Clyburn hails Biden’s pick for Supreme Court: ‘Outstanding’

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Friday praised President Biden’s pick of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court, characterizing her as an exemplary jurist while hailing the president for keeping his vow to nominate the first Black woman to the high court in its history.

“She is outstanding, she will make a great member of the Supreme Court,” Clyburn, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement and the No. 3 House Democrat, said in an interview with The Hill’s Steve Clemons during an event Friday.

“I applaud the president for keeping that promise.”

Jackson, whom Biden announced just hours earlier would be his choice to replace outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer, was not Clyburn’s first pick.

Indeed, the South Carolina Democrat had made it well known, both publicly and privately, that he wanted to see a home-state jurist — federal Judge J. Michelle Childs — fill the seat.

Clyburn’s advocacy for Childs stretched back at least to early 2020, when Biden was struggling amid the Democratic primary and Clyburn suggested he would get a boost in South Carolina by promising to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. Biden did so, and his primary victory in the Palmetto State shifted the momentum in that contest, ultimately helping him win the Democratic nomination and later the presidency.

On Friday, exactly two years after making that promise, Biden made good on it, nominating Jackson, who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, to replace Breyer.

“She is one of our nation’s brightest legal minds and will be an exceptional Justice,” Biden tweeted.

In championing Childs, Clyburn had made the case that the Supreme Court should feature diversity not only when it comes to race and gender, but also as it relates to education, professional experience and regional upbringing.

Childs is a product of public schools, getting her undergraduate degree at the University of South Florida before moving to the University of South Carolina for her law degree. Jackson, by contrast, attended Harvard — the latest in a long line of Supreme Court nominees to originate in the Ivy League.

“I am very, very concerned that we take on this elitist kind of atmosphere when we pretend that the only way you can demonstrate leadership qualifications is to go to certain schools,” Clyburn said last month. “I don’t think that’s right.”

Yet Childs had also faced criticism from some liberals concerned about her background as a lawyer defending businesses from employee lawsuits. Clyburn had dismissed those criticisms, suggesting that chapter was just another part of a uniquely diverse experience that made Childs even more qualified for the job.

Still, Clyburn told The Washington Post last week that his advocacy for Childs was promotional rather than any type of ultimatum — “I don’t believe in ultimatums,” he said. And if he was disappointed at all with Biden’s choice, he wasn’t showing it on Friday.

“Never before now has there ever been an African American woman seriously discussed for the United States Supreme Court,” he told Clemons. “I will support this nomination, as well as this jurist that I expect to be in place very soon.”