In the week following Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearings, Heritage Action is doing its best to ensure that she is not confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court by a 50-50 Senate. The organization has thus released a series of ads targeting Democrats, including Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Townhall received an exclusive first look at the ads, as well as a press release sent out by Heritage Action.
The ads open with the exchange last Tuesday between Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Judge Jackson, when the nominee could not provide a definition for the word "woman," despite how much the Biden administration has touted the historic nature of how she would be the first Black woman on the Court.
"President Biden has told Senator Kelly he must vote to put this woke judge on the Supreme Court," a narrator says for the ad in Arizona. "The same judge who also apologized to a child pornography criminal for sentencing him," the narrator continues, as the ad then features exchanges between Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Judge Jackson about her sentencing of sex offenders who preyed on children, also on Tuesday, as well as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the judge, on Wednesday. "Will Mark Kelly stand up to Biden? Or just do as he’s told," the ad concludes.
Heritage Action Executive Director Jessica Anderson weighed in as well, also discussing the troubling records.
"During confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, conservative senators exposed her history of radical decisions, including apologies to child predators and lenient sentencing for sex offenders," she said in a statement. "They showed that she will use the bench to advance a Left-wing, soft-on-crime agenda instead of to uphold the Constitution. Heritage Action is putting her dangerous record front-and-center before voters so they can see for themselves just how radical of a jurist she is."
The organization is following the same line of concerns that Sens. Hawley and Graham have stuck to from the start, even in the face of criticism from Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media. As I've highlighted, The Washington Post has been a particularly egregious example.
Sens. Kelly, Warnock, Hassan, and Cortez Masto are all up for re-election this November and are considered particularly vulnerable. Sen. Manchin is not up for re-election until 2024, though he is considered a moderate and had caused some concern last week when he indicated he would support Judge Jackson's nomination.
Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada are all considered "toss-up" races, while Hassan has a slight edge in New Hampshire's race, according to prognosticators. These races have been listed in pieces by various outlets highlighting what races to watch come November, where Republican wins there could flip control of the U.S. Senate.
Judge Jackson is expected to receive a committee vote next Monday, on April 4. She is continuing to meet with senators in the meantime.