WASHINGTON — Georgia’s Jon Ossoff met at the White House with the president, vice president and other Democrats on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to talk about next steps in the process of hiring a new Supreme Court justice.
Thursday’s meeting was another step in President Joe Biden’s outreach campaign as he decides which jurist to nominate to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement two weeks ago.
The president has not confirmed which candidates have made it onto his shortlist, but he has said he will fulfill a campaign promise to appoint the court’s first Black female justice. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Biden intends to pick a candidate who can garner bipartisan support.
“He’s going to choose a nominee whose qualifications, record, character, and devotion to the Constitution and rule of law make them deserving of support from both sides of the aisle,” she said. “And there are many candidates at the top of their fields who fit that profile and who have received bipartisan support in the past.”
Ossoff and his Georgia counterpart, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, both said they don’t expect to have any trouble getting behind the eventual nominee. Both said they support the goal of making the high court more diverse while stopping short of saying Biden’s pick must be a Black woman.
“I think we need more diversity on the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court should be representative of the United States,” Ossoff told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
There have been just two Black male justices over the court’s 233-year history and five women, including one woman of color: Justice Sonia Sotomayor. That means only seven of the 115 justices in history have not been white men.
Warnock said there would be benefits to more diversity in the federal court system.
“I think that it is past time for us to have a Supreme Court and a federal judiciary that is resourced by the wide range of perspectives and experience that represent the American people,” he said.
Ossoff will have the more visible role in the confirmation process via his membership on the Judiciary Committee, which will hold nomination hearings with the candidate and eventually decide whether to recommend her to the full Senate.
The Atlanta Democrat had already been in contact with the White House even before Thursday’s visit.
“What I have encouraged and what I’m confident the president will do,” Ossoff said, “is to put forward a highly experienced jurist with a reputation for impartial and dispassionate application of the law who will uphold the Constitution and the rule of law without fear or favor.”
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