Black woman to U.S Supreme Court, Biden, Republicans and recent history. By Chido Nwangwu
Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
It was the Republican Senator from Louisiana, Lindsey Graham who famously said, not too long ago, that “Elections have consequences, and that is most evident when it comes to fulfilling vacancies on the Supreme Court.” Evidently, the consequences are coming.
You may recall that during his 2020 campaign for election to be voted in as President of the United States, Joe Biden promised that once the opportunity opens, he would pick a Black woman to be his nominee to the Supreme Court. Biden stated that he’s looking forward “to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court.”
White House has reaffirmed Mr. Biden’s promise: “The President has stated and reiterated his commitment to nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court, and certainly stands by that,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday, January 26, 2022.
Now, the first opportunity has come! It’s following the retirement of the U.S Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, as formally announced at the White House on Thursday, January 27, 2022.
He’s 83-years old and was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Breyer, a liberal, is expected to remain on the court until the end of current term in June, 2022.
Among the names of many distinguished Black women being mentioned as possible replacement for Justice Breyer include the U.S federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. She’s 51; was reportedly considered for nomination by President Barack Obama during his presidency.
There’s the California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, who has served as the assistant, and then deputy solicitor general in both Democratic and Republican administrations. She’s 45 years old.
Another well-known potential nominee is Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor and president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund — which the late Thurgood Marshall founded since 1940.
USAfricaonline.com notes that Prof. Ifill is well respected in the civil rights communities across the United States. There are several others being considered for nomination that I am not privy to know.
Secondly, the U.S Democrats seem happy that they will avoid in 2022 being in the 2020 nomination quandary and complications and struggles over what I will refer to as the numerical count of the ideological profile of the Supreme Court when the late and aged Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who faced an advanced illness of cancer) did not retire during Obama’s second term. RBG, as she was fondly known passed a few months ahead of the 2020 election which gave President Donald Trump the opportunity to, strategically, replace RBG — who had served for 27 influential years on the nation’s highest court – with a conservative jurist, Amy Coney Barrett. Effectively, Trump’s successful nomination gave a conservative numerical majority.
Again, remember that regardless of what you think of him, the abundantly hypocritical
Senator Lindsey Graham remains very correct and realistic when he said that “Elections have consequences, and that is most evident when it comes to fulfilling vacancies on the Supreme Court.”
I believe the consequences of Biden’s much awaited nomination of a Black woman (most likely, an ideologically liberal person/jurist) will follow and show beginning this summer of 2022 — when the Supreme Court would have added more diversity to its compositional elements.
But I also foresee one, major operational issue: the Republicans, whether they are right or wrong in your estimation/thinking, get their desired outcomes from these Court nominations and politics! We’ll be watching to see who will cast a vote against a qualified grand daughter of the previously enslaved Blacks in America from joining among the eminent jurists at the apex court of the United States.
Well; only time will tell, and soon.
Dr. Chido Nwangwu, the Founder of USAfrica multimedia networks and public policy organization since 1992 in Houston, established the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the Internet USAfricaonline.com. He served as adviser on Africa business to the ex-Mayor of Houston, Dr. Lee P. Brown. He is the author of the summer 2022 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity. Chido has been honored by the Washington-D. C.-based National Immigration Forum for utilizing multimedia to fight authoritarianism and foster freedom of expression in parts of the African continent. follow @Chido247
