Susan Collins backs Ketanji Brown Jackson, giving SCOTUS nominee at least 1 GOP vote

Susan Collins (R-Maine) will vote to confirm nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, The New York Times reports Wednesday. She is the first Republican to publicly announce her support.

With Collins' support, Democrats can now boast "some degree of bipartisanship" around Jackson's historic nomination. The endorsement should also avoid Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote — just so long as all 50 Democratic senators move together, the Times notes.

"In recent years, senators on both sides of the aisle have gotten away from what I perceive to be the appropriate process for evaluating judicial nominees," Collins told the Times. "In my view, the role under the Constitution assigned to the Senate is to look at the credentials, experience and qualifications of the nominee. It is not to assess whether a nominee reflects the individual ideology of a senator or would vote exactly as an individual senator would want." If confirmed, Jackson will be the first Black woman elevated to the nation's highest court.

Collins told the Times she'd been reassured that Jackson would not be "bending the law to meet a personal preference." The centrist lawmaker met with the judge for the second time Tuesday afternoon.

Collins was also one of three Republicans to vote in June to confirm Jackson to her current seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. circuit. 

"There can be no question that she is qualified to be a Supreme Court justice," the senator said. Read more at The New York Times.