J Michelle Childs, a South Carolina judge among contenders to be nominated to the supreme court by Joe Biden, has received strong support from an unlikely source: Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator and leading ally of Donald Trump.
“I can’t think of a better person for President Biden to consider for the supreme court than Michelle Childs,” Graham, a member of the Senate judiciary committee that will consider Biden’s pick, told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
“She has wide support in our state. She’s considered to be a fair-minded, highly gifted jurist. She’s one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”
Biden must nominate a justice to succeed Stephen Breyer, the 83-year-old liberal who announced his retirement last week. The nomination will not change the balance of a court on which conservatives outnumber liberals 6-3 but Biden has vowed to install the first Black female justice.
On Friday, the Mississippi Republican senator Roger Wicker criticised Biden, saying he would nominate a justice because of her race at a time when “the supreme court is … hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota”.
Wicker attracted rebuke, particularly because presidents have chosen by measures other than experience before. Ronald Reagan vowed to put a woman on the court for the first time. Donald Trump promised to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a woman. Both made good on their pledge.
Also on Sunday, Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican Democrats might hope would support Biden’s pick, told ABC’s This Week: “The way that the president has handled this nomination has been clumsy at best. It adds to the further perception that the court is a political institution like Congress when it is not supposed to be.”
Most observers would counter that the court most certainly is a political institution, and only politicians – and justices – like to pretend otherwise.
Collins also sought to split hairs, saying Reagan said he would like to appoint a woman “as one of his supreme court justices”. In fact, during his 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter, Reagan said “one of the first supreme court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can possibly find”.
On Sunday, the CBS host Margaret Brennan said: “Nikki Haley of South Carolina also tweeted the president should not have a race or gender litmus test. President Reagan promised to nominate a woman, Sandra Day O’Connor. So why is this different?”
Graham said: “Well, it’s not different to me. Put me in the camp of making sure the court and other institutions look like America … affirmative action is picking somebody not as well qualified, for past wrongs. Michelle Childs is incredibly qualified. There’s no affirmative action component if you pick her.
“President Reagan said running for office that he wanted to put the first female on the court. Whether you like it or not, Joe Biden said, ‘I’m going to pick an African American woman to serve on the supreme court.’ I believe there are plenty of qualified African American women, conservative and liberal, that could go on to the court. So I don’t see Michelle Childs as an act of affirmative action.
“… In the history of our country, we’ve only had five women serve and two African American men, so let’s make the court more like America. Qualifications have to be the biggest consideration. And as to Michelle Childs, I think she’s qualified.”
Graham also said he supported Childs as a product of the public University of South Carolina, “somebody who’s not at Harvard or Yale”.
“She’s highly qualified,” he repeated. “She’s a good character. And we’ll see how she does if she’s nominated. But I cannot say anything bad about Michelle Childs. She is an awesome person.”
Graham’s enthusiasm might have surprised both Wicker, who said he thought Biden’s pick would not get a single Republican vote, and observers of Graham’s long-term loyalty to Trump. Such fealty came through strongly when Graham defended Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second court pick, through a brutal confirmation fight which has prompted Republicans including Wicker to hint at revenge to come.
Graham told CBS any Biden nominee “will not be treated like Judge Kavanaugh. But I think I made it pretty clear I’m a big admirer of Judge Childs”.
His admiration may also have startled backers of Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Washington DC judge who many think has a strong chance.
James Clyburn, the South Carolina congressman whose endorsement both secured Biden’s promise to install a Black woman and boosted him to the Democratic nomination, is a known Childs supporter. The House Democratic whip told CBS on Sunday he spoke to Biden about Childs “several months ago”.
The nomination of any Black woman, Clyburn said, would send a message “to every little child growing up under moderate circumstances, needing the entire community to help raise [her], getting scholarships to go up to school because she couldn’t afford to go otherwise, going to public schools because you didn’t get an offer from one of the big private schools”.
That message, he said, would be: “You’ve got just as much of a chance to benefit from the greatness of this country as everybody else … That’s the kind of conversation I had with [Joe] Biden way back when he was running for president.”
