Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
President Joe Biden has already identified the characteristics his pick for the Supreme Court must possess, and on Tuesday he will meet with a pair of high-profile members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for advice on how to see his eventual pick through to confirmation.
Biden, himself a former member of the Judiciary Committee, has invited Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois to the White House to hear their thoughts on replacing retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
“Chairman Durbin has worked on seven Supreme Court confirmation processes,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in her Monday press briefing. “The President has also worked for many years with Senator Grassley and respects his knowledge and views.”
The President has already made it clear that he intends to nominate the first black woman to the court, and it is widely expected this person will also have progressive leanings.
The worry over the nominee’s politics will likely prove a sticking point for Republicans, and no doubt Biden hopes to make some inroads with the Right through his visit with Grassley.
In his Monday Capitol Hill Report, a brief audio program the senator routinely uses to update his constituents about pressing matters in Washington, Grassley said for Republicans the process would be a matter of “waiting on the nominee from President Biden and [going] from there.”
Grassley later added, “It’s a 50-50 senate and I hope Biden nominates a consensus nominee, and someone who interprets the law and doesn’t think their job is to make law. My job is to make law. Their job is to interpret it.”
Psaki was noncommittal when asked if bipartisan support was a necessity for Biden’s pick.
“[President Biden] has every intention of nominating somebody … with impeccable credentials,” Psaki said. “And certainly, we expect and are hopeful that Republicans will look seriously at whomever he nominates and at what they — who they are and what they would bring to the Court.”
Thus far, President Biden has officially floated just one name as a possible nominee, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs, who is among the favorites to replace Breyer even as she awaits confirmation having recently been nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeal
Childs enjoys the support of at least one Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and has a powerful ally in Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives.
However, The Hill reports that Childs might face resistance as much from progressives as conservatives thanks to her having defended employers in workplace lawsuits.