Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) questioned Ketanji Brown Jackson on Wednesday during her Senate confirmation hearing if a plaintiff could alter his or her gender or race and continue to hold legal standing during a lawsuit involving race or gender.
“Yesterday, under questioning from Senator Blackburn you told her that you cannot define what a woman is — that you are not a biologist, which I think, you are the only Supreme Court nominee in history who has been unable to answer the question — what is a woman.” Cruz prefaced.
“Under the modern, leftist sensibilities, if I decide right now that I am a woman, then, apparently, I am a woman, does that mean I would have article three standing to challenge a gender-based restriction?” Cruz asked.
Jackson refused to answer the question. “Those kinds of issues are working their way through the courts, and I am not able to comment on them,” she claimed.
Cruz continued down his line of questioning and posed the question a different way.
“If I can change my gender and be a woman and an hour later I decide I am not a woman anymore, I guess I would lose article three standing,” Cruz stated. “Does that same principle apply to other protected characteristics?” Cruz asked. “For example, I’m a Hispanic man. Could I decide I was an Asian man? Do I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard’s discrimination because I made that decision?” Cruz asked in reference to a case before the Supreme Court.
Jackson refused to answer again. “You are asking me about hypotheticals,” she complained before giving a broad answer that did not answer the question.
“I would assess standing the way I assess other legal issues which is to listen to the arguments made by the parties, consider the relevant precedents and constitutional principles involved and make a determination,” she said.
Cruz’s question comes as Jackson’s confirmation hearings have lasted three days. Only 47 percent of voters believe Jackson should be confirmed, a Tuesday Politico/Morning Consult poll revealed.
Jackson’s approval number is also much worse than Justice Samuel Alito’s (50-25 percent), Justice John Roberts’s (59-22), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s (53-14), and Justice Clarence Thomas’s (52-17).