Report: The Three Supreme Court Candidates Biden Has Interviewed Have Just Been Revealed
The limited search of President Joe Biden in finding the right black woman to nominate to the Supreme Court has been narrowed down to three names, according to a new report.
During the presidential campaign, Biden had promised that if he had a Supreme Court vacancy to fill, he would nominate a black woman. The upcoming retirement of liberal Justice Stephen Breyer gave him that chance.
Fox News reported Wednesday that the president has interviewed Ketanji Brown Jackson, Leondra Kruger and J. Michelle Childs for the position.
The three finalists for President Bidens Supreme Court nomination.?✌️ pic.twitter.com/J3qmLN6kbH
— Cosmic (@Cosmic75910053) February 23, 2022
The White House is mum on the details aside from saying Biden will announce his selection by the end of the month, which rolls around on Monday.
Jackson, 51, is the “front runner,” according to The Washington Post.
A 2007 biography of Justice Clarence Thomas includes an anecdote in which Jackson, now a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, contrasted herself with the conservative Thomas, who is also black.
“‘You sound like my parents. You sound like the people I grew up with.’ But the lessons he tended to draw from the experiences of the segregated South seemed to be different than those of everybody I know,” the book, “Supreme Discomfort,” said Jackson thought as she had lunch with Thomas, according to ABC News.
Kruger, 46, is a justice on the California Supreme Court. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.
Manhattan Institute President Reihan Salam touted her as a voice who could develop consensus on the ideologically divided court, according to ABC News.
“Someone like a Leondra Kruger is known as a pretty heterodox person, someone who has oftentimes voted with conservatives on the California Supreme Court,” Salam said. “Her experience is meaningfully different from other potential nominees who have a more ideological reputation.”
Childs, 55, a U.S. district judge in South Carolina, has bipartisan support from two powerful lawmakers in that state, according to NPR: Democratic Rep. James Clyburn and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation said “Affirmative action is picking somebody not as well qualified for past wrongs. Michelle Childs is incredibly qualified. There’s no affirmative action component if you pick her,”
Rep. Jim Clyburn supports Michelle Childs too. #DemVoice1 pic.twitter.com/dFcu3ppBav
— Tony ? #DemVoice1 (@TonyHussein4) January 30, 2022
Childs has been outspoken on the topic of guns, the report said.
She said in a 2018 speech that “gun violence has a devastating impact on American children and teenagers.”
It goes “far beyond those struck by a bullet” and “shapes the lives of millions of children who witness it, know someone who was shot, or live in fear of the next shooting,” the judge said.
Childs is the most likely to win easy confirmation, Graham said earlier this month on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“She would be somebody, I think, that could bring the Senate together and probably get more than 60 votes,” the senator said.
“Anyone else would be problematic,” he added.
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