President Joe Biden will continue to seek input from Senate Republicans and Democrats on his Supreme Court nomination, something White House officials say will potentially smooth the road to an expedient confirmation later this year.
The president hosted Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and ranking member Chuck Grassley of Iowa at the White House on Tuesday, which one senior White House official told the Washington Examiner shows how “committed” he is to bipartisanship and “restoring working order” to the Senate.
CLYBURN-BACKED MICHELLE CHILDS CONSIDERED FOR SUPREME COURT, WHITE HOUSE SAYS
During the meeting, Biden noted to reporters that he, Grassley, and Durbin have “worked together on a lot of court nominations overall but particularly Supreme Court nominees.”
“Selecting a justice is one of the president’s most serious responsibilities,” Biden continued. “I went back and looked at some of the opening statements that I made for justices over the years that, you know, it’s — the Constitution says ‘advise and consent’ — ‘advice and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say it: that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent if we can arrive on who the nominee should be.”
“There’s always a renewed national debate every time we nominate — any president nominates a justice because the Constitution is always evolving slightly in terms of additional rights or curtailing rights,” he added. “And it’s always an issue. And there’s several schools of thought in terms of judicial philosophy. And we’ll see.”
“In the coming days and weeks, President Biden will continue to seek input from lawmakers and experts as he considers a range of highly qualified candidates,” the White House added in a statement. “The president has accumulated a strong track record of selecting extraordinarily qualified and groundbreaking nominees, and he looks forward to consulting with his colleagues further as he takes on one of the most significant responsibilities of any president.”
Biden has stated his desire to put forth a nominee by the end of February, and the White House is currently hesitant to even address names the president is considering.
Biden said Tuesday that his criteria for a nominee “flows back and forth” but has vowed that his selection will be the first black woman to be nominated to the nation’s highest court.
“What I’m looking for is a candidate with character, with the qualities of a judge, in terms of being courteous to the folks before them and treating people with respect, as well as a judicial philosophy that is more of one that suggests that there are unenumerated rights in the Constitution. And all the amendments mean something, including the Ninth Amendment,” he said during the meeting with Grassley and Durbin.
A number of names have been put forward as potential front-runners, but only J. Michelle Childs, the U.S. district judge for the District of South Carolina, has garnered support from both parties in recent days.
South Carolina Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott have both voiced support for Childs.
Scott told reporters Monday night that he has a “positive impression” of Childs, and a spokesman for his office told the Washington Examiner that Scott “looks forward to engaging with her if she is the nominee.”
“I can’t think of a better person for President Biden to consider to the Supreme Court than Michelle Childs,” Graham, himself a former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, said Monday morning on CBS. “She has wide support in our state. She’s considered to be a fair-minded, highly gifted jurist. She is one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”
“I’d like to see the court have a little more balance, some common sense on it,” Graham said. “Everybody doesn’t have to be from Harvard or Yale. It’s OK to go to a public university and get your law degree.”
Childs is the only potential nominee who did not graduate from an Ivy League school. Biden previously nominated her to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“Judge Childs is among multiple individuals under consideration for the Supreme Court, and we are not going to move her nomination on the Court of Appeals while the president is considering her for this vacancy,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
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Biden has not always been bipartisan in his approach to the nomination process. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over contentious hearings for Robert Bork, who was rejected, and Clarence Thomas, who was narrowly confirmed. Biden later voted to filibuster Samuel Alito’s nomination.
