WASHINGTON – After meeting in the Oval Office earlier this month with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and his senior Democratic colleagues in the House, Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina went straight to Harris’s office in the west wing to raise a topic that did not come up during the group discussion: the Supreme Court.
Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, wanted to offer Harris the name of a potential future judge, according to a Democrat informed of the conversation. District court judge J. Michelle Childs would fulfill Biden’s promise to nominate the first black woman for the Supreme Court – and, Clyburn noted, she also came from South Carolina, a state with political significance for the president.
There may not be a vacancy in the high court at the moment, but Clyburn and other lawmakers are already maneuvering to defend candidates and a new approach to a nomination that could take place this summer, when some Democrats expect Judge Stephen Breyer, who is 82 , will retire. With Democrats holding the smallest Senate majority and the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg still painfully fresh in their minds, these party leaders want to shape Biden’s nomination, including removing the party from the usual Ivy League curricula.
The initial dispute illustrates how Democratic officials are eager to make their mark in Biden’s effort to elevate historically underrepresented candidates to a historic Supreme Court nomination. But it also highlights bewildering issues of class and credentialism in the Democratic Party, which have been just below the surface since the days of the Obama administration.
Some Democrats like Clyburn, who have been nervously watching Republicans try to reshape themselves as a working class party, believe Biden could send a message about his determination to keep Democrats loyal to his working-class roots by choosing a candidate like Mrs. Childs, who attended public universities.
“One of the things we should be very, very careful about while Democrats are painted with this elitist brush,” said Clyburn, adding: “When people talk about diversity, they are always looking at race and ethnicity – I look beyond that to diversity of experience. “
North Carolina Rep. GK Butterfield, as well as Clyburn, a veteran member of Congressional Black Caucus, made a similar remark in an email to White House lawyer Dana Remus, listing last month’s preferred criteria for caucus for appointments to the federal court. Almost at the top of the list, Butterfield said, was: “The judge must have a diversity of experiences in various settings and in several areas, including outlaw experiences.”
Biden’s promise to nominate the first black woman to court was an unusual type of campaign promise: Clyburn encouraged him to do so in a debate in Charleston before South Carolina’s primary primaries last year. It was a promise that even some of the president’s aides resisted, fearing it might look like a sting.
Biden has spoken little in public since he was elected about his preferences for the court, but as a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has a split personality when it comes to personnel policy. Although happy to highlight his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania, his state school diploma and the nickname “Joe of the middle class,” he has long surrounded himself with advisers and advisers who display the kind of pedigree he lacks.
And some White House officials are already preparing for what they believe to be unjust attacks by the right against any black woman they choose, convinced that the eventual nominee must have an impeccable resume. “It’s going to have to be someone with unquestionable credentials, so that he doesn’t look like an unqualified person,” said a senior Biden official, who spoke about possible court nominees on condition of anonymity to share thoughts from within the West Wing.
Among potential candidates being presented for a seat on the Supreme Court, Ms. Childs has a track record that differs from the most recent nominees. Unlike eight of the nine current Supreme Court judges, Ms. Childs, 54, did not attend an Ivy League university. Her mother worked for Southern Bell in Columbia, SC and Mrs. Childs won a scholarship to the University of South Florida. She later graduated from the law school at the University of South Carolina and became the first black woman to become a partner at one of the state’s top law firms. Like a previous generation of lawyers, she rose to state politics before being nominated to the bench. Ms. Childs served as an important authority in the South Carolina labor department before being appointed to the state’s workers’ compensation board.
“She is the type of person who has the type of experience that would make her a good addition to the Supreme Court,” said Clyburn.
Clyburn, whose coveted endorsement helped revive Biden’s campaign ahead of South Carolina’s primary election last year, has been particularly active on his behalf as part of what his advisers say is the most significant request to the government. The 80-year-old mayor defended Mrs. Childs with Mrs. Harris; Mrs. Remus; and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Bakari Sellers, a Democratic political commentator close to Harris, also suggested to members of Vice President Childs’ inner circle, who was nominated for the federal bench by Obama in 2010.
“Not only for our party, but for the judiciary, it is important to have someone who has had experiences,” said Sellers.
What is driving some of these officials to go public with a more aggressive form of defense are two developments.
First, they saw the ingredients of a short list in a Ruth Marcus column in The Washington Post earlier this month, naming a pair of potential successors to Breyer, who, like Childs, are young enough to serve in court for a few decades. . The two cited – US District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington, DC, and California Supreme Court Judge Leondra Kruger – have a background in Ivy League law and important connections. Mrs. Jackson, 50, was Breyer’s own clerk and Ms. Kruger, 44, served as Obama’s attorney general
There are a handful of other black women in their 40s with elite credentials that have caught the attention of lawmakers, including some on the Judiciary Committee. There is Danielle Holley-Walker, dean of law school at Howard University, and Leslie Abrams Gardner, judge at the Federal District Court in Georgia, Stacey Abrams’s younger sister.
More significant is the question of time.
There are relatively few black women in federal appeals courts, where presidents often call their nominees to the Supreme Court. Very soon, however, there will be another vacancy in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit – which could be a stepping stone for the higher court – when Judge Merrick B. Garland resigns to become Attorney General. Mrs. Childs may be in a better position to ascend to the Supreme Court if she goes to serve on that appeals court, say some of her admirers.
“There is an immediate vacancy there, so I would advocate for your consideration of the DC circuit,” said Butterfield, himself a former state Supreme Court judge, about Mrs. Childs. “And when and if there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court, it must also be considered for that.”
Another potential candidate for a court seat is Cheri Beasley, who lost his re-election as president of the North Carolina Supreme Court by 412 votes in November. She also went to a public university and graduated in the judiciary through services in lower state courts. Still, Beasley told people he was considering running for the North Carolina Senate seat next year, according to a Democrat who spoke to her.
When a vacancy occurs in the courtroom, several Democrats say, they are preparing for the emergence of Obama-era tensions, which were covered up by former President Donald Trump.
Many members of Congressional Black Caucus, as well as several white Democrats, say they believe the party is closely linked to elites, and that this perception only gives Republicans political nourishment during the campaign season.
“I’m not criticizing Harvards or Yales, but I think there are some great lawyers out there who are very, very smart who come from other parts of the world,” said Senator Jon Tester of Montana, where Democrats missed out on three landmark races in the last year. “And I think we should consider them.”
I saw Lyles, the mayor of Charlotte, said, “Having a broader perspective on what’s going on in the country makes you a better decision maker and leader.”
Even more delicate are the persistent frustrations among black leaders, many of whom have attended state schools or historically black institutions, about Obama’s treatment of Congress’s Black Congress and his government’s apparent preference for nominees with elite credentials.
“He was predisposed to the Ivy League nominees, I think we all agree with that,” said Butterfield.
Mr. Sellers was even more direct. “I love Barack Obama, but there was an Ivy League culture that emanated from the White House, and we need to move away from that,” he said.
Frustration with Obama culminated in Garland’s choice for the Supreme Court after the death of Judge Antonin Scalia in 2016. Some Democratic congressmen believed the ex-president could have put pressure on Republicans and energized Democrats if he had chosen a black woman and were furious when he said he was not looking for “a black Skokie lesbian”.
What Clyburn will say only indirectly is that Biden owes not only black voters for his nomination, he is indebted to the African Americans who resurrected his candidacy in South Carolina and to those across the South who practically consolidated his nomination three days ago. later as he swept the region on Super Tuesday.
Some African-American Democrats believe that black Americans will support any black woman Biden nominates and suspect that Clyburn is looking for a justification for elevating his home state and polishing his legacy.
However, few politicians preach more than Biden about the importance of “dancing with the one who brought him”, as the president often says. And so far, Clyburn has managed to install two of his closest allies in the administration, with former MP Marcia Fudge appointed housing secretary and Jaime Harrison appointed to lead the Democratic National Committee.
Asked whether he could support Childs at the high court, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican and the first black senator elected since Reconstruction, said he was not ready to commit. But he praised her for “having a very good reputation” and said her appointment “would reflect the positive and powerful progress we have made in the great state of South Carolina.”
Scott was more blunt, however, when asked whether Biden owed this to black voters in South Carolina, given the role they played in his path to the presidency.
“Jim Clyburn would say that,” he said with a smile.