Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton. At age 83, he seems to have learned from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s mistake, who did not retire during a Democratic presidency and was replaced during President Donald Trump’s term, creating a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.
Breyer is retiring when the Democrats, at least for now, have a majority in Congress and a 51 to 50 vote in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie breaker.
I listened attentively to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham glowingly speak about the South Carolinian District Judge Julianna Michelle Childs, who is one of the contenders. She is Congressman James Clyburn’s favorite pick. It was Clyburn who turned President Joe Biden’s campaign around when he gave the then losing presidential candidate his first big win – South Carolina. Clyburn asked Biden for a favor given that helping hand: the appointment of a Black woman to the Supreme Court, who will be its first. Graham appears to be lending his support to Childs, which would add at least one Republican Senate vote to the mix.
Another potential nominee is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the daughter of attorney Johnny Brown, who served as a Miami-Dade County Public School attorney. Jackson currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit. She graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Harvard University and Harvard Law School. She served as law clerk to Breyer, has a real strong résumé and, based on my conversations with her father, she is absolutely brilliant.
Yet another current contender is California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, a former deputy solicitor general. She graduated from Harvard University and Yale Law School and taught as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. As an attorney in the solicitor general’s office, she argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court. She served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Justice Paul Stevens.
