A black woman on the Supreme Court: Biden’s promise worries Republicans

Even without knowing who Joe Biden will appoint to the US Supreme Court, Republicans are beginning to attack his promise to pick a black woman for the first time in history, giving a taste of the bitterness of the debates ahead.

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“I want a candidate who knows the difference between a law book and a fashion catalog,” fired Senator John F. Kennedy who, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will participate in questioning Joe Biden’s chosen judge. .

In fact, it is up to the Senate to approve the federal judges.

Desiring the Supreme Court to be “state-like,” the Democratic president must announce his selection at the end of February.

In an interview with NBC, he made it clear that he focuses on four “incredibly qualified” judges.

Among the names circulated are alumni of Yale or Harvard, a federal appeals judge, and another of the California Supreme Court… Surveying their qualifications, Republican Senator Roger Wicker estimated that the person chosen by Joe Biden would be “the beneficiary of some sort of quota,” while Her colleague Ted Cruz choked on the idea of ​​keeping white judges on the sidelines.

“Black women represent what? Suppose 6% of the American population,” he said in his podcast. So Joe Biden said “to 94% of Americans: I don’t care about you. He says if you’re a white man, good luck! If you’re a white woman, good luck!” However, of the 115 justices who have served on the Supreme Court since its inception, 107 have been white men, compared to two black men and five women—four white and one Hispanic.” “American presidents have always taken into account a range of political factors and the personal characteristics of candidates,” asserts Douglas Keith, an attorney withinBrennan Center for Justice In an exchange with AFP.

Republican Ronald Reagan promised to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court before choosing Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981, and in 1986 Justice chose Antonin Scalia in part because of his Italian ancestry.

During the second half of the twentieth century, the seat was always reserved for one Jewish judge and another for a Catholic, with Republicans finding no fault in it. Today’s critics, Douglas Keith concludes, are “dishonest”: “The message may be directed primarily at their constituents.”

For political science professor Michael Tesler, of the University of Irvine in California, this can be explained by the growing gap between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of racism in the United States.

If the left is now highly sensitive to the structural difficulties faced by minorities, “GOP politics are increasingly driven by the belief that white discrimination is a very important problem,” he wrote on the Statistical Analysis website. FiveThirtyEight.

According to a survey YouGov/Yahoo, 87% of Joe Biden voters support the idea of ​​a black woman nomination, while 57% of Donald Trump voters oppose it.

For Democrats who control the Senate, Joe Biden’s nominee must be confirmed despite Republicans’ near-systematic opposition. But discussions can turn rotten.

On Thursday, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla got wet as the Judiciary Committee considered a black judge’s nomination for a position on the federal court.

Candidates of color were treated differently during our tests with insinuations (…) or hostility about their qualifications or opinions,” he noted.

Emerging from direct criticism of her peers, Susan Collins called on her party to be vigilant, while deploring the highlighting of a future elected person’s racial origin.

She noted that “there are a lot of black women qualified for this position, and given that Democrats have, unfortunately, been successful in trying to portray Republicans as anti-Blacks, it may make it difficult to dismiss a black attorney.”