Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Senate Moving Forward President Biden’s Judicial Nominees And Next Week’s Judiciary Committee Hearing On The Nomination Of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson To The Supreme Court

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the Senate moving forward more of President Biden’s judicial nominees, including Judge Ali Nathan to the Second Circuit and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you and to all of America.

Yesterday, the Senate moved forward on a dozen judicial and administrative nominees, many of them with solid bipartisan support.

Today we will hold three more floor votes: two to confirm a pair of district judges, and one to move on the nomination of Judge Ali Nathan for the Second Circuit.

When I met Judge Nathan ten years ago I thought “here is someone truly special and truly brilliant” and a decade later I still hold that view. Ask her colleagues on the bench, or ask her colleagues from private practice, or even the likes of President Obama, and they will all say the same thing: Judge Nathan is a first-rate jurist and a consensus builder by nature. I’m pleased the Senate is acting on this well-deserving judge today, setting up final confirmation vote for next week.

And speaking of nominations today: today is the last day the Senate will meet before we begin a truly historic series of hearings next Monday starting at 11 a.m. Senate Judiciary Committee will begin hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court.

These televised Judiciary hearings will give millions of Americans a chance to hear from the judge directly for the first time since her nomination.

These hearings matter: Americans deserve to hear for themselves from Judge Jackson, whose decisions will echo across American law for a long, long time.

Of course, the historic nature of this nominee must not be minimized. Of the 115 Justices who have sat on the Court, only five have been women. Only two – two – have been African Americans, Justices Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. Only one has been Hispanic, Justice Sonia Sotomayor from the Bronx.

But to date never has an African American woman come before the Judiciary Committee for consideration to this highest court; Judge Kentaji Brown Jackson will be the very first.

And the public will also see that her credentials, her vast experience in both public and private practice, and her near-9 years on the federal bench make her stupendously qualified to bear the title “Justice.”

I thank Chairman Durbin and the members of the Judiciary Committee for their work orchestrating what has been a fair and quick nomination process, and all of us look forward to next week’s hearings.

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