Highlights from Senate vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina brought up Judge J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina and his preferred nominee for the Supreme Court seat, asking Jackson about progressive groups supporting her nomination over that of Childs.

His voiced tinged with anger, Graham said, "In your nomination, did you notice people from the left were pretty much cheering you on?"

"A lot of people were cheering me on," Jackson replied.

Graham went on to allege there was a concerted effort to disqualify Childs because progressive groups painted her as a "union-busting unreliable Republican in disguise," but Jackson reminded him that she is still a sitting judge and said she has been focused on her cases.

"Would it bother you if that happened?" Graham continued to press.

Jackson, who received Graham's vote last year for the appellate court, answered that it would be "troublesome" if groups were doing anything to interfere with the nomination, but maintained that she wasn't aware of the criticism.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham grilled Judge Jackson on her faith, appearing to try to make a point about how Democrats scrutinized Amy Coney Barrett's Catholic beliefs and membership in People of Praise in her confirmation hearings.

"What faith are you, by the way?" Graham asked first. "Could you fairly judge a Catholic?"

"How important is your faith to you?" he continued. "On a scale of one to 10, how faithful would you say you are in terms of religion?"

Fielding the barrage of questions one by one, Jackson said she is a nondenominational Protestant Christian and that her faith is very important to her but declined to go in-depth on her faith practices. She also reminded that there's no religious test under the Constitution.

"I am reluctant to talk about my faith in this way," she said. "I want to be mindful of the need for the public to have confidence in my ability to separate out my personal views."

Graham went on to say he was not attacking her but trying to make a point about how "our people" -- conservative judicial appointees -- have been treated in the past.

"This stuff needs to stop. Our people deserve better respect. I hope when this is over, people will say you were well-treated even if we don't agree with you," he said.

-ABC News' Devin Dwyer

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., gave Judge Jackson a chance to defend herself against GOP attacks that she's "soft on crime or even anti-law enforcement because you accepted your duties as a public defender," he said.

Jackson said criminal defense lawyers perform a service but stressed that people must be held accountable for a society to function.

"As someone who has had family members on patrol and in the line of fire, I care deeply about public safety I know what it is like to have loved ones who go off to protect and to serve and the fear of not knowing whether or not they'll come home again because of crime in the community," she said, noting her brother and two uncles' careers in law enforcement.

"The need for law enforcement, those are not abstract comments or political slogans to me. As a lawyer and citizen, I care deeply about our Constitution and the rights that make us free," she said.

Leahy also used his time to bring up former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's praise of Jackson. Jackson's brother-in-law is married to Ryan's sister-in-law.

"That's powerful praise. And I think it goes to a fundamental point -- one doesn't have to have the same political beliefs or ideology as a judicial nominee to recognize their integrity or intellect," Leahy said.

As she reintroduces herself to the American public as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ranking Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Jackson what aspect of her record as a judge does she believe has been the most important for the good of the country.

"Well, I think that all of my record is important to some degree because I think it clearly demonstrates that I'm an independent jurist, that I am ruling in every case consistent with the methodologies that I've described, that I'm impartial," Jackson said.

"I don't think anyone could look at my record and say that it is pointing in one direction or another or that it is supporting one viewpoint or another. I am doing the work and have done the work for the past 10 years that judges do to rule impartially and to stay within the boundaries of our proper judicial role," she added.

Trying to home in further on her judicial philosophy, Grassley asked, of the previous 115 justices, are there any of them now or in the past that has a judicial philosophy that most closely resembles her own. She said she hasn't studied the philosophies of all of the prior justices but that her background as a trial judge resembles that of left-leaning Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

"I will say that I come to this position, to this moment as a judge who comes from practice -- that I was a trial judge and my methodology has developed in this context. I don't know how many other justices other than Justice Sotomayor have that same background," she said.

Jackson has also emphasized in previous confirmations hearings that she does not have a judicial philosophy per se, but she applies the same methodology to all the cases she approaches, regardless of its parties.

-ABC News' Trish Turner