President Joe Biden’s vow to put the first black woman on the Supreme Court continued to backfire this week when Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) accused him of “pitting Black women against each other.”
During an interview with Punchbowl News, Bush was asked if the Congressional Black Caucus had come to an agreement on who the president should pick. While Judge J. Michelle Childs has been a floated favorite, Bush said that she would not comment on any particular person.
“I’m not going to go after any particular person. I don’t know her. I don’t know her background well enough to be able to say so,” she told Punchbowl News.
While Bush did not like that Biden’s pick would pit black women against each other, she acknowledged that the pick was necessary, though she listed some important qualifications:
Getting a Black woman in the seat is necessary, but we want to make sure that it’s a Black woman who’s strong on criminal justice reform, has that type of history, strong on worker protections. I don’t have a name. I want the person who has those qualifications to rise to the top.
The president’s vow to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court has not exactly gone over well with Americans, including Democrats. In fact, a recent ABC News-Ipsos poll showed that more than three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) want the president to consider “all possible nominees” when replacing Justice Stephen Breyer, while only 23 percent want him to honor his pledge of nominating the first black woman to the court.
When broken down by party lines, a full 54 percent of Democrats want Biden to consider all potential nominees to the Supreme Court irrespective of the candidate’s race or gender. Here’s how the poll breaks down by demographics:
Although the poll’s sample size was not large enough to break out results for Black people, only a little more than 1 in 4 nonwhite Americans (28 percent) wish for Biden to consider only Black women for the vacancy. Democrats are more supportive of Biden’s vow (46 percent) than Americans as a whole, but still a majority of Democrats (54 percent) also prefer that Biden consider all possible nominees.
Shortly after Breyer announced his retirement last week, Joe Biden said he would nominate the first black woman to the court, a pledge he made to Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) during the 2020 presidential primary to secure his endorsement after losing several states to Bernie Sanders. Speaking with the Washington Post, Clyburn confirmed that his endorsement came with the caveat that Biden pledge to nominate a black woman.