Graham: Nominating Black woman to US Supreme Court would not be affirmative action
US Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham says that President Joe Biden's vow to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court would not be "affirmative action."
US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced Thursday that he will retire after almost three decades on the court. Biden said he will by the end of February nominate a Black woman to replace Breyer.
Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, Graham said, "Put me in the camp of making sure the court and other institutions look like America. You know, we make a real effort as Republicans to recruit women and people of color to make the party look more like America. Affirmative action is picking somebody not as well qualified for past wrongs."
His remarks come after Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker said in an interview last week that any Black female candidate Biden nominates to the court to replace Breyer would be a "beneficiary" of affirmative action.
On Friday, a White House spokesperson said US District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs was among those being considered by the Democratic president for nomination to the Supreme Court.
"Judge Childs is among multiple individuals under consideration for the Supreme Court, and we are not going to move her nomination on the Court of Appeals while the president is considering her for this vacancy," said Andrew Bates, the White House spokesperson.
Although Graham praised Childs as a highly qualified candidate, he did not say whether he would vote in favor of her nomination.
Meanwhile, Republican Senator Susan Collins told ABC’s This Week that she believed Biden’s promise had unnecessarily politicized the situation, although she claimed she would welcome the confirmation of the first female Black justice to the bench.
"George, I would welcome the appointment of a Black female to the Court. I believe that diversity benefits the Supreme Court. But the way that the president has handled this nomination has been clumsy at best,” she said.
“It adds to the further perception that the Court is a political institution like Congress when it is not supposed to be,” she noted.
Other names that are likely to be on Biden's list include Ketanji Brown Jackson, a federal judge; Leondra Kruger, a justice on the California Supreme Court; and Sherrilyn Ifill, a prominent civil rights lawyer who heads the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
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