Biden Consults With Key Senators on Supreme Court Nominee

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden sought the advice of two key senators on his selection of a U.S. Supreme Court nominee as he digs into the legal and political considerations around the choice he's planning to make in the coming weeks.

Biden met with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin and ranking member Chuck Grassley on Tuesday as he considers a replacement for Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced last week that he intends to retire at the end of the current court term.

“I'm serious when I say it, I want the advice of the Senate,” Biden told reporters at the meeting, where he was also joined by Vice President Kamala Harris. “What I'm looking for is a candidate with character, with the qualities of a judge in terms of being courteous to the folks before them and treating people with respect.”

He said the nominee must have a “judicial philosophy” that includes support for “unenumerated rights,” a phrase that refers to rights like abortion that aren't mentioned in the Constitution. Biden also said the nominee must believe that all constitutional amendments “mean something,” including the 9th Amendment, which says that people retain rights beyond those explicitly protected in the document.

Biden said last week that he intends to announce a nominee by the end of February and that the person “will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity.” He has committed to nominate a Black woman to the high court for the first time, following through on a promise he made as he battled for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

Some Republicans object, saying Biden's approach excludes other qualified nominees. Biden “has elevated race and sex as the most important criteria, and I wish he wouldn't disqualify everybody in America who doesn't meet that criteria,” said Senator Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican. “I think you should pick the most qualified person. So we'll see what comes up.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke with Biden Tuesday to discuss the nomination. McConnell “emphasized the importance of a nominee who believes in judicial independence and will resist all efforts by politicians to bully the court or to change the structure of the judicial system,” according to a statement from his office.

After the meeting, Durbin told reporters Biden said he expects the Senate to confirm his nominee within about 40 days, which the president cited as average for the process. That would be longer than the roughly monthlong time frame Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called for -- the pace at which Republicans worked in 2020 as they rushed to confirm then-President Donald Trump's nominee Amy Coney Barrett ahead of the November election.

That process, from the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Barrett's confirmation, spanned less than six weeks.

Former Senator Doug Jones, an Alabama Democrat, will act as the White House's handler for the nomination, guiding Biden's nominee through the Senate confirmation process, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the White House is still working to complete the team who will temporarily join the administration for the confirmation battle.

For Biden, who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee during the hearings of six Supreme Court nominees and served on the panel during several others, the nomination process is a key milestone in his presidency. Biden's advisers began preparing for a possible vacancy before he took office and he was given biographies and other materials last year to review in anticipation of a vacancy.

After Tuesday's meeting, Durbin and Grassley both said that the president did not discuss any specific candidates with them and spoke in broader terms about trying to appeal not just to Democrats with his choice.

“He wants to work with both sides,” said Durbin, who had previously indicated that he's begun outreach to Republicans who might be open to voting for Biden's pick. Maine Senator Susan Collins confirmed Tuesday that she's among those who have heard from the second-ranking Senate Democrat.

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, meanwhile, met Tuesday with McConnell to plot their strategy. Participants said there was no talk of boycotting the hearings, a tactic Democrats weighed and rejected after Barrett was nominated. Instead, they discussed plans to hire more Republican staff to ensure the confirmation hearings are rigorous.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior Republican on the committee, said he expects a smooth process for Biden's pick. The question is whether the president selects someone any Republicans will support, he said.

Public discussions about the search have focused on three candidates -- D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, 45, and South Carolina District Court Judge Michelle Childs, 55.

Graham has praised Childs, saying on CBS's “Face the Nation” on Sunday that she is “highly qualified” and “one of the most decent people I've ever met.”

But the White House has stressed that Biden is considering a larger group of possibilities. In an apparent reference to the three women who are seen as front-runners, Psaki said Monday that Biden has “a list that is bigger than ‘a few.'”

The White House has declined to release a list but did confirm last week that Childs is under consideration after the Judiciary Committee delayed her confirmation process for the D.C. Circuit, to which Biden nominated her in December.