominees, democratic nominees, about issues like antitrust benefit -- and freedom of the press. senator charles grassley often asks nominees about the false claims act and whether or not they favor cameras in the courtroom. senator ben sasse of nebraska had a substantive exchange with the nominee. it is unfortunate that those

substantive exchanges do not get as much airtime as the fireworks. host: as you mentioned, cory booker's statement getting a lot of attention. there was one moment in which judge jackson showed a little bit of emotion. this is about a minute of senator cory booker talking on wednesday to judge jackson. [video clip] sen. booker: your family and you speak to service, service, service. i am telling you right now, i am not letting anybody in the senate steal my joy. i told you this at the beginning. i am embarrassed. it happened earlier today. i just look at you and i start getting full of emotion. i'm jogging this morning and at the end of the block i live on because i put my music on loud when i'm jogging trying to block out the noise of the heart attack i am having. and this woman comes upon me and

tackles me, an african-american woman. and the look on her eye, she just wanted to touch me because i am sitting so close to you, and tell me what it meant to her to watch you sitting where you are sitting. and you did not get there because of some left-wing agenda. you did not get here because of some dark money groups. you got here however he black woman in america who got anywhere has done. by being, like ginger rodgers said, i did everything fred astaire did, but backwards in heels. [end video clip] host: amy howe on that moment that went viral. guest: it was a moment that i think everyone is going to remember from the confirmation hearings. it came after it was pretty far into the day and it came after

judge jackson had had a relatively long and contentious set of questions from senator tom cotton of arkansas. his comments -- senator booker's comments were already fairly emotional, but i also think she was probably feeling maybe a little bit vulnerable, was ready to take a little bit of a break and senator booker wanted to talk about the historic nature of her appointment and also sensed that she needed a break at that point. it was quite a moving moment. if you could see judge jackson becoming emotional, you could see staffers sitting behind senator booker getting emotional. at the end of the day when the hearings were over and senator dick durbin, the chairman of the committee gaveled hearings to a close, judge jackson got up and

left quickly, but her husband, dr. patrick jackson, stayed around for a few minutes to talk to people. one of the first things he did was he went over to senator booker, gave him a big hug, they spoke for a few minutes, and gave him another hug before he moved on to talk to somebody else. host: santa fe, this is tony, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i would just like to comment that i feel she is more qualified than at least five on the supreme court now. thomas, the fact that his wife, he refuses to recuse himself. one of the first opinions he's wrote was a monsanto opinion giving them unlimited power just about. from that point on, he has lost my respect as a judge or a justice. susan united was another thing

that -- citizen united was another thing that lost my faith in certain members of the supreme court that are still on there today. at least some of the senators focused on the dark money, which was good. but what i appreciated was her responses to what she thought about the constitution. she is going to be out there deciding what is constitutional and what is not. i do not believe that those justices on the supreme court right now have ever read the constitution or the declaration of independence because they do not realize -- they claim to be originalists. you cannot do that. that was written at that time for those people and what they were going through. host: amy howe? guest: i will not weigh in on whether she is more qualified, but certainly by the measures we currently use to determine whether justices are qualified,

she is well-qualified. she went to harvard college, harvard law school, she clerked for justice breyer. one thing that often gets left out when we talk about her qualifications is that she was on the shortlist back in 2016 when president obama was looking for a nominee to fill the vacancy left by the death of justice antonin scalia. he ended up choosing judge merrick garland who did not get a hearing because of the posture that mitch mcconnell said at the time, there is the tradition of not confirming nominee in a presidential election year. but she was on the shortlist. clearly when president obama was looking at the entire field of potential candidates, thought enough of her at the time to include her on the shortlist. host: what about the other issue that the caller brings out on faith in the court?

the caller expressing his own views on specific members. but this idea about the public space and the severe court to do its job? guest: it is something that is very important. it is something that at least some of the justices are very cognizant of. remember that the supreme court, they do not have an army. they do not have a police force. when they issue a decision, people obey it because they believe in the authority of the supreme court. it is certainly something that chief justice john roberts is very concerned about, that all the court has is the court's institutional authority. it is a corollary to this, something that came up often at the confirmation hearings, senators tried to get judge jackson to weigh in on the notion of court expansion because this has been a major theme for progressive groups.

they want to add feeds to the supreme court to balance out both the seat that was lost. they say that the seat was stolen when senator mitch mcconnell did not allow merrick garland to get a hearing and be put up for a vote and allowed the seeds to be filled by justice neil gorsuch instead. even though seven out of the eight last presidential elections, the popular was won by democrats, the court is now dominated by conservatives. they tried over and over again to get judge jackson to weigh in on this notion of court packing. she said it would not be appropriate for her to weigh in on that. it was the same thing judge amy barrett said during her confirmation hearing. as another matter, this is not

something that the supreme court would decide. this is a question for congress to decide. this is something that justice stephen breyer has addressed and he said the supreme court should not be expanded because people will view the court as political and it will sap the supreme court's authority. host: the supreme court is 20 years old, is that correct? guest: it will turn 20 this fall. host: how cognizant were the justices about this idea of faith in the court? guest: it was something that at that time they were quite cognizant of because bush v gore was not that far in their rearview mirrors. that was certainly something that that many -- that led many members of the public to question the extent to which the

court was politicized. along conservative liberal lines , ruling on the outcome of the presidential election. the supreme court stayed in and out of the public consciousness over time depending on what is going on and the nature of the court's ruling. for the last few years, it has been more at the forefront because we have had so many confirmation hearings and because the supreme court has been weighing in on so many important issues. this term, they are about to issue decisions on issues like abortion. they are deciding whether or not to overrule roe v. wade, gun rights, and in the fall with potentially just as jackson on the court, they will weigh in on affirmative action and the extent to which lgbtq rights and religious rights are balanced.

there are so many important issues that are before the supreme court and the public is paying close attention. host: last call, barbara, oklahoma city, democrat. good morning. caller: hi. i do not even know where to start. i do not understand why we never ever did you have questions like this when trump was in there. we never got to speak on what he did. every morning now, it is what you think about biden doing this? what do you think about biden doing that? our supreme court justices, this one is so awesome. it is insane. she made lindsey graham and them look like the fools that they are because she is so well read. she is amazing. host: that is barbara's view from oklahoma city. before we go, the final minute.

what did we miss this week across the street at the actual supreme court while we were all focused on the confirmation hearings? guest: it was a busy week at the supreme court as well. the oral argument, the cases in which they were hearing oral arguments were low-key. the supreme court issued rulings on the shadow docket, which is a topic that came up a couple of times at the confirmation hearings. the supreme court throughout a ruling. it is complicated so i will talk slowly. throughout a ruling by the wisconsin supreme court that adopted a map drawn by the state's democratic governor for the state legislature that had drawn an additional majority black district for the legislature. this is after the 2020 census. all the states have to go back to the drawing board and draw

new legislative district. the supreme court throughout this ruling that adopted a map drawn by the state's democratic governor. the state also issued a decision involving the religious rights of a death row inmate. they said that he does have the right to have his spiritual advisor in the execution chamber, putting his hand on him, and praying out loud. there has been a battle for couple of years over having your spiritual advisor in the execution chamber and now what the spiritual advisor can do. there will be a little bit of frustration in the supreme court's opinion about do we really have to do this. texas, can't you figure this out without having to come to us? and then there was a decision involving a houston community college and a member of the board of trustees and whether or not do you think committed the

college violated the trustees first amendment rights when it censored him for complaining about what the board was doing and the answer is no. host: think of the very best places you can go on the internet to learn about the ends announced in the case is about the supreme court, scotus blog watch for coverage on c-span now. our free radio app. if confirmed, to taj brown jackson will become the first african-american woman to sit on the supreme court.

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