Senator Charles Grassley is citing greater federal government experience as to why the Senate should take a longer time in appointing President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson than when Senate Republicans appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 without any minority party support, a first since 1870.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D)’s goal is to confirm Jackson to the Supreme Court by April 8th, which will be 43 days from when President Biden nominated her to be the court’s first Black female member, following the announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer’s impending retirement. Justice Barrett was confirmed 27 days following President Donald Trump’s nomination and less than a month before the presidential election. Senator Grassley believes Jackson’s timeline should not be comparable to Barrett’s, as Jackson has served on the federal courts for a decade while Barrett only had three years as a judge before confirmation, “She was not a federal employee she did not have a lot of federal documents to go through whereas Judge Jackson has 500 cases at the district court level to go through. And I suppose I would give the Democrats some credit for saying this can be done a little bit faster because some of those cases, probably not all of them, were gone through when she went on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Jackson has most recently served on the D.C. Court of Appeals, and previously served the D.C. District Court, was a federal public defender, and assistant special counsel to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. A ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley congratulates Jackson on her nomination, and he hopes all other senators get the opportunity to meet her and ask many questions.