Ahead of SCOTUS hearings for Jackson, conservatives ramp up attacks, target top Senate Democrats

The Article III Project, an organization that advocates for constitutionalist justices, released an ad Friday targeting the Senate's top two Democrats ahead of their efforts next week to run the Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court confirmation process.

The ad by the group, which is named for the section of the Constitution that established the judiciary, demands that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Majority Whip Dick Durbin resign their senate posthaste and allow black women to take their places.

The organization has previously pointed out that 71-year-old Schumer and 77-year-old Durbin, respectively, opposed 95% and 81% of Trump-nominated women and minority appellate judges, bringing into question their true commitment to diversity and equity.

"Time for Senators Schumer and Durbin to step aside and allow their governors to replace them with black women," reads the ad, which also prominently features the hashtag "equity."

Jackson, a federal judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, was nominated to the high court last month by President Biden, who promised on the campaign trail that he would nominate a black woman to become a Supreme Court if given the opportunity.

"Democrats say our institutions should look like America. We've only had two Black women senators in U.S. history. We can double that today," said Article III Project's founder Mike Davis. "The top two Senate Democrats – Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin – should step aside now so their Democrat governors can replace them with Black women. Talk isn’t enough in the fight for equity. We need real, selfless action"

Davis, who is the former Chief Counsel for Nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, worked on the confirmation battles for Justice Neil Gorsuch, nominated to the high court by President Trump in 2017, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. 

The organization's take on Schumer and Durbin's commitment to diversity and equity is a good indication of the type of arguments conservative advocacy groups will launch during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. It follows some of those already being made by Senate Republicans about Jackson's judicial record. 

"These Democrats are quick to weaponize race and gender to achieve their progressive political goals, but diversity in the workplace, racial progress, and gender equality clearly aren’t their real priorities," Davis recently told Fox news. As Democrats prepare for the confirmation process of judge Jackson, he says, "Remember how they treated Clarence Thomas, Janice Rogers Brown, Miguel Estrada, and Amy Coney Barrett during their confirmation processes."

On Thursday, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican on the Judiciary committee highlighted what he considers to be Jackson's history of light sentencing patterns in child pornography cases.

Other Senate Republicans have indicated that they will focus on Jackson's history of providing legal defense for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Texas's Sen. John Cornyn (R) said he was "curious" about how Jackson wound up on the prisoners' cases. "It might make a difference to me whether it was something she sought out," he said.