American Bar Association rates Biden nominee Jackson ‘well qualified’ to serve on Supreme Court

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN

The American Bar Association on Friday rated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as “well qualified” — its highest rating — to serve on the US Supreme Court, ahead of her confirmation hearings next week.

The association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary was unanimous in its evaluation of Jackson’s professional qualifications.

“The Standing Committee is of the unanimous opinion that Judge Jackson is ‘Well Qualified’ to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” Ann Claire Williams, the committee’s chair, wrote in a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will conduct the hearings.

Biden nominated Jackson on February 25 to fill the court’s vacancy since liberal justice Stephen Breyer announced his impending retirement. If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman to sit on the highest court in the nation.

Confirmation hearings on Jackson’s nomination are set to begin Monday, with Democratic leaders pushing to have a final Senate vote by April 8. Jackson has been meeting with Democratic and Republican senators on Capitol Hill ahead of the hearings.

The American Bar Association “confines its evaluation to the qualities of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament,” Williams says in the letter.

The association’s website notes it has been evaluating the professional qualifications of Supreme Court nominees for more than 60 years and that it does not take into consideration a nominee’s “philosophy, political affiliation or ideology” when making its determinations.

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CNN’s Jamie Crawford and Chandelis Duster contributed to this report.