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      January 6 ‘was a coup organized by the president’, says Jamie Raskin

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      January 6 ‘was a coup organized by the president’, says Jamie RaskinMember of House Capitol attack panel says hearings will focus on Trump’s bid to cling to power Donald Trump attempted a coup on 6 January 2021 as he tried to salvage his doomed presidency, and that will be a central focus of forthcoming public hearings of the special House panel investigating events surrounding the insurrection at the US Capitol, the congressman Jamie Raskin has said.Raskin is a prominent Democrat on the committee and also led the House efforts when Trump was impeached for a historic second time, in 2021, accused of inciting the storming of the US Capitol by his extremist supporters who were trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.“This was a coup organized by the president against the vice-president and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Raskin said in an interview with the Guardian, Reuters news agency and the Climate One radio program.Public hearings by the bipartisan special committee investigating January 6 and related actions by Trump and his White House team and other allies, chaired by the Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, are expected next month.“We’re going to tell the whole story of everything that happened. There was a violent insurrection and an attempted coup and we were saved by Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with that plan,” said Raskin.He was referring to Trump’s vice-president, who went ahead in his role of overseeing the certification of Biden’s win, which was delayed until the early hours of the following day after Pence and other lawmakers, staff and journalists ended up running for their lives as rioters stormed the building, shortly after Trump held a rally near the White House exhorting his supporters to “fight like hell”.The November 2020 presidential election was deemed by experts at the local, state and federal level to have been “the most secure” in American history, with Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr also concluding that December that the result was accurate.Raskin told the Guardian, however, that the panel’s hearings would demonstrate to the American public the actions Trump, and the cohort who went along with his efforts, took to overturn the election result.If the attack on the Capitol had succeeded in preventing the certification of Biden as the incoming president, Raskin asserted that “Trump was prepared to seize the presidency and likely to invoke the insurrection act and declare martial law”.The insurrection resulted in death and injury to law enforcement and Raskin said that in addition to Pence’s stance against Trump’s demands, the democratic process that day was also saved by “the valor and the bravery of our officers who stood strong against the attempt to just overrun the whole process”.After a broad criminal investigation, about 800 people have been charged with crimes committed in relation to the Capitol attack.Raskin said: “We don’t have a lot of experience with coups in our own country and we think of a coup as something that takes place against a president.”However, January 6 was not what is typically regarded as a coup because it did not involve the military or another faction in society attacking the head of the government.Jamie Raskin on the climate crisis: ‘We’ve got to save democracy in order to save our species’Read more“It’s what the political scientists call a self-coup … It’s a president fearful of defeat, overthrowing the constitutional process,” Raskin said.The Maryland congressman is also looking at the bigger, interrelated picture of American democracy and the climate crisis.“We’ve got to save the democracy in order to save the climate and save our species,” he told the Guardian, Reuters and Climate One in the interview, as part of the Covering Climate Now media collaboration.Extremist groups were part of the insurrection and have been an outsize, renewed influence on political and social division in the US in recent years.Raskin said: “We’re never going to be able to successfully deal with climate change if we’re spending all our time fighting the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and Ku Klux Klan, and the Aryan nations and all of Steve Bannon’s alt-right nonsense.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge says

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      Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge saysFederal judge cites ‘whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests’ in allowing 14th-amendment challenge to far-right Republican An attempt to bar the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress over her support for the January 6 attack can proceed, a federal judge said.‘Election integrity summits’ aim to fire up Trump activists over big lieRead moreCiting “a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import”, Amy Totenberg of the northern district of Georgia sent the case on to a state hearing on Friday.A coalition of liberal groups is behind the challenge, citing the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war.The amendment says: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Supporters of Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, seeking to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden. A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the riot. About 800 people have been charged, some with seditious conspiracy.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection. Acquitted, he is free to run again.Organisers of events in Washington on January 6 have tied Greene to their efforts. Greene has denied such links and said she does not encourage violence.In October, however, she told a radio show: “January 6 was just a riot at the Capitol and if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack, Greene was one of 147 Republicans in Congress who objected to results in battleground states, an effort inspired by Trump’s lies about electoral fraud.An effort to use the 14th amendment against Madison Cawthorn, an extremist from North Carolina, was unsuccessful, after a judge ruled an 1872 civil war amnesty law was not merely retroactive.In her ruling on Greene’s attempt to dismiss her challenge, on Monday, Totenberg said: “This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import. Upon a thorough analysis of each of the claims asserted in this case, the court concludes that [Greene] has not carried her burden of persuasion.”Even if a state judge rules against Greene, she could challenge the ruling. The Georgia primary is on 25 May, cutting time short. Greene seems likely to win re-election.Writing for the Guardian this month, the Georgetown University professor Thomas Zimmer said: “Greene’s position within the Republican party seems secure … in fact, Greene is the poster child of a rising group of rightwing radicals … [not] shy about their intention to purge whatever vestiges of ‘moderate’ conservatism might still exist within the Republican party.”Extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the future of the Republican party | Thomas ZimmerRead moreOne of the groups behind the challenge to Greene is Free Speech for the People. In January, the group’s legal director, Ron Fein, told the Guardian the group aimed to set “a line that says that just as the framers of the 14th amendment wrote and intended, you can’t take an oath to support the constitution and then facilitate an insurrection against the United States while expecting to pursue public office”.On Monday, Fein said: “We look forward to asking Representative Greene about her involvement [in January 6] under oath.”Mike Rasbury, an activist with the Bernie Sanders-affiliated Our Revolution group and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Greene, said he was “elated” by Totenberg’s ruling.Greene, Rasbury said, “took an oath of office to protect democracy from all enemies foreign and domestic, just as I did when I became a helicopter pilot for the US army in Vietnam. However, she has flippantly ignored this oath and, based on her role in the January 6 insurrection, is disqualified … from holding any future public office”.TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS Capitol attackUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS constitution and civil libertiesnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Birthing while Black’ is a national crisis for the US. Here’s what Black lawmakers want to do about it

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      ‘Birthing while Black’ is a national crisis for the US. Here’s what Black lawmakers want to do about it For Black women in Congress, maternal mortality hits close to home. The Black Maternal Health Caucus seeks changeWhen Alma Adams’s daughter complained of abdominal pain during a difficult pregnancy, her doctor overlooked her cries for help. The North Carolina congresswoman’s daughter had to undergo a last-minute caesarean section. She and her baby daughter, now 16, survived. “It could have gone another way. I could have been a mother who was grieving her daughter and granddaughter,” Adams told the Guardian, following a week in which the White House highlighted the crisis of pregnancy-related deaths among Black women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black women die at three times the rate of white women.For Adams and other Black women in Congress, who formed the Black Maternal Health Caucus, the issue hits close to home. Last week, during Black Maternal Health Week, they talked about how their experiences and the work of advocates had propelled legislation, known as the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, to fight a healthcare crisis that disproportionately affects Black women regardless of income.The US has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries. Since 2000, the maternal mortality rate has risen nearly 60%, making it worse now than it was decades earlier. More than half of these deaths are preventable.Health experts point to the fact that other industrialized countries have significantly different approaches to motherhood than the US, including paid maternity leave, access to comprehensive postpartum care and enough maternity care providers, especially midwives, to meet the needs of their populations. Policy advocates add that the crisis among Black women is a symptom of racism in the nation’s healthcare system – from who has access to care to attitudes toward Black people and their bodies.“It doesn’t matter what your socioeconomic status is. It doesn’t matter how much insurance you have, or how much education you have,” Adams said, adding that her daughter, Jeanelle Lindsay, had a master’s degree and health insurance. “Those things don’t matter. This could happen to anyone. Look at women like Beyoncé and Serena Williams, who had these near misses because the doctors really didn’t pay the kind of attention that they should have.”Black women in the House used the week of recognition to bring attention to several bills that are part of a sweeping Momnibus package to address the dangers of birthing while Black. Their efforts to elevate the longtime work of organizations such as the Black Mamas Matter Alliance showed the power of representation in putting issues affecting Black women on the congressional agenda, said Lauren Underwood, an Illinois congresswoman and registered nurse.“It takes women in these spaces to call out problems, set an agenda, and bring together a coalition of legislators, advocates, and community members to work toward comprehensive, evidence-based solutions that will save moms’ lives,” Underwood said in an email.In January 2019, after Underwood received her committee assignments, Adams met with her to see if she wanted to launch a caucus focused on Black maternal health. One of Underwood’s friends, an epidemiologist at the CDC, had died three weeks after she gave birth. “I was still grappling with her death when I came to Congress,” Underwood said.Three months later, they launched the caucus with 53 founding members, including Ayanna Pressley, Lucy McBath and Barbara Lee. Today, it has 115 members from both parties.After consulting with maternal health advocacy groups, Underwood and Adams introduced the Momnibus Act in March 2020, nine bills aimed at combating maternal health disparities through investment in community-based programs and other efforts to rectify social determinants of health – the conditions in which people live, work and grow up – that affect who lives and who dies in childbirth.Their legislative pursuit was timely, coming before a pandemic that would bring racial health disparities to the public’s attention. Between 2019 and 2020, the mortality rate for Black and Latina women and birthing people rose during the first year of the pandemic.Kamala Harris, the nation’s first Black and South Asian female vice-president, amplified the issue last week during a speech at the Century Foundation, a progressive thinktank based in Washington DC. Harris called for “building a future in which being Black and pregnant is a time filled with joy and hope rather than fear”.As a US senator from California, Harris was lead sponsor for the Senate version of the Momnibus Act in 2020, which stalled in committee. Underwood and Adams, along with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, reintroduced the Momnibus bill in February 2021.Most of the proposals in the package are included in the Build Back Better Act, a social spending bill that is stuck in gridlock.“Were it not for Black women in the Congressional Black Caucus, there would not be a Black Maternal Health Caucus,” said the Massachusetts representative Ayanna Pressley. “When we say that we are the voice of Congress, we mean that.”Pressley lost her paternal grandmother, whom she never knew, when she died giving birth to Pressley’s uncle in the 1950s. “Decades later, the Black maternal mortality crisis continues to rob us of our loved ones and to destabilize families,” she said during the Century Foundation event.What explains the disparities in outcomes between Black and white mothers boils down to what Pressley called “policy violence”. It’s not just the discrimination that Black women and birthing people experience, but also the lack of access to quality healthcare and medical coverage.“These are the result of centuries of laws in a systematic, systematically racist health care system that too often discounts our pay, ignores our voices, disregards our lives,” Pressley said. “Birthing while Black should not be a death sentence.”In November 2021, Joe Biden signed into law one of the bills in the Momnibus package that invests $15m in maternity care for veterans. But other legislative efforts remain stalled in Congress. Eight bills that were part of the original Momnibus package are part of the Build Back Better Act, according to a tracker by The Century Foundation. They include awarding grants to community organizations to help pregnant people find affordable housing, documenting transportation barriers for pregnant and postpartum people, expanding food stamp eligibility and permanently expanding Medicaid coverage for mothers in every state for a year after childbirth.And on Friday, Booker and seven other lawmakers introduced Mamas First Act, which would expand Medicaid to cover services from doulas and midwives.“We’ve made historic progress, from the enactment of the first bill in my Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act to the recent cabinet meeting Vice-President Harris led, the first-ever White House cabinet meeting convened to address maternal health disparities as a national priority,” Underwood said.Adams pointed to another piece of the legislation that feels very close to home: the Kira Johnson Act, named after a 39-year-old Black mother who, after complaining of abdominal pain, died in 2016 from a hemorrhage following a routine caesarean section. The bill would direct the health and human services department to send grants to community groups focused on improving the maternal health outcomes for Black, Latino and other marginalized communities and for training to reduce racial bias and discrimination among healthcare providers.The connection between Johnson’s and her daughter’s situations resonated with Adams. The pain they experienced was dismissed – a familiar form of racial bias that the Momnibus package attempts to address.“Either you have a mother, you are a mother, or you know women who are moms,” Adams said. “When we raise the tide for Black women, who are among the most marginalized and the most vulnerable, we ultimately raise the tide for all women.”TopicsUS CongressParents and parentingFamilyKamala HarrisAyanna PressleyHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatefeaturesReuse this content More

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      McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress

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      McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress Senate minority leader projects ‘pretty good beating’ for Biden administration in November midterms The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Sunday Republicans will force Joe Biden to govern as a “moderate” if the GOP retakes Congress in November.Liz Cheney disputes report January 6 panel split over Trump criminal referralRead moreSpeaking to Fox News Sunday, McConnell attacked Biden on subjects including reported crime increases in large US cities, the decision to extend a moratorium on repaying student loan debts, and the administration’s attempt to lift a Trump policy that allowed border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the southern border, ostensibly to prevent the spread of coronavirus.“This administration just can’t seem to get their act together,” McConnell said. “I think they’re headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election.”If that beating were to materialize, giving Republicans control of the Senate and House, McConnell said his party would try to confine Biden to the center of an increasingly polarized political spectrum.“Let me put it this way – Biden ran as a moderate,” McConnell said. “If I’m the majority leader in the Senate, and [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House, we’ll make sure Joe Biden is a moderate.”Without delving into specifics, McConnell outlined a broad set of policy priorities, including reducing crime, overhauling education, pursuing cheaper gasoline prices and investing in defense following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.McConnell said Biden’s low poll numbers reflected dissatisfaction with his administration’s response to all those problems.“I like the president personally,” McConnell said. “It’s clear to me personality is not what is driving his unpopularity.”McConnell did not mention – and was not asked about – whether he would seek to block any further Biden nominations to the supreme court, which for now has a 6-3 conservative majority.In a recent interview with Axios, McConnell would not commit to hearings for any potential nominees if he led the Senate at any point before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans’ next opportunity to retake the White House. ‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nominationRead moreLast year, he said the GOP would block a Biden supreme court nominee if it controlled the Senate in 2024, an election year. McConnell blocked Barack Obama’s final nominee, Merrick Garland, from even receiving a hearing in 2016, citing that year’s presidential election. In 2020, he oversaw the confirmation of Donald Trump’s third nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, shortly before polling day.McConnell’s comments on Sunday echoed some of the remarks he made in the interview with Axios, when he predicted that Biden would “finally be the moderate he campaigned as” if the Democrats lost their congressional majority in November.The Democrats hold a 12-seat advantage in the House and generally hold a single-vote edge in the 50-50 Senate, where vice-president Kamala Harris can serve as tiebreaker.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS CongressUS SenateUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      ‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nomination

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      ‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nominationFormer president enthuses about TV doctor in statement and at rally but many on far right doubt conservative credentials Donald Trump has endorsed Dr Mehmet Oz for the Republican nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania, an expression of support for a fellow TV star which could test the former president’s grip on his party.Senator urges Democrats to ‘scream from the rooftops’ against RepublicansRead moreBeing on TV was “like a poll, that means people like you,” the former president and Celebrity Apprentice star said of Oz, a heart surgeon turned daytime host.Many on the pro-Trump hard right of the Republican party, however, question if Oz is a true conservative.In a statement before a rally in Selma, North Carolina on Saturday night, Trump said: “This is all about winning elections in order to stop the radical left maniacs from destroying our country.“The great commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a tremendous opportunity to Save America by electing the brilliant and well-known Dr Mehmet Oz for the United States Senate.”At his rally, Trump called Oz a “great guy, good man … Harvard-educated, tremendous, tremendous career and they liked him for a long time. That’s like a poll. You know, when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll, that means people like you.”Trump previously endorsed Sean Parnell, who withdrew after being accused by his wife of abusive behaviour, which he denied. David McCormick, a hedge fund executive, also sought Trump’s backing.The Senate is split 50-50, controlled by the vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Control will be at stake in November. Republicans have indicated they could use the Senate to deny Joe Biden another supreme court pick.The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sought to portray Trump’s endorsement of Oz as divisive.“The Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania was already nasty, expensive and brutal,” said a spokesperson, Patrick Burgwinkle. “Now Trump’s endorsement will only intensify this intra-party fight, just like it has in GOP Senate primaries across the country – leaving their ultimate nominee badly damaged and out of step with the voters who will decide the general election.”Oz has been accused of being out of step with Pennsylvania voters not least because he entered the race after living two decades in New Jersey. His entry to politics also brought renewed attention on his TV career, which began on Oprah Winfrey’s show.In 2014, Oz told senators some products he promoted, including a “miracle” green coffee bean extract, lacked “scientific muster”. The following year, a group of prominent doctors accused Oz of displaying “an egregious lack of integrity” and promoting “quack treatments”.Politically speaking, prominent pro-Trump figures have said Oz is not a conservative.The former White House adviser Steve Bannon said: “How does Dr Oz, probably the most anti-Maga guy, and you got Fox non-stop pimping this guy out and Newsmax pimping this guy out, and that’s what it is – how does Dr Oz, from New Jersey, [Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s buddy, floating in from Jersey, how does he become a factor in a Senate race in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania?”The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has clashed with Trump, who has sought to oust him. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the Kentucky senator was asked about Trump’s Oz endorsement.“We’ve got a good choice of candidates and I think we’ve been a good position to win that race regardless of who the nominee is,” McConnell said. “I guess we’ll find in the next few weeks how much this endorsement made a difference”.In his statement, Trump said Oz was especially popular with women because of his work in daytime TV and could do well in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Democratic-leaning cities. The former president also mentioned his own controversial appearance on Oz’s show in the 2016 campaign, when Trump showed partial results of a physical.White House tells Dr Oz and Herschel Walker to resign from fitness councilRead moreTrump said: “He even said that I was in extraordinary health, which made me like him even more (although he also said I should lose a couple of pounds!)”Trump, who appointed Oz to a White House advisory role, also presented him as anti-abortion, “very strong on crime, the border, election fraud, our great military and our vets, tax cuts” and gun rights.Oz said: “President Trump wisely endorsed me because I’m a conservative who will stand up to Joe Biden and the woke left.”Polling shows Oz and McCormick evenly matched. The winner is likely to face the Democrat John Fetterman, currently lieutenant governor, in the November election.Speaking to Politico, a “person close to Trump … noted a phrase that Trump has often repeated when talking about Oz: ‘He’s been on TV in people’s bedrooms and living rooms for years.’”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Donald TrumpRepublicansPennsylvaniaUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Senator urges Democrats to ‘scream from the rooftops’ against Republicans

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      Senator urges Democrats to ‘scream from the rooftops’ against RepublicansBrian Schatz from Hawaii, who denounced Josh Hawley on the Senate floor over Ukraine, tells own side to make more noise Democrats need to make more noise when taking on Republicans, a US senator said, after angry remarks on the Senate floor in which he denounced the Missouri senator Josh Hawley for delaying Pentagon appointments and voting against aid to Ukraine, among other flashpoints.‘Smoking rifle’: Trump Jr texted Meadows strategies to overturn election – reportRead more“Democrats need to make more noise,” Brian Schatz, from Hawaii, told the Washington Post. “We have to scream from the rooftops, because this is a battle for the free world now.”Schatz made waves with his Senate remarks on Thursday. His immediate subject was Hawley’s decision to place holds on Biden nominees including one for a senior Pentagon position.“He is damaging the Department of Defense,” Schatz said. “We have senior DoD leaders, we have the armed services committee coming to us and saying, ‘I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know how to satisfy him, but he is blocking the staffing of the senior leadership at the Department of Defense’”.Referring to a famous picture of Hawley at the Capitol on the day of the 6 January 2021 attack, which the senator has used for fundraising efforts, Schatz said: “This comes from a guy who raised his fist in solidarity with the insurrectionists”.Then he returned to his theme.“This comes from a guy who before the Russian invasion suggested that maybe it would be wise for [Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy] to make a few concessions about Ukraine and their willingness to join Nato.“This comes from a guy who just about a month ago voted against Ukraine aid. He’s [now] saying it’s going too slow. He voted no. He voted no on Ukraine aid. And now he has the gall to say it’s going too slow.”Hawley has said he will lift his holds if the secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, resigns over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.Calling that “the final insult”, Schatz said: “That’s not a serious request. People used to come to me during the Trump administration all the time. ‘Do you think Trump should resign? Do you think [former secretary of state Rex] Tillerson should resign?’ That’s stupid.“Of course I think all the people I disagree with should quit their jobs and be replaced with people I love. Of course I think they should all resign. That’s not how this world works. That is not a reasonable request from a United States senator, that until the secretary of defense quits his job, I’m going to block all of his nominees. That’s preposterous.”In February, Hawley tied his holds – which can be overcome, if slowly, via Senate procedure – to Biden’s alleged failure to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine.“If you think that Vladimir Putin and the other dictators around this world weren’t emboldened by this administration’s weakness,” he said, “by their utter failure in Afghanistan, then you’ve got another thing coming.”In his remarks, Schatz returned to Ukraine, pointing out that Hawley was among Republicans who in Trump’s first impeachment voted to acquit him for withholding military aid to Kyiv in an attempt to extract political dirt on the Bidens.“So spare me the new solidarity with the Ukrainians and with the free world because this man’s record is exactly the opposite,” Schatz said.The senator was speaking in a midterm elections year, seven months out from polling day and with Republicans favoured to retake the House and maybe the Senate. Speaking to the Post, he said he wanted voters to notice his attack on Hawley.“The central selling proposition for a lot of moderate voters was that they could put Biden in place and then stop worrying about politics,” Schatz said, adding that despite this, noise from “the Maga movement continues to grow”.“Voters who pay a normal amount of attention to our politics take their cues from elected officials as to how outrageous something is,” Schatz said.“If we don’t seem particularly perturbed”, he added, situations like Hawley’s obstruction may come to seem like “no big deal”.TopicsDemocratsRepublicansUS CongressUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘It means the world to us’: Black lawmakers’ euphoria greets Jackson confirmation

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      ‘It means the world to us’: Black lawmakers’ euphoria greets Jackson confirmationCongressional Black Caucus hails ‘historic pick’ of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman in the court’s history The confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US supreme court marked a moment in American history many in public life waited over decades for – and one some thought they would never see happen.When the day arrived, it inspired an outbreak of euphoria for many Black Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.Republicans’ ugly attacks on Ketanji Brown Jackson show lurch to far rightRead more“I’m glad I’m alive,” said a joyful Yvette Clarke, a New York congresswoman.Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) filed on to Capitol Hill, through corridors lined with portraits, busts and statues of the white men who have dominated Congress since its inception.Clarke’s district was once represented by the first Black woman ever elected to the Congress, the late Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, who was first elected in 1969.“I’m glad I’m around to witness this,” Clarke told the Guardian. “I wasn’t around for Thurgood Marshall,” she said, referring to the lawyer and civil rights activist who became the first African American on the supreme court in 1967, and who served until 1991.Clarke entered Congress in 2007. “This is so historic on so many different levels,” she said.After the 53-47 Senate vote that included the support of three Republicans, Jackson will take her place as an associate justice on the nine-member court. She will be the 121st justice to join America’s highest judicial body, established in 1790.In October 1967, Marshall became a supreme court justice. In September 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to serve on the court. In August 2009, Sonia Sotomayor became the court’s first Hispanic member.And in April 2022, Jackson became the first Black woman confirmed to the bench in its 232-year existence.“I’m very proud that my very first vote to confirm a supreme court nominee will be to confirm this historic pick,” Raphael Warnock, who won his own milestone race in January last year to become Georgia’s first Black US senator, told the Guardian as he headed to the Senate chamber to vote for Jackson.“I had the opportunity to meet her, and she brings talent and integrity and as we saw during those scorched-earth hearings, a great deal of grace and civility,” he added, nodding to Jackson’s confirmation sessions before the Senate judiciary committee last month where she endured vicious attacks from several Republicans.The chair of the CBC, Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, swept on to Capitol Hill on Thursday and witnessed Jackson’s triumph.“It means the world to us, because when you think about voting rights, when you think about our children, when you think about all of our fundamental issues – it starts at the supreme court,” Beatty said.“For the first time, a Black woman sitting there. It gives us balance. Not only because she’s Black, but because of her judicial temperance, and because of her reverence for the rule of law. But also when you look at her background and culture: she attended public [publicly funded] schools,” Beatty continued.Members of the caucus gathering in an ornate room in the Capitol near the House floor for a group photo after Jackson was confirmed included those holding black T-shirts saying “Black Women are Supreme”.Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia said: “Despite all of the dog-whistling and appealing to racist instincts among the Republican base, there are three Republican senators who have been able to work their way through all of the QAnon-conspiracy nonsense being spewed by Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz, and folks trying to outdo themselves with outrageousness directed toward [Jackson].”Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah broke with their fellows who went along with Republican leadership, and those who attacked Jackson outright, and voted for Joe Biden’s nominee.“I’m glad we had three Republican senators who saw through that, and recognized how eminently qualified Ketanji Brown Jackson is, and the fact that she will bring more experience to the bench than just about every one of the justices on the supreme court – including the chief justice [John Roberts],” Johnson added.Jackson has a connection to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson of Florida, who represents parts of Miami, and has known the judge’s parents for decades.“Her father was the first Black school board attorney when I was serving on the school board. Her mother was a principal when I was a principal … so [for] the Black people in Miami, you can imagine what’s happening now as we watch this,” she told the Guardian.“Young kids know her name, and they’re talking about her in schools. They’re talking about her in barbershops,” she said. “This was a young lady who grew up with people telling her you can be anything you want to be.”On Thursday afternoon, a beaming Kamala Harris also became emotional as, in her other role as president of the Senate, she announced that Jackson was officially confirmed.The first female and first Black US vice-president marked another historic moment that, as Harris said after she won the 2020 election with Biden, may be the first but “won’t be the last”.TopicsUS politicsRaceKetanji Brown JacksonUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More