The retirement announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer set off a mad scramble in Washington, D.C.
But in just a few short weeks, the selection process for President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee has narrowed considerably.
Yahoo! News reported on Wednesday that a clear front-runner has emerged: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Jackson has known Breyer for decades. A graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law school, she was a law clerk to Breyer from 1999 to 2000.
She is comfortable enough with her former boss to have a little fun at his expense. In 2017, after Breyer accidentally brought his cellphone to court and it rang, Jackson introduced him at an event and pretended to get a call mid-introduction from Breyer’s colleague,
After clerking for Breyer, Jackson was a lawyer in private practice, worked as a public defender, and served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
President Barack Obama nominated her to be a federal trial court judge in the District of Columbia in 2013. Biden recently elevated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she has served since June 2021.
Jackson made headlines this summer as part of the three-judge panel that ruled against former President Donald Trump’s effort to keep private documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Jackson, 51, also has the advantage of a connection to establishment Republicans. She is related by marriage to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Jackson’s husband, the surgeon Dr. Patrick Jackson, is the twin brother of Ryan’s brother-in-law. The judge and her husband have two daughters.
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The Associated Press contributed to this article