Biden to nominate first Black woman to sit on
supreme court by end of February
US president announced plans for court at White House
event marking retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer
Ed
Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Thu 27 Jan
2022 19.15 GMT
Joe Biden
intends to announce his nominee to become the first Black woman to sit on the
US supreme court by the end of February, the president said on Thursday at a
formal White House event to mark the retirement of the liberal-leaning justice
Stephen Breyer.
Lauding the
retiring justice as a “beacon of wisdom” and a “model public servant at a time
of great division in this country”, Biden pledged to replace him with someone
worthy of Breyer’s “legacy of excellence and decency”. He said the nominee
would have “extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity,
and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United
States supreme court.”
He added:
“It is long overdue in my view.”
Biden’s
confirmation that he is still studying the résumés of candidates and has yet to
make his pick will do little to settle nerves among progressives still smarting
from Donald Trump’s three supreme court appointments. Many Democrats want the
president to emulate the warp speed with which the Trump administration drove
through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett in less than six weeks following
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in September 2020.
The
Washington Post, citing an anonymous source, said that the majority leader in
the Senate, Chuck Schumer, is aiming for a similar timeline.
Replacing
Breyer with a like-minded justice is seen by many Democrats as critical in
preserving the already beleaguered rump of liberals on the bench. The retiring
justice is one of only three such individuals on the nine-justice court, and
they are so outnumbered that the country now faces drastic changes in several
key areas from abortion to guns and affirmative action.
Despite the
pressure for haste among his party’s members, Biden insisted that he would be
“rigorous” in choosing the nominee. He would listen to advice from senators and
meet candidates, indicating a selection process that is likely to take weeks
not days.
For his
part, Justice Breyer is hoping that his successor can be confirmed and in place
within the next six months. In his formal retirement letter to Biden, he said
he would step down at the start of the court’s summer recess in June or July,
“assuming that by then my successor has been nominated and confirmed”.
Speaking in
the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Breyer made a lyrical paean to American
unity. Recalling a speech he likes to deliver to school students, he said that
the US was an experiment that is still going on.
“My
children and grandchildren will determine whether the experiment will last, and
as an optimist I’m pretty sure that it will,” he said.
Biden first
committed himself to promoting a Black woman to the nation’s highest court at a
presidential debate against Trump during the 2020 presidential campaign. The
promise was reportedly made after intense prodding by the prominent South
Carolina Democrat Jim Clyburn, who endorsed Biden the following day in a move
that helped propel him into the White House.
Though the
race is now on to confirm Breyer’s replacement before the court’s term reaches
its summer recess, there are large hurdles ahead. Looming over the proceedings
is the evenly divided 50-50 split in the US Senate, the chamber that will
preside over the confirmation hearings of whomsoever Biden picks.
The
Democrats hold the casting vote with Vice-President Kamala Harris, but they
will need to keep all 50 senators on board during the process. That is a
challenge that has eluded the Biden administration in recent months with the
high-profile defections of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema over vital issues
ranging from the president’s Build Back Better legislation to overcoming the
filibuster to secure essential voting rights reforms.
To reduce
any risk of Democratic splits, Schumer will also be looking to lure Republican
moderates such as Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska to
their side.
Then there
are the nationwide midterm elections in November which will inevitably place a
partisan political pall over the confirmation process. Republicans have already
begun to test out lines of attack, predicting that Biden’s nominee will be, in
the words of the senator from Florida Rick Scott, “a radical liberal with
extremist views”.
Rightwing
Twitter feeds have also lit up with claims that Biden’s choice of a Black woman
would constitute unlawful sex and race discrimination. Those playing the
affirmative-action card were forgetting that in 1980 Ronald Reagan pledged to
pick the first woman to sit on the nation’s highest court, appointing Sandra
Day O’Connor the following year.
Republican
leaders will be hoping that by portraying Biden’s choice as a culture wars
threat to American values they will help to drive out the party’s base to the
polling booths on 8 November.
Similar
calculations will be at play on the Democratic side. Party strategists will
want to leverage the nomination of a Black woman as an energizing factor at the
polls for important elements of its electorate who include African Americans,
women and progressive voters.
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