Supreme Court nominee’s ’empathy’ is flashpoint for Senate

By LISA MASCARO
AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — Empathy is not a quality many Republican senators want to see in the next Supreme Court justice. The ability to empathize with another’s plight has become a touchstone for GOP opposition to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. The first Black woman nominated to become a justice, Jackson brings a lifetime of experience never seen before. Democrats praise President Joe Biden’s choice as long overdue, but Republicans warn that Jackson carries too much empathy to the job. They say she showed too much compassion for criminal defendants she represented as a lawyer, and they say as a judge she sentences criminals — in particular, child pornography defendants — too leniently.