Collins to meet with Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Tuesday

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a key swing vote, will meet with President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, on Tuesday.

Collins’s meeting, confirmed to The Hill by an aide, is a crucial sit-down for Jackson as Democrats hope to pick up GOP votes for her nomination.

Collins and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted last year to confirm Jackson to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered the second-most important federal court in the U.S.

Collins said this week that she hadn’t yet made a decision on if she will support Jackson, whose nomination was announced last week. But she made clear that she needed to sit down with Jackson.

“I haven’t made a decision. It’s a different level obviously to go to the Supreme Court and it’s absolutely essential that I sit down with her and interview her,” Collins said. 

Democrats view Collins, who supported President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, as an important vote.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called Collins shortly after news broke that Justice Stephen Breyer intended to retire. And Collins told reporters last month that at that point she had spoken with Biden twice.