When President Joe Biden learned this week that he would have the opportunity to fulfill his pledge to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, a top Democratic ally was ready with a name.
For months, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn has urged the White House to nominate J. Michelle Childs, a home-state federal judge whom Biden named to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in December, should a vacancy on the top court arise.
BREYER RETIREMENT COULD BE ANOTHER BUILD BACK BETTER ROADBLOCK
Childs, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama in 2010, is a state school graduate from the South whom Clyburn says Republicans can get behind — potential catnip for a president who came into office on a promise to unite the country that has so far eluded him.
That Childs does not have an Ivy League pedigree is another notch in her favor, Clyburn has argued in interviews over the last year.
Clyburn was at the White House days into the Biden presidency making the case to Vice President Kamala Harris in her West Wing office. Public records show a visit by Clyburn on Feb. 5.
“One of the things we have to be very, very careful of as Democrats is being painted with that elitist brush,” Clyburn said in an interview with the New York Times that revealed his efforts. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting.
The majority whip reiterated the point during a live event Thursday, telling the Washington Post that Childs “has what I call the kind of background and experiences that we ought to have, that judges and jurists ought to have.”
He continued, “And I am very, very concerned that we take on this elitist kind of atmosphere when we pretend that the only way you can demonstrate the necessary qualifications is to go to certain schools. Well, I don’t think that’s right. Thurgood Marshall was an outstanding jurist, an HBCU graduate — in fact, two times. And so I just think that it is time for us to diversify the court, not just as it relates to gender, but as it relates to color as well, and as it relates to backgrounds and experiences.”
Clyburn, who helped invigorate Biden’s flagging presidential campaign before the crucial South Carolina primary, has been key to moving the issue forward, including pressing Biden to commit to nominating a black woman to the court days before the vote, according to an account by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes in their book Lucky.
Harris, a graduate of Howard University, will play a “central role” in determining the pick, Biden said Thursday during an announcement with Breyer at the White House, one day after a surprise leak. Press secretary Jen Psaki said the president’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, White House counsel Dana Remus, and senior adviser Cedric Richmond would also advise the decision, as would Paige Hardwick, a member of the counsel’s office, and Louisa Terrell, Biden’s top legislative affairs adviser.
Other high-profile prospects are orbiting the White House.
U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a front-runner for Breyer’s seat, attended an April meeting at the White House on the books with Caroline McKay, Remus’s chief of staff, according to White House visitor logs.
One month earlier, U.S. Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi was recorded twice meeting with Biden, records show. She met with staff the following month.
A White House official declined to comment on the meetings.
One day earlier, as news of Breyer’s retirement broke, Clyburn told ABC News that he had talked with South Carolina Republican Sens. Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, describing both as “very high on Michelle Childs, and so I think that both of them would vote for her if her name were to be put in nomination.”
But the election-year timing could scupper that.
While Biden’s record pace of judicial nominations has drawn some Republican support in the Senate, they have faced heavier opposition.
A sparse three Republican senators voted in June to confirm Jackson, including Graham, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Senators have also sometimes voted against Supreme Court nominees they had previously backed.
“Politics plays a huge role in this right now, especially as the midterms come and as many of the senators may or may not be looking to run for the presidency in 2024,” a GOP staffer told the Washington Examiner.
A prolific fundraiser, Scott is seeking reelection this year and is also viewed as a potential 2024 GOP presidential contender. Murkowski, too, is up for reelection.
While news of Breyer’s retirement has handed Biden an opportunity to shift a stilted political narrative, opposition is expected to ramp up soon.
Carrie Severino, whose conservative Judicial Crisis Network has spent millions of dollars opposing Democrats and backing Republican nominees, detailed the political stakes.
“The Left bullied Justice Breyer into retirement, and now it will demand a justice who rubber-stamps its liberal political agenda,” Severino said in a statement, adding, “And that’s what the Democrats will give them because they’re beholden to the dark money supporters who helped elect them.”
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Speaking about Biden’s slate of judicial prospects last year to the Associated Press, Severino warned that Republican senators viewed the idea of “reflexively” confirming Democratic nominees to the courts as “unilateral disarmament.”
