The top Senate Democrat is pledging to move swiftly to confirm President Joe Biden’s choice to replace outgoing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, declaring the president’s selection “a chance to make history.”
Democrats and Republicans are already clashing over the as-yet-unknown nominee.
Biden pledged to select a black woman to fill the role, but the move has rankled GOP lawmakers who say the nominee should not be limited to a specific race and gender.
WHITE HOUSE: BIDEN STANDS BY PLEDGE TO NOMINATE BLACK WOMAN TO SUPREME COURT
On the Senate floor Monday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, praised the outgoing Breyer, who announced his retirement Friday after it leaked a day earlier.
“Now, with his new vacancy on the court, President Biden will have an opportunity to make history by nominating the first-ever black woman to serve on the Supreme Court,” Schumer said.
Schumer said the Senate “will have a fair process that moves quickly” and indicated he’s confident Biden will select “an outstanding individual” to fill the vacancy.
Republicans are wary of the narrow selection category.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, warned that Biden ran for president as someone who would “govern from the middle” and that the election also left the Senate evenly divided.
“I suggest President Biden bear this in mind as he considers whom to nominate to our highest court,” McConnell said. “The American people deserve a nominee who has demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our great Constitution.”
McConnell didn’t mention Biden’s promise to pick a black woman. Other GOP lawmakers have criticized the move, including Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, who is a key centrist on the list of Republicans who might vote for the nominee.
Collins said Sunday on ABC News that Biden was “clumsy” in his handling of the Breyer vacancy and that he “helped politicize the entire process” because he first promised to select a black woman for the high court while he was a presidential candidate.
Another Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, warned that Biden appeared poised to pick a radically liberal candidate.
“The Senate has already begun its campaign to replace Breyer with a judicial activist,” Cornyn said Monday.
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In an interview with reporters Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, said Biden’s pledge to pick a black woman was needed.
“I look at it [as] basically just a balance that needs to be done to represent who we are as a nation,” Manchin said. “And the United States is very diversified, and we have a lot of great people in all different segments of society [who want to] be able to hear their voice and have someone they can represent who they believe understands who they are.”
Biden said he would name a high court nominee at the end of the month, which will trigger a weekslong process in the Senate, the chamber tasked with considering and confirming the pick.
The nominee faces days of questioning and scrutiny by the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat.
“No matter the nominee, we will undertake a process in the Senate Judiciary Committee that is both fair and timely,” Durbin said Monday. “This process will afford senators an opportunity to review the nominee’s record and question the nominee thoroughly while at the same time ensuring the nominee is treated respectfully and receives a prompt confirmation vote.”
