Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Biden prepares to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. What’s next?

The Supreme Court
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Originally published by The 19th.

With the pending retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, President Joe Biden is poised to make good on his pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the nation’s highest court.

There’s a lot we don’t know: who Biden’s choice will be, the speed at which this whole process will work, or what questions will emerge as senators consider the nomination. But we do know this Supreme Court confirmation will largely work the same as others. Here’s a guide on what to expect and what we’ll be looking at for potential nominees and the months ahead.


What will Biden do next on the nomination?

In a news conference with Breyer on January 27, Biden said he intends to announce his choice for Supreme Court nominee before the end of February, which would set the Senate up to begin hearings before Breyer officially steps down. Breyer’s retirement will take effect when the court recesses in June or July, assuming that his successor has been nominated and confirmed.

At the White House, designated staffers typically handle the recommending and vetting of court nominees, and presidents also consult with senators in their party before announcing the choice.

As of 2017, Supreme Court nominees are confirmed by a simple majority. With the Senate evenly split between the two major parties, getting all the Democrats on board will be crucial for the success of Biden’s nominee.

How does the Senate confirmation process work?

The Senate Judiciary Committee will be charged with collecting documents, records and background information to prepare for one or more days of confirmation hearings.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin have not given an outline of the process for Biden’s first nomination yet. Durbin told NBC’s “Meet the Press” there will be a “timely” confirmation process, though it will depend on who the nominee is.

“If the person has been before the committee seeking approval for a circuit court, then the committee knows quite a bit about that person, and that can be taken into consideration,” he said.

During the proceedings, the nominee will answer questions about their work experiences, judicial record and interpretation of constitutional law. Witnesses both for and against the nominee will also appear. The Judiciary Committee then votes on whether to recommend that the full Senate confirm the nominee, reject them, or proceed with no recommendation either way. The full Senate will then debate the nomination before proceeding to a vote.

The average length of time from nomination to confirmation is a little more than two months, according to the Congressional Research Service. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed within 27 days of her nomination, making her one of the fastest confirmations.

The short list: What do we know about potential Supreme Court nominees?

In his news conference with Breyer, Biden reiterated his intention to nominate a Black woman to the nation’s highest court.

“I’ve made no decision except one: The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Biden said.

Three names have emerged as the most likely candidates: Ketanji Brown Jackson, Leondra Kruger and J. Michelle Childs.

Jackson, 51, who was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in June, is widely considered the front-runner. Before this position she was a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., for eight years. She also served on then-President Barack Obama’s Sentencing Commission from 2010 until 2014 and worked as an assistant federal public defender for two years.

Kruger, 45, is an associate justice with the California Supreme Court who has served in that role since 2014. Prior to that, she worked under the Obama administration as an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general from 2007 until 2013, where she argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government. She also worked as a deputy assistant attorney general.

Childs, 55, is a federal district judge whose qualifications have been touted by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a powerful Democratic figure in South Carolina politics whose endorsement of Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign helped propel him to victory in the state’s primary. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, also of South Carolina, sang Childs’s praises, telling CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “I can’t think of a better person for President Biden to consider to the Supreme Court.” Childs has been a district judge in South Carolina since 2010 and was a state circuit judge from 2006 to 2010.

In recent history, the overwhelming majority of Supreme Court justices have been selected from federal appeals courts, giving Jackson an edge over Kruger and Childs, but there is no requirement for Biden to follow this trend. Other names that have been circulated for the vacancy include Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., and Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University.

What is the significance of nominating a Black woman to the court?

There has never been a Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina, is the only woman of color to serve on the high court. Justice Clarence Thomas and the former justice Thurgood Marshall, both Black men, are the only other people of color to serve on the court.

The lack of racial and professional diversity on the court has led to growing demands for change. In addition to being overwhelmingly White, justices tend to be Ivy League-educated and former prosecutors or corporate lawyers. Beyond the Supreme Court itself, the traditional pipelines to the court, including prestigious judicial clerkships and federal judicial appointments also lack diversity.

Of the 793 full-time federal judges, 40 are Black women. Biden has made diversifying the federal bench a top priority since he took office. Seventy-eight percent of his confirmed judges so far have been women, and about 57 percent have been people of color, representing the most diverse selection of judicial appointees of any presidency.

What else do we know about Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement?

Since Biden took office, Justice Stephen Breyer, the court’s oldest justice, has faced unprecedented pressure by lawmakers, activists and members of the public calling for him to retire so that Biden could appoint a new justice as soon as possible. Many feared that without Breyer’s retirement, the court’s next vacancy might occur during a Republican presidency, which would make the court’s conservative super majority even stronger.

In public statements, Breyer initially resisted the political demands for him to step down, but on January 26 news broke that he would indeed retire after 28 years on the court. The next day, Breyer released a letter of resignation and appeared with Biden in a press conference to officially make the announcement.

Amanda Becker contributed reporting.

Read More

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals
Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica

Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals

Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care.

Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protecting the U.S. Press: The PRESS Act and What It Could Mean for Journalists

The Protect Reporters from Excessive State Suppression (PRESS) Act aims to fill the national shield law gap by providing two protections for journalists.

Getty Images, Manu Vega

Protecting the U.S. Press: The PRESS Act and What It Could Mean for Journalists

The First Amendment protects journalists during the news-gathering and publication processes. For example, under the First Amendment, reporters cannot be forced to report on an issue. However, the press is not entitled to different legal protections compared to a general member of the public under the First Amendment.

In the United States, there are protections for journalists beyond the First Amendment, including shield laws that protect journalists from pressure to reveal sources or information during news-gathering. 48 states and the District of Columbia have shield laws, but protections vary widely. There is currently no federal shield law. As of 2019, at least 22 journalists have been jailed in the U.S. for refusing to comply with requests to reveal sources of information. Seven other journalists have been jailed and fined for the same reason.

Keep ReadingShow less
Democrats Score Strategic Wins Amid Redistricting Battles

Democrat Donkey is winning arm wrestling match against Republican elephant

AI generated image

Democrats Score Strategic Wins Amid Redistricting Battles

Democrats are quietly building momentum in the 2025 election cycle, notching two key legislative flips in special elections and gaining ground in early polling ahead of the 2026 midterms. While the victories are modest in number, they signal a potential shift in voter sentiment — and a brewing backlash against Republican-led redistricting efforts.

Out of 40 special elections held across the United States so far in 2025, only two seats have changed party control — both flipping from Republican to Democrat.

Keep ReadingShow less
Policing or Occupation? Trump’s Militarizing America’s Cities Sets a Dangerous Precedent

A DC Metropolitan Police Department car is parked near a rally against the Trump Administration's federal takeover of the District of Columbia, outside of the AFL-CIO on August 11, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Policing or Occupation? Trump’s Militarizing America’s Cities Sets a Dangerous Precedent

President Trump announced the activation of hundreds of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., along with the deployment of federal agents—including more than 100 from the FBI. This comes despite Justice Department data showing that violent crime in D.C. fell 35% from 2023 to 2024, reaching its lowest point in over three decades. These aren’t abstract numbers—they paint a picture of a city safer than it has been in a generation, with fewer homicides, assaults, and robberies than at any point since the early 1990s.

The contradiction could not be more glaring: the same president who, on January 6, 2021, stalled for hours as a violent uprising engulfed the Capitol is now rushing to “liberate” a city that—based on federal data—hasn’t been this safe in more than thirty years. Then, when democracy itself was under siege, urgency gave way to dithering; today, with no comparable emergency—only vague claims of lawlessness—he mobilizes troops for a mission that looks less like public safety and more like political theater. The disparity between those two moments is more than irony; it is a blueprint for how power can be selectively applied, depending on whose power is threatened.

Keep ReadingShow less