Booker: GOP questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘triggered a hurt in so many people’

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Monday harshly criticized Republican senators about their questioning of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson saying that it made women in the U.S. question the “absurdities of disrespect” that they endure in their lives.

In remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on a vote on Jackson‘s Supreme Court nomination Monday, Booker said that some of the questions asked by GOP lawmakers “triggered a hurt in so many people I know and have encountered.”

“I am hearing from people, not just Black women, who are relating to me their stories about having to come into a room where you’re more qualified than the people who are sitting in judgement of you and having to endure the absurdities of disrespect that we saw Judge Jackson endure,” he said.

Booker added that he had heard similar stories of poor treatment from people in a variety of jobs “who are so qualified, so worthy, and what they’ve had to endure.”

The New Jersey Democrat then listed Jackson’s qualifications for a seat on the high court, including clerking at all levels of the federal judiciary. He then asked “How could they disrespect a person like her who’s done everything right in her life and in her journey?”

Booker then quoted from Maya Angelou’s famous poem “And Still I Rise,” and said, “You may write me down in history. With your bitter, twisted lies, you may trod me in the very dirt. But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

Republicans on the panel peppered Jackson with questions over two days during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing pertaining to sentences she handed down in cases involving child porn that they deemed too lenient. At times, GOP lawmakers clashed with their Democratic counterparts on the panel over arguments about the lines of questioning.  

Despite the at-times hostile hearing, senators voted 11-11 on sending Jackson’s nomination to the full Senate on Monday, with the vote breaking down along party lines.