GOP Sens. Graham, Scott disappointed SC Judge Childs is not Biden’s Supreme Court pick
South Carolina’s Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott said President Joe Biden missed an opportunity for widespread bipartisan support for his Supreme Court nominee by not picking federal Judge Michelle Childs.
Graham blasted Biden’s choice of federal appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat on the high court.
With House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Graham pushed for Childs, a U.S. District judge, saying she would have received as many as 60 votes in the evenly split U.S. Senate.
“If media reports are accurate, and Judge Jackson has been chosen as the Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Breyer, it means the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again,” Graham said. “The attacks by the Left on Judge Childs from South Carolina apparently worked.”
Minutes later, Scott issued a statement saying Childs would have been an “excellent nominee.”
“I am disappointed that President Biden missed the opportunity to nominate a highly-qualified judge who would have garnered widespread bipartisan support,” Scott said.
Biden announced Jackson as his nominee Friday afternoon, and Jackson also made remarks.
In a call with reporters Friday after Jackson’s nomination, Clyburn responded to some Republican criticism of her.
“I do not see Judge Brown Jackson as being radical at all.”
Clyburn said he reached out to Graham Friday but the two hadn’t spoken as of his interview with reporters. He also called and spoke with Scott, thanking him.
“All of us have personal preferences. All of us have regional biases,” he said. “All of us are Americans, and what I’m trying to do is to make the greatness of this country accessible and affordable for all.”
Clyburn also said he spoke to Biden Friday morning. The president’s announcement of his Supreme Court nominee came exactly two years after he promised on a debate stage in Charleston, S.C. that he would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if he was elected president.
“I want to thank the president for not just keeping that promise, but for doing it in a way that makes all of us proud,” Clyburn said.
On top of her South Carolina roots, Graham backed Childs because she did not graduate from an Ivy League school. Childs holds degrees from the University of South Florida and the University of South Carolina Law School.
Jackson is a graduate of Harvard University.
“The Harvard-Yale train to the Supreme Court continues to run unabated,” Graham said.
Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he expects Jackson will have a “respectful but interesting hearing.”
Aimee Allison, president and founder of Oakland, California-based She the People, a political network of women of color, called Graham’s criticism “strange.”
“It’s not a valid criticism. To have someone with lived experience to bring that to the court is wonderful,” she said, adding as for the Ivy League issue, “They didn’t have trouble with the last two nominees.”
The State reporter Caitlin Byrd and McClatchyDC chief congressional correspondent David Lightman contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 10:51 AM.
