BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- US President Joseph Biden said on the 27th that he plans to appoint an African-American woman as a supreme court justice at the end of February, replacing the liberal justice Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement plan on the same day.
Breyer, 83, was appointed supreme court justice in 1994 by then-Democratic President Bill Clinton, the oldest of nine incumbent justices.
He wrote to Biden on the 27th, confirming his retirement when the Supreme Court adjourned at the end of June. Speaking at the White House later that day, Breyer said he hoped the United States, a pluralistic country, would rely on the rule of law to resolve deep internal divisions.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 to mark the first anniversary of the Capitol Hill riots. (Xinhua News Agency, Pool Photo / Photo by Michael Reynolds)
Biden said he promised to nominate African-American women for the U.S. Supreme Court during his presidential campaign and will now keep his promise.
He said that the choice of justice had not yet been decided and that the candidates examined needed to have extraordinary qualifications, experience and character. "This person will be the first African-American woman in the United States to be nominated as a U.S. Supreme Court justice." In my opinion, this should have been done long ago. ”
Under the new rules that the Senate began enforcing in 2017, candidates for supreme court justice only need a simple majority of support in the whole house to pass. Democrats hope to complete Breyer's nomination for a successor by the November congressional midterm elections.
U.S. Supreme Court justices can serve for life, conservative and liberal justices around abortion, gun ownership, the death penalty, health care, homosexuality and other socially sensitive issues of fierce competition, justice candidates are regarded as an important battlefield in the struggle between the republican and democratic parties. The change of justice is also one of the most political issues of concern to the American people.
During the tenure of the previous president, Donald Trump, he successfully appointed three conservative justices, changing the number of conservatives and liberals from 5 to 4 to 6 to 3. Biden's nominee will succeed the liberal Breyer, so it won't change the numbers.
This is the U.S. Supreme Court filmed in Washington, D.C., on October 26, 2020. (Xinhua News Agency, photo by Shen Ting)
According to the Associated Press analysis, Biden's public opinion support rate has fallen to a new low, and African-American women have been marginalized in American politics, and Biden has fulfilled his promises to help increase public opinion support and stabilize the voter base.
According to the Associated Press Voter Intent Survey, 93 percent of African-American women who voted during the 2020 presidential election voted for Biden, a higher percentage than Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential election as a Democratic candidate. African-American women make up 12 percent of Biden's supporters. They played a key role in Biden's victories in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Among them, in Georgia, where the proportion of African-American residents is high, Biden narrowly won with 12,000 votes, while 95% of local African-American women voted for Biden, accounting for 35% of Biden's total votes in Georgia.
Biden's african-American female justice is expected to become the sixth female justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated by then-Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to become the first female justice on the Supreme Court. She retired in 2006 to focus on caring for her husband, who suffers from Alzheimer's. Ruth Bud Ginsburg, the second female justice on the Supreme Court, died at home in September 2020 at the age of 87.
At this stage, Breyer's main successor includes: 51-year-old Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 55-year-old Judge michelle Childz of the Federal District Court for the District of South Carolina, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Krueger, 45. (Guo Qian)