Republican Senators Say No Boycott Planned for Jackson Committee Vote

Ten of 11 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee signed a letter Wednesday that requested confirmation hearings be adjourned until they obtained certain legal documents, including some presentencing records in child-pornography cases Judge Jackson had handled. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) rejected the request, saying information in the records could pose a risk to innocent third parties and children.

The back-and-forth had raised the prospect that Republicans could move to hold up the nominee, as GOP members of the Banking Committee did earlier this year with several Federal Reserve picks, by refusing to attend a panel vote.

But on Thursday, several of the Republicans who signed the letter said they wouldn’t hold up the process with any such boycott. A boycott by all of the panel’s Republicans could thwart or slow down Judge Jackson’s confirmation by denying a quorum in the evenly divided committee and preventing her nomination from being advanced to the full Senate, where she is expected to be narrowly confirmed.

Sen.

Thom Tillis

of North Carolina, a Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee and signed the letter, was emphatic that he wouldn’t participate in any boycott. “Never even seriously considered—ever, never gonna happen,” Mr. Tillis said. Sens.

John Cornyn

of Texas and

Lindsey Graham

of South Carolina, both committee members, also said they opposed a boycott.

Sen.

Josh Hawley

(R., Mo.), who was the first senator to criticize Judge Jackson’s sentencing record in child-pornography cases, said he would consider a boycott if Democrats don’t produce presentencing reports Republicans have demanded. But he said if other Republicans don’t agree to a boycott, he will show up and vote.

Mr. Durbin said Wednesday that the committee would meet March 28 to consider Judge Jackson’s nomination. That likely would set up an April 4 committee vote, because rules allow the vote to be “held over” one week. Democrats have said they hope the full Senate will approve her nomination by the time the chamber leaves for Easter recess, which is scheduled to begin April 11.

Democrats are still holding out some hope for bipartisan support. Sen.

John Thune

(R., S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, predicted a few GOP senators will vote for Judge Jackson on the Senate floor.

“I think she’ll get some—and when I say some, I mean a few,” said Mr. Thune, the Senate Republican whip.

Senate Minority Leader

Mitch McConnell

(R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor Thursday that he won’t vote to confirm Judge Jackson, pointing to her refusal to weigh in on expanding the court and what he saw as insufficient explanations of her judicial philosophy. He also said he was troubled by the judge’s record in criminal cases and accused her of having “bent the law” to reduce sentences.

Republicans seen as potential votes for Judge Jackson include Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and

Susan Collins

of Maine. Sens. Murkowski and Collins voted last year with all 50 senators who caucus with Democrats to confirm Judge Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, along with Mr. Graham.

Ms. Murkowski said Thursday she is undecided. Ms. Collins’s office said she, too, is undecided, and is reviewing the hearings.

Mr. Graham has said he is angry that President Biden nominated Judge Jackson instead of Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina, whom Mr. Graham had publicly championed. He has been critical of Judge Jackson, aggressively questioning her this week on her sentencing record and her work as a public defender representing Guantanamo Bay detainees. “Stay tuned,” Mr. Graham said Thursday, when asked if he had decided how he would vote this time.

One additional wild card is absences because of illnesses. Currently, Sens. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) are out after they contracted Covid-19.

Republicans have focused much of their criticism on Judge Jackson’s record in child-pornography cases, saying she has repeatedly sentenced offenders to prison terms shorter than what federal sentencing guidelines recommend. National sentencing statistics, however, show that judges around the country regularly issue below-guideline prison terms.

On the fourth day of hearings held Thursday, senators heard testimony from about a dozen witnesses who testified about the judge’s professional qualifications and personal characteristics, as lawmakers continued to spar over whether Judge Jackson has been overly lenient toward criminal defendants.

An American Bar Association committee gave Judge Jackson a rating of well-qualified, its highest rating. The committee’s research included reading more than 240 published opinions and other writings, as well as interviewing 250 judges and lawyers, including both prosecutors and defense attorneys. Representatives of the committee said they saw nothing in their research that indicated the judge was biased toward criminal defendants.

Alabama Republican Attorney General

Steve Marshall

spoke against Judge Jackson’s nomination and said he was concerned she would be too lenient.

During the hearing, Mr. Durbin again shut down Republican requests to obtain access to sentencing reports in Judge Jackson’s child-pornography cases. He also said the documents were unlikely to change any senator’s vote on the nomination.

A Republican boycott of the committee vote would have complicated Democrats’ efforts to advance the nomination in a straightforward manner. Under the Senate’s standing rules, a majority of committee members must be physically present for each committee vote. With the Judiciary Committee split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, a committee vote held in the absence of all 11 Republicans would have violated the rules.

Sarah Binder, a political-science professor at George Washington University who has written extensively on Senate procedures, said that one workaround would involve holding the vote in committee anyway, thus sending Judge Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor with only Democratic votes. Republicans would then be in a position to raise a point of order. But with the Senate parliamentarian likely siding with Republicans, Democrats would need to change the Senate’s rules through a vote to overturn the ruling of the chair, which would require support from all 50 members of their caucus.

In 2020, when Republicans had control of the Senate and—significantly—a majority of the members on the judiciary panel, Democrats boycotted the committee vote for Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Republicans voted without them, and she was then narrowly confirmed by the full Senate.

But this year, with the committee evenly split, the odds are high that the committee would deadlock over advancing her nomination to the floor with a favorable recommendation. In that case, Majority Leader

Chuck Schumer

(D., N.Y.) would have to take an extra procedural step to discharge the nomination from the committee. The only time that a Supreme Court nominee was ever discharged from the Judiciary Committee was in 1853, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Write to Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com, Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com and Laura Kusisto at laura.kusisto@wsj.com