Two Black Female Judges Lead Contenders for Breyer’s Supreme Court Vacancy

A DC Court of Appeals judge and a California Supreme Court justice have emerged as frontrunners for Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s seat when he is expected to retire at the end of the current term.

The appointment of either Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, who clerked for Breyers, and Leondra Kruger, 45, who has been a California supreme court justice since 2015, would fulfill President Joe Biden’s pledge to nominate an African-American woman to the next High Court vacancy, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Breyer, 83, is expected to formally announce his retirement plans Thursday at a White House event, AP reports.

The long-awaited decision by Breyer, who was appointed to the court in 1994, has given the Democratic Party base a “golden opportunity” to reenergize Black and progressive voters ahead of the midterms and galvanize the democratic party base, the Los Angeles Times says.

That was also the consensus view of most media accounts of the surprise news Wednesday, which was first leaked by NBC News.

The Court opening provides Biden a chance to put his stamp on the court. White House sources said the goal is to have the hearings completed and a nominee ready for swearing in by the time the current term ends in June or early July, The New York Times reports.

“We want to move quickly,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).  “We want to get this done as soon as possible.”

The last justice nominated by a Democrat was Elena Kagan, picked by President Barack Obama in 2010.

Jackson, 51, would bring another dimension of diversity to the Supreme Court as a former public defender. She was nominated by Biden and confirmed by the Senate last year to the  D.C. Circuit to take the seat held by now-Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland.

In her most prominent case, she ruled in 2019 that former White House Counsel Donald McGahn had to testify at a House impeachment hearing.

The D.C. Circuit has served as a springboard for several future justices, including the current court’s Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Kruger, 45,  a California Supreme Court justice since 2015,  developed a reputation as a careful, incremental jurist.

If either woman is chosen, she would be the third Black justice and the sixth woman in the court’s history of more than 230 years.

“My first thought is just that it moves us one step closer in a long journey towards racial justice,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “It’s really about what you want America to be over the next 50 years.”

However, critics say that while the new pick will revive spirits among Democrats worried about their decline in national polls, it won’t change the right-wing ideological cast of the current court, after the Trump-era appointments of three  conservative justices shifted the nation’s highest court sharply to the right.

The Los Angeles Times adds that appointing the nation’s first Black female Supreme Court justice, as Biden has pledged to do, could blunt the political headwinds Democrats are facing in the November election.

“It could energize people that have been in many ways demoralized around voting,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said.