Thursday, 28 November 2024

Supreme Court Justice Kamala Harris? CNN Panelist Floats Idea

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A CNN commentator floated the idea of Joe Biden nominating Kamala Harris to the U.S. Supreme Court before he exits office in January.

Legal analyst and attorney Bakari Sanders suggested Harris could replace 70-year-old liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

WATCH:

Per Newsweek:

Harris was San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before being elected senator, and then vice president. While electing an attorney with no judicial experience to the court is unusual, it is not unprecedented.

President Barack Obama nominated Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court justice, even though she had never been a judge. Chief Justice John Roberts served for two years on the Washington, D.C., appeals court before he was nominated.

When four party-aligned independents are considered, Democrats currently have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, which votes by simple majority on presidential nominations to the Supreme Court.

Republicans just won a Senate majority in the November 5 elections, but the new senators will not take their seats until January, allowing Biden a narrow window to nominate a Supreme Court justice if Sotomayor agrees to retire.

From The Post Millennial:

Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointment in 2009, is 70 years old and the oldest justice. The Supreme Court skews conservative with a 6-3 majority and Sotomayor is one of only three Democrat justices serving, alongside Elena Kagan and Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Biden selected Jackson in much the same way he selected his vice president, based on race and gender.

A new appointee would have to be confirmed by the Senate, which will only be a Democrat majority until the end of Biden’s term. The Tuesday election flipped the Senate to Republican control, which will take effect with the new term. In the last year of his term, Obama attempted to appoint a Supreme Court Justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia. He appointed Merrick Garland in March 2016, but the then-Republican-led Senate under current Minority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to move forward with the confirmation, instead banking on a GOP victory during that election season.

After Trump was elected in 2016, he appointed Neil Gorsuch to replace Scalia, who was confirmed by the Senate. He also was able to appoint Brett Kavanaugh, who took his seat on the bench after extremely contentious confirmation hearings, as well as Amy Coney Barrett. Those three joined the three conservative justices already on the bench, Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and John Roberts and Samuel Alito, both George W. Bush appointees.

Garland, who had been snubbed by the Senate GOP, was later made the attorney general under Joe Biden.


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