WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden planned to meet in the Oval Office on Tuesday with senators overseeing the confirmation hearing of his Supreme Court nominee as the White House moves toward naming a pick by the end of the month.
Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, was scheduled to meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the White House said. It will be Biden’s first formal meeting with the senators to discuss the confirmation process, after last week’s announcement by Justice Stephen Breyer that he will be retiring at the end of the court’s current term.
Biden reaffirmed his commitment last week to nominate a Black woman to the court, and said he planned to make a pick by the end of February, in what could be one of his most consequential decisions as president. He said would seek the advice and consent of senators in both parties before naming a nominee.
“The president is going to host Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley at the White House to consult with them and hear their advice about this vacancy,” press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. “Chairman Durbin has worked on seven Supreme Court confirmation processes. The president has also worked for many years with Senator Grassley, and respects his knowledge and views. So this will be part of that process.”
Durbin said Monday that he had spoken to Republican senators who sounded open to supporting a pick by Biden. But with Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the Senate, they won’t need any Republican votes to confirm Biden’s nominee if they stick together.
Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who has voted for many of Biden’s judges, spoke highly of one of the candidates whom the White House has said Biden is considering — U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs of South Carolina.
In addition to Childs, other high-profile contenders include Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. A source familiar with the White House’s process said last week that two other women are also under consideration: New York University law professor Melissa Murray and U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright of Minnesota.
Psaki said Monday that more than those three are currently under consideration.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
