“That person will be the first African-American woman ever nominated in the United States,” said the President of the United States.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden , said Thursday that he will announce his nominee to replace progressive Justice Steven Breyer on the Supreme Court before the end of February and confirmed that it will be an African-American woman .

Biden appeared before the press with Breyer shortly after the judge made his retirement official, and confirmed that he will fulfill the promise he made in the 2020 election campaign to choose a black woman for the vacancy of the country’s highest judicial body.

“My intention is to announce my decision before the end of February ,” said the president, who appeared at the White House with Breyer.

Biden said he has not yet made a decision on who he will nominate for the Supreme Court, but said it will be someone with “extraordinary qualifications,” great “character,” “experience” and “integrity,” as well as the same “decency.” that Breyer.

“ That person will be the first African-American woman ever nominated in the United States . It is something that is already late. During the campaign I promised to do it and I will fully uphold what I said I would do, “said the ruler.

Approval of a new judge depends on the Senate, where Democrats have a majority but cannot afford to lose a single vote.

Biden assured that he will consult members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans , and that he will seek the advice of legal experts, lawyers and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was the attorney general in California and worked on the Senate judiciary committee.

Although Biden avoided speculating, some of the names that sound the strongest are those of Leondra Kruger, current judge on the California Supreme Court, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Barack Obama already considered in 2016 for another Supreme Court vacancy and who she worked as a court clerk for Breyer himself.

In all of US history, only two African-Americans (Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas) and five women, including three of its current members: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett.

The US Supreme Court is currently made up of nine lifetime justices: six conservatives and three progressives, including Breyer.

Biden’s nominee will be from a similar ideological line to Breyer, so it won’t change the current balance of the highest court, which hasn’t been this conservative since the 1930s.

 

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