COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — At President Joe Biden’s lowest moment in the 2020 campaign, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn came to him with a suggestion: He should pledge to put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
After some cajoling, Biden made the promise at a Democratic debate, a move Clyburn credits with turning out the Black support that helped Biden score a resounding victory in the South Carolina primary and ultimately win the White House.
Two years later, the hoped-for vacancy on the court has arrived with the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer. Biden is standing by his pledge. And Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, has another ask.
“Judge (Michelle) Childs has everything I think it takes to be great,” Clyburn said.
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As the lobbying begins over filling the open court seat, Clyburn is harnessing his history with Biden and his stature as the No. 3 House Democrat to make a forceful case for his preferred choice, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs, a jurist from his native South Carolina. It’s a campaign he’s making in public and in private, helping elevate Childs to an emerging short list of Black women who could soon make history.
In addition to Childs, early discussions about a successor include California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, as well as Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer clerk who is now on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Biden is also looking at U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright from Minnesota and Melissa Murray, a New York University law professor who is an expert in family law and reproductive rights justice.
For Biden, the court opening is a chance to show Black voters that he has not forgotten his promises to them, particularly after his failure this month to deliver on voting rights legislation in the Senate. He said Thursday that having a Black woman on the court is “long overdue” and that he would announce his choice by the end of February.
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Clyburn had a head start. He began making his case for Childs more than two years ago.
In December 2020, just weeks after Biden won the White House, Clyburn said he wrote to the then-president elect advocating that Childs be promoted from South Carolina’s federal trial bench to the D.C. appeals court. A seat on court is often seen as a springboard for Supreme Court nominees.
“Everybody says, ‘Well, that’s the way you need to go, to go to the Supreme Court,‘” Clyburn said, of the appellate level. “I’ve never agreed to that, but you know, I don’t have to agree with all the rules that I have to play by.”
Last month, Biden officially submitted Childs’ name for an open slot on the circuit court. Her Senate hearing had been expected this coming week, which would have given Childs a closely watched audition of sorts, but staffers said Friday that had been delayed.
In interviews over recent days, Clyburn has argued that, if Childs were nominated, she could win the backing of South Carolina’s two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott — an enticing prospect for Biden, offering the possibility of a pick that could satisfy the party and also win bipartisan support.
On Sunday, Graham, a former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, highly praised Childs as a “fair-minded, highly gifted jurist” who would bring important perspectives to the high court if chosen.
“In the history of our country we’ve only had five women serve and two African-American men. So let’s make the court more like America,” Graham told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “But qualifications have to be the biggest consideration, and as to Michelle Childs, I think she’s qualified by every measure.”
A spokeswoman for Scott lauded Childs’ “respected reputation as a judge in South Carolina” and said “he looks forward to engaging with her if she is the nominee.”
Unlike most high court nominees, Childs isn’t an Ivy League graduate or a former federal appellate clerk. The 55-year-old graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She also holds a master’s degree from the university’s business school, as well as a legal master’s from Duke.
Clyburn, who often pushed for ethnic and educational diversity among Biden’s Cabinet picks, said he felt Childs’ education outside the Ivy League, coupled with her upbringing in a single-parent household, would give the court an important perspective it is now missing.
“We run the risk of creating an elite society,” Clyburn told reporters. “We’ve got to recognize that people come from all walks of life, and we ought not dismiss anyone because of that.”
During years in private practice in Columbia, Childs became the first Black female partner at one of the state’s largest law firms, where she focused on employment and labor law. After several years as a state court judge, she was appointed to the federal trial bench. In 2014, before the Supreme Court ruled that gay couples had a right to marry nationwide, she ruled in favor of a gay couple seeking to have their District of Columbia marriage recognized in South Carolina.
All of her experiences, Clyburn said, give Childs the “ability to empathize.”
Asked in a 2020 Q&A with her alma mater what advice she would give a young lawyer, Childs opined on the meaning of success, stressing the importance of becoming “a person of courage and conviction.”
“We all have a crucial role, individually and collectively, to be architects of society,” she said. “Being successful is not just for the purpose of a place of comfort and satisfaction, but a place of responsibility and challenge.”
Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
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Style over substance
Whatever is politically expedient—it’s all about image.
If Joe really wanted the court to reflect the face of America, he would nominate a native American or Asian Judge to balance out the races of the court. Apparently, they were out bid by the political Piano Playing Clyburn.
““Think of the press as a great keyboard
on which the government can play.” – Joseph Goebbels.
While Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman has received support from Democrats who see it as a win for diversity over a dozen Senate Democrats previously tried to block a Black woman from the federal judiciary when she was nominated by former President Trump.
Just 23% (racist Blacks) polled want Biden to keep his vow to pick a Black woman, while 76% want “all possible nominees” considered.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
WHAT WE need to get told, is WHAT ARE THEIR voting records like. What rulings have they made…. THAT WAY we can gauge ARE they a good judge, OR NOT!
Suffer the Childs to come unto Joe, for such is the kingdom of payoffs, and the Power of the Lustful children in adult bodies who always take what is best for THEMSELVES.
And the white democrats are still buying the blacks.Hopefully the black voters don’t fall for it. But I have my doubts that they have seen the light.
Unfortunately, TOO MANY Still are willingly on the dem’s plantation.
jim clyburn the token black democrat rubber stamp for all things communist and evil.
he is a disgrace to my state just like lindsay g.
WHAT Is up with the air/water, IN south Carolina, where Traitors like these two, are the bEST You have to offer up to congress??
the democrats created clyburns district years ago after a census and no body will challenge poor old lindsay in a gop primary.
Why not? Does no one out there, have the SPINE to face graham, or change the district to get clyburn out?
money in grahms case and in clburns case the black community would have a major malfunction riot.
The Senate Democrats in question all voted against Ada E. Brown, former President Trump’s nominee for district judge of the northern district of Texas.
Brown, a Black woman, was confirmed in September 2019 by a vote of 80-13, with the 13 “nay” votes coming from Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono, Ed Markey, Patty Murray, Brian Schatz, Debbie Stabenow and Ron Wyden.
Whenever I hear a decision from a so called Conservative Judge, I read a response that INCLUDES an Excerpt of the US Constitution, for the reasoning of their decision.
When I hear a decision from a so called Liberal Judge, I read a response that is based on Emotion, how their decision refers to how it makes people FEEL.
Did ANYONE Ever tell Democrat Politicians that a seat to SCOTUS is supposed to be based on people who make Decisions, STRICTLY with Direct Basis to the US CONSTITUTION ???
What HYPOCRITES these Democrat Politicians are !!!
THEY don’t care what their oaths are.. NEver have.
“Michelle Childs”…. at least she has a decent name, not “Tanisha” or some dumb **** like that..
“On Sunday, Graham, a former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, highly praised Childs as a “fair-minded, highly gifted jurist” who would bring important perspectives to the high court if chosen”. Good old Lindsey Graham, a traitor RINO. Why does Hannity have this traitor Lindsey Graham on his show? Hannity states that he is a Conservative?
Like Tucker and judge Jennie, HE HAS opposing voices on his show, to SHOW HOW BRAINLESS and evil the left is.. JUST having conservatives, would be doing nothing than making a conservative echo chamber..