Prior to the U.S. Senate confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson as the newest U.S. Supreme Court Justice, one Iowa Senator voted against her.

Republican Senator Charles Grassley says he had fundamental issues with President Joe Biden’s then nominee to the Supreme Court. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio those issues include interpreting the U.S. Constitution according to how the authors intended for it to be used originally, interpreting laws of Congress and not allowing their own personal judgment to influence their decisions.

During Jackson’s confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley questioned her about his bill regarding criminal justice reform with the First Step Act. The legislation allows for retroactivity to resentence individuals.    

“So she interpreted retroactivity contrary to what we intended in the law because it’s a controversial thing how far you go back letting people being resentenced. She (Jackson) decided to take advantage of that and sentence a person to a much shorter term because she was using the First Step (of) retroactivity. That’s entirely wrong to what we meant by the legislation.”  

Despite Grassley’s objection, the Senate confirmed Jackson to the Supreme Court on April 7th with a 53-47 vote, including three Republicans that voted in favor with all of the Senate Democrats.