Opposition to Ketanji Brown Jackson is 'not about race,' Ted Cruz says

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that Republicans' opposition to Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is "not about race" during his opening statement at her confirmation hearing Monday.

If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

"It's not about race. We will see Democrats and the media suggest that any senator that is skeptical of your nomination, that questions you vigorously, or that dares to vote against you must somehow harbor racial animus," Cruz said.

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"I would note we are sitting on a committee where multiple members ... happily filibustered Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a very qualified African American woman nominated to the [United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit], precisely because they wanted to prevent Judge Brown from becoming Justice Brown," he continued.

Judges of the D.C. Circuit Court are not given the title "Justice." Ironically, Brown was referred to as "Justice Brown" during her confirmation hearings because of her seat on the California Supreme Court.

Then-President George W. Bush nominated Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court in 2003, but a filibuster by Senate Democrats — including current Judiciary Committee members Dianne Feinstein of California, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Dick Durbin of Illinois — delayed her confirmation for nearly two years.

"The senior Democrats on this committee also filibustered Miguel Estrada, as the staff for [then-]Sen. Ted Kennedy [(D-Mass.)] said in writing at the time ... 'because he is Hispanic,'" said Cruz, who is also Hispanic.

According to a 2013 Washington Examiner article, it was an aide to Durbin — not Kennedy — who wrote in a 2001 email that a group of liberal judicial activists had described Estrada as "especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment."

Democrats, Cruz said, consistently "crush" minority nominees who challenge liberal "political Orthodoxy."