Congress
He waited 39 years for a committee gavel. Now the famously even-tempered Dick Durbin gets what may be his only chance to confirm a justice.
Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson meets with Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) at the Capitol on March 2. | Francis Chung/ E&E/Politico
By Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett
03/20/2022 07:01 AM EDT
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Dick Durbin is a patient senator. And his restraint will be tested during this week’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Republicans telegraphed for weeks that they wouldn’t put up a major fight against Jackson in the Durbin-chaired Judiciary Committee. Then came their soft-on-crime attack. Just five days before the first Black woman nominated to the high court is set to appear before the panel, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) rolled out a lengthy broadside against her record on sentencing in child pornography cases.