Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) on Monday said President Biden’s promise to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court without reviewing all potential candidates is “offensive” and an “insult to black women.”
“The fact that he’s willing to make a promise at the outset, that it must be a Black woman, I gotta say that’s offensive,” Cruz said on his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz. “You know, you know Black women are what, 6 percent of the US population? He’s saying to 94 percent of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible.'”
Black women accounted for 7 percent of the U.S. population in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“And he’s also saying — it’s actually an insult to Black women,” Cruz added. “If he came and said, ‘I’m gonna put the best jurist on the court’ and he looked at a number of people and he ended up nominating a Black woman, he could credibly say, ‘OK I’m nominating the person who’s most qualified.’ He’s not even pretending to say that. He, he’s saying, ‘If you’re a white guy, tough luck. If you’re a white woman, tough luck. You don’t qualify.'”
Biden first promised to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court during the spring 2020 presidential primaries. Now, with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer retiring, Biden will have the opportunity to fill a vacancy on the High Court and says he plans to honor his promise.
“I’ve made no decision except one: The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character experience and integrity,” Biden said. “And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue in my view. I made that commitment during my campaign for president, and I will keep that commitment.”
The list of likely candidates includes federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer law clerk, and Leondra Kruger, a justice on California’s Supreme Court.
Senator Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) said that Biden’s nominee will be a “beneficiary of affirmative action.” Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said in a tweet, “Would be nice if Pres Biden chose a Supreme Court nominee who was best qualified without a race/gender litmus test. That’s what I did when I picked Tim Scott as Senator of South Carolina.”
Meanwhile, a new ABC News/ Ipsos poll found that 76 percent of Americans want Biden to consider “all possible nominees,” while only 23 percent want him to automatically follow through on his promise to nominate a black woman.
Just 28 percent of nonwhite Americans want Biden to consider only black women for the soon-to-be open seat, the poll found. Even a majority of Democrats — 54 percent — prefer that Biden weigh all possible nominees.