Why Lindsey Graham’s new declaration on SCOTUS nominees matters

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham caused a bit of a stir yesterday, insisting that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wouldn’t have even received a confirmation hearing if there were a GOP majority in the Senate right now. At first blush, it seemed as if the South Carolinian was effectively making an announcement: Senate Republicans support yet another blockade on a Democratic president’s Supreme Court nominees.

But that’s not quite what Graham said. The Hill reported:

“If we get back the Senate, and we’re in charge of this body, and there’s judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side. But if we were in charge, she would not have been before this committee,” the senator declared. “You would have had somebody more moderate than this.”

Graham added, “We are supposed to be trained seals over here clapping when you nominated a liberal. That’s not going to work.”

In other words, the South Carolina Republican didn’t say that he and his party would oppose every high court nominee chosen by President Joe Biden; Graham said the GOP can’t tolerate this specific high court nominee — because Jackson, in the senator’s eyes, is some kind of left-wing radical whose extremism disqualifies her.

If there were a Republican majority in the Senate, the argument goes, the Democratic White House would have no choice but to nominate someone with broader appeal to both parties.

As Graham probably knows, his argument is laughably absurd, and it’s worth pausing to appreciate why.

Right off the bat, to see Jackson as an extremist is to pretend reality has no meaning. We are, after all, talking about a respected and experienced jurist who’s nomination has been endorsed by several leading law enforcement organizations and a variety of prominent conservative voices from the legal community.

Graham’s tantrum notwithstanding, if Jackson were some kind of left-wing radical, she wouldn’t enjoy the support of folks like retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig and retired federal Judge Thomas R. Griffith. What’s more, if Jackson were part of the political fringe, she wouldn’t currently enjoy the support of three sitting Republican senators: Maine’s Susan Collins, Utah’s Mitt Romney, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.

While we’re at it, if Jackson were an extremist, she wouldn’t have been confirmed as a circuit court nominee last year with bipartisan support. Indeed, there was one senator in particular whose support in 2021 stands out a year later: I believe his name was Lindsey Graham.

But just as important is the senator’s insistence that he and his Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee would consider moderate Supreme Court nominees. If given power, they’ll reflexively veto those they perceive as liberals — they wouldn’t get so much as a hearing, Graham said yesterday — but centrists might have a chance at confirmation.

The trouble is, Graham’s rhetoric about this is also literally unbelievable. It might seem like ancient history, but for those of us who remember 2016, then-President Barack Obama, recognizing the political circumstances, nominated Merrick Garland for the high court. The choice was intended to serve as a compromise: Garland was a respected moderate whom one Senate Republican explicitly recommended.

GOP senators nevertheless responded with the first such partisan blockade in American history. They refused to even extend Garland the courtesy of a hearing.

Six years later, Graham would have us believe that Senate Republicans would treat fairly a moderate Supreme Court nominee from a Democratic White House? Please.