The path towards her historic confirmation is clear for Judge Ketanji Jackson Jackson, the first Black nominee to the Supreme Court.

The hearings for Jackson, 51 years old and a former federal judge of the nine-year term, begin Monday. Jackson is scheduled to give an opening speech late in the afternoon, and will then take questions from members of both the Democrats (11 Republicans) over the course of two days.

Last year she was present before the same committee after President Joe Biden appointed her to fill a vacancy on Washington’s Federal Appeals Court, which is just down from the Supreme Court.

She will testify before the Senate as well as most Americans. Her testimony is their best yet look at the Harvard-trained, federally licensed lawyer. This makes her the first nominee to have significant criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshal, who was the first Black American elected to the country’s highest court.

Jackson was unanimously given the highest possible rating by American Bar Association on Friday. This American Bar Association evaluates nominees for judicial office.

Janette McCarthy Wallace is the general counsel for the NAACP. She said that she was excited to see Black women on the brink of high-ranking court seats.

“Representation matters,” Wallace said. Diversity is crucial to the bench. This should be reflective of the country’s rich cultural diversity.

Given Jackson’s confirmation, it’s unclear how aggressively Republicans are going to pursue Jackson.

Some Republicans still signaled that they might use Jackson’s nominating to portray Democrats as soft-on crime. That is an emerging GOP theme during the GOP’s midterm campaign. Biden appointed several ex-public defenders to life-tenured judicial positions. Jackson was also a U.S. Sentencing Commission was an independent federal agency that Congress created to lessen disparities in Federal Prison sentences.

Senator Josh Hawley (Republican from Missouri) highlighted one possible line of attack. Hawley posted a tweet last week stating that he had noticed an alarming pattern in Judge Jackson’s treatment for sex offenders. This was echoed by the Republican National Committee. Hawley never raised the matter when Jackson was questioned last year, before voting against Jackson’s appeals court confirmation.

The White House responded strongly to the criticism calling it “toxic and poorly presented misinformation.” Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University law professor and sentencing expert, posted on his blog that Jackson has a record which shows she doubts the recommendations for the maximum prison term in child pornography cases. He also noted that prosecutors were involved in most of Jackson’s cases as well as district judges across the country.

Hawley is among several Republicans on committees, alongside Sens. Ted Cruz from Texas and Tom Cotton, Arkansas are both potential presidential candidates in 2024. Their aspirations could collide with others Republicans, who may not want to pursue a scorched earth approach to Jackson’s nomination.

Biden nominated Jackson to be his Supreme Court nominee in February. This fulfilled a campaign promise to nominate Black women to the court for the first-ever time in American history. Jackson would replace Justice Stephen Breyer who retired in July after serving 28 years.

Jackson worked for Breyer as a high-court law clerk in her early legal career.

Despite the fact that Breyer’s seat won’t officially open until summer, Democrats control the Senate with the narrowest margin of victory. The tiebreaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harriman has made it impossible for them to have votes in the 50-50 Senate they control.

They aren’t moving nearly as quickly as Republicans when they placed Amy Coney Barrett on court just a few days after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and before the 2020 election.

Barrett was the third President Donald Trump’s top court picks. She established the conservative court majority after she replaced the liberal Ginsburg.

Jackson received Senate confirmation last year by a vote of 53 to 44. Three Republicans supported her. We don’t know how many Republicans could vote for Jackson this time.

Jackson has been married to Patrick Johnson (a Washington surgeon). The couple has two children, one of whom is in college while the other is in high school. By marriage, she is related to Paul Ryan, R.Wis. who was also Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2012. Ryan supports Jackson’s nomination.

Jackson talked about the way her children keep her connected to reality even while she’s been a judge for over ten years. Jackson told the audience that she was a judge in Athens in 2017 and “people listen” (at least in court).

Jackson explained that Jackson was not allowed to tell Jackson what she knew at home. Jackson added, “I make it very clear I don’t know anything. I shouldn’t even give them orders. That is, if any of them talk to me.”