On Monday, Senate confirmation hearings begin for Judge Katanji Brown-Jackson,

President Biden's nominee to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

She is no stranger to Senate hearings. Over the course of her career, she's been confirmed

three times for the United States Sentencing Commission to the Federal District Court,

and just last year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Looking at this slate of nominees, I'm struck that they not only bring qualifications

that are extraordinary, but also demographic and professional diversity.

During last year's confirmation hearings for Judge Jackson and four other nominees,

Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin praised the ethnic and cultural diversity of the nominees,

all of whom were people of color. We needed on the federal bench.

He also singled out Judge Jackson, along with Candace Jackson Acumey, who was nominated for a seat

on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, for one additional qualification that caused

their nominations to stand out. Both Circuit Court nominees are former Federal Public Defenders,

and will as a result bring that perspective and experience that is far too often missing on the bench.

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant the right to an attorney,

but even for the most highly qualified judicial nominees, it seems that having public defender

on the resume is a stumbling block, and for some, even I do not enter sign on the road to the bench.

Here's an exchange between Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton and Judge Jackson during her

confirmation hearing for her current post on the Court of Appeals. Like Senator Cotton,

Judge Jackson received both her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. She'd also served

as a law clerk for just a Stephen Breyer, whom she's now been selected to replace, and she'd held

other significant positions in the law. Yet it was her work as a Federal Public Defender from 2005 to

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