{"id":124970,"date":"2022-02-01T22:32:26","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T22:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=124970"},"modified":"2022-02-01T22:32:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T22:32:26","slug":"biden-picks-former-senator-to-shepherd-u-s-supreme-court-nomination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/markets\/biden-picks-former-senator-to-shepherd-u-s-supreme-court-nomination\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden picks former senator to shepherd U.S. Supreme Court nomination"},"content":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden, who plans to unveil his U.S. Supreme Court pick by the end of the month, has chosen former Senator Doug Jones to guide the confirmation process for the White House and conferred on Tuesday with key lawmakers including the Senate\u2019s top Republican.<\/p> Biden met at the White House with the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which handles judicial nominations, and spoke separately with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who last week warned the Democratic president not to \u201coutsource this important decision to the radical left.\u201d<\/p>\n The president, who pledged to name a Black woman to the lifetime Supreme Court post for the first time in U.S. history, selected Jones, who represented Alabama in the Senate from 2018 to 2021, as part of a team aiming to ensure a smooth confirmation process in the Democratic-led chamber, according to a source familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s nominee would replace Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, who last week announced plans to retire at the end of the court\u2019s current term.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m serious when I say that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent, if we can arrive on who the nominee should be,\u201d Biden said as he met with Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, and the panel\u2019s top Republican, Chuck Grassley, citing the Senate\u2019s responsibilities regarding federal judicial nominees under the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n Biden reiterated the timetable he announced last week, saying: \u201cI intend to make this decision and get it to my colleagues by the end of this month. That\u2019s my hope.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House has said that a veteran team of advisers, including Chief of Staff Ron Klain and White House Counsel Dana Remus, will help lead the process for selecting the nominee. The nominee will have a round of visits with senators, followed by confirmation hearings, a vote in the committee and a final vote by the full Senate.<\/p>\n Jones, considered as a potential attorney general pick for Biden, will help usher her through that process.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s selection will not shift the court\u2019s ideological balance. It has six conservative justices, three of whom were named by former President Donald Trump, and three liberal justices.<\/p>\n McConnell, who oversaw a change to Senate rules that allowed Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority vote during Trump\u2019s tenure, also spoke to Biden. That rules change means that the Senate now could confirm Biden\u2019s nominee without any Republicans voting in favor.<\/p>\n \u201cHe emphasized the importance of a nominee who believes in judicial independence and will resist all efforts by politicians to bully the court or to change the structure of the judicial system,\u201d a McConnell spokesperson said.<\/p>\n During a hearing earlier on Tuesday, Durbin laid out his expectations for the process of confirming the nominee.<\/p>\n \u201cThis committee will undertake a fair and timely process to examine her record and determine her fitness for the court. That process must not only be fair to members of this committee, but also to the nominee herself. And so it is my expectation that this committee and all its members will treat the nominee with respect and an open mind,\u201d Durbin said.<\/p>\n Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seen as a leading contender for the job, penned her first ruling as an appeals court judge on Tuesday, striking down a policy begun under Trump that had restricted the bargaining power of federal-sector labor unions.<\/p>\n The ruling could help burnish Jackson\u2019s reputation with organized labor and Democrats. Labor unions are an important constituency for Democrats.<\/p>\n