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| Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominee to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 28, 2021 |
President Biden's most likely picks are bound to rankle conservatives
President Joe Biden's likely picks to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court are progressive jurists with records that could rankle Republicans.
Biden vowed to put a black woman on the High Court during the 2020 campaign, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated Wednesday he would keep that promise. But the pool of prospective candidates is small given the limited number of black women in the upper reaches of the federal judiciary. The field shrinks further when controlling for age. Recent presidents have preferred younger nominees with the promise of a long tenure.
The frontrunners are thought to be Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Justice Leondra Kruger of the California Supreme Court; and Judge J. Michelle Childs, a federal trial judge in South Carolina.
All three are reliably progressive. Jackson was a player in the legal resistance to former president Donald Trump. Kruger's advocacy in a landmark 2012 Supreme Court case will trouble religious conservatives. And Childs made a last-minute change to South Carolina election procedures that could reignite debate over the 2020 presidential election.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
The Biden administration has already positioned Jackson for the nomination, elevating her from a federal trial court to the D.C. Circuit, a powerful appeals panel and a farm team for the Supreme Court.
Jackson was confirmed as a federal trial judge in Washington, D.C., in 2013. In 2019, she blocked a Trump administration plan to expand the pool of illegal immigrants eligible for fast-track deportations. That same year she backed House Democrats in their bid to enforce a subpoena for testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn. Both decisions were overturned on appeal.
A Jackson nomination could be somewhat awkward for the White House, which prizes judicial candidates with experience in legal aid or consumer advocacy. Jackson's resume includes the kind of corporate, white collar experience progressives want to purge from the bench. After clerking for Breyer on the Supreme Court, Jackson advised commercial clients at an arbitration boutique. She also practiced at elite, lucrative firms between stints in...
