THE HEIGHTS — Former U.S. Senator Doug Jones, the current Jerome Lyle Rappaport distinguished visiting professor at Boston College Law School, will act as a “sherpa” for President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, guiding them through the confirmation process in the Senate. “I’m taking a leave of absence from everything except my Boston College School of Law gig and will become an adviser to the president regarding the … Supreme Court nomination that’s coming up, so I’m very excited about that,” Jones told The Heights on Eagle Eye. After defeating Republican Roy Moore—a former judge accused of sexually assaulting minors—in a 2017 special election, Jones became the first democrat to hold a Senate seat in Alabama since 1997. Jones is also a former U.S. Attorney known for prosecuting two members of the Ku Klux Klan for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four Black girls in the late ’90s. Ken Kersch, a political science professor at BC, said Jones’ political experience and Alabama upbringing could have been factors in his appointment to the role of “sherpa”—formally titled the nomination advisor for legislative affairs. “It seems to me obvious that he’s someone, first of all, who has a lot of political skills and has served in the Senate with many of the senators on both sides of the aisle, and he is respected and well liked,” Kersch said.