Supreme Court nominee Jackson's judicial philosophy still mysterious after marathon hearings, Republicans say

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Senate Judiciary Committee holds Day 4 of the nomination hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

After two marathon days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republicans still say they don't know enough about Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's judicial philosophy. 

"I believe we still haven't heard your judicial philosophy. And I wish I'd made more progress with you on that," Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., told Jackson toward the end of Wednesday's hearing. 

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Jackson told Republican senators in the hearing that less than a judicial philosophy, she has a judicial methodology that helps her decide cases. That methodology, she said, starts with approaching the case from a neutral point of view. Then she ensures she's getting information and input from all sides, Jackson said, and applying the law with an eye on "the constraints of my judicial authority." 

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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"Senator, I do have a philosophy," Jackson told Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Wednesday. "The philosophy is my methodology."

Grassley wasn't satisfied with that answer. 

"No, no. It's kind of like, how can you not have a judicial philosophy?" he told Fox News Digital. "Like that’d be saying – how can I run for office [when] I don't have a political philosophy?"

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., left, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member, confer as Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson begins the final day of her confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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"Methodology versus philosophy, I think there's a lot of mixing of terms there and trying to use them interchangeably," Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital. "But in the end, it really comes down to what you perceive the role of a judge in our democracy to be." 

This lack of clarity didn't come from an apparent lack of trying. 

Sasse discussed issues of free speech among several other issues with Jackson. Grassley asked Jackson how she would weigh precedent in key cases Wednesday. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked about unenumerated rights, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked Jackson about the Dormant Commerce Clause. 

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2016 at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, outside Washington, March 3, 2016.  (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

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Democrats, however, dismissed Republicans' focus on judicial philosophy. 

"They're so stuck on judicial philosophy," Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, told Fox News Digital Wednesday. "She has a philosophy. It's how she approaches all her cases, with not bias not looking at the end results. That is really a very proper approach."

"You know what the judicial philosophy like originalism gets us? [Antonin] Scalia," Hirono continued. "He writes a big dissent on Obergefell saying there is nothing in the Constitution that provides for same-sex marriage. So what do we have now? We have Justice [Clarence] Thomas and [Samuel] Alito signaling they would like to revisit Obergefell." 

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks with Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, outside Hirono's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 8, 2022.  (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Hirono added: "If you don't think that the LGBTQ community – plus community – out there is really, really concerned, they're very concerned."

"She articulated a judicial philosophy," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. "Her philosophy is to adopt the careful methodology that she articulated."

"It's hard to know what he expects a judicial philosophy to be," Blumenthal added of Hawley. "I think he's sort of had this myth in mind that judges have a philosophy like they write it down in a notebook or whatever." 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., gives a briefing at the Ukrainian Presidential office after their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022.  (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

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Addressing judicial philosophy questions in Jackson's hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R-I., said, "I didn't know you needed to have one." 

Whitehouse said the oath Jackson will take and the Constitution itself should be more than enough of a philosophy. 

Jackson is done testifying before the Judiciary Committee, but the hearings are not over. A final day of her hearing will feature testimony from experts from the American Bar Association, as well as outside experts selected by both the minority and majority members of the committee. 

A screenshot of Sen. Lindsey Graham from "America's Newsroom" on November 10, 2021 (Fox News)

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It's generally expected that Jackson will be confirmed with universal Democratic support. But it's still an open question whether any Republicans will support Jackson, or how many. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital Wednesday to "stay tuned" about whether he will vote for Jackson. Graham was one of three GOP senators to vote for the nominee last year when she was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is one of the other senators who voted for Jackson last year. She told Fox News Digital Monday that she had concerns about how little Jackson's judicial philosophy was defined in a meeting between the pair earlier this month. 

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Collins told Fox News Digital Wednesday there'd been progress through two days of hearings, but she still had some questions. 

"It was more defined than in her meeting with me, but I still haven't viewed all of the hearings, and obviously there was lots of – there are a lot of issues," Collins said.