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WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to succeed retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, making history by picking a Black woman for the nation’s highest court.

“I’m proud to announce that I am nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court,” Biden said, adding: “She is one of our nation’s brightest legal minds and will be an exceptional Justice.” The president will officially unveil his decision later Friday at an appearance with Jackson, the White House said.

“Because of her diverse and broad public service, Judge Jackson has a unique appreciation of how critical it is for the justice system to be fair and impartial. With multiple law enforcement officials in her family, she also has a personal understanding of the stakes of the legal system,” a posting on the White House website said.

Jackson was appointed to the federal bench in 2013 and was backed by three Republican senators last year when she was elevated to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, seen as a staging ground for aspiring Supreme Court justices.

With one liberal justice replacing another the announcement will not reshape the ideological make-up of the court — but it is a huge moment for Biden personally and politically.

The pick presents an opportunity for the administration to pivot from a spate of bad news in recent months, with Biden’s domestic agenda stalled amid runaway inflation and plummeting poll numbers.

Political attacks

Black Americans are among Biden’s strongest supporters, with two-thirds approving of his job performance, according to a CBS poll released last week. His popularity among the key demographic however declined over the months following his inauguration and he has not recovered the lost ground.

In his first year in office, Biden nominated 62 women to the federal judiciary, including 24 Black women. But there are still only a few dozen active Black female judges on the federal bench out of almost 800 total.

The president had promised during his successful 2020 White House run to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in US history. The pledge dismayed some Republicans who thought ruling out candidates of other backgrounds would further politicize the judiciary.

Dismissing the objections, Biden shortlisted a handful of top Black women to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, including southern jurists J. Michelle Childs and Leandra Kruger.

Reflecting Washington’s bitter political divisions, at least two top Republicans depicted his eventual nominee as the darling of what they called the American far left.

Lindsey Graham had argued that it was “about time” a Black woman sat on the bench but the senator went to bat for Childs, who is from his home state of South Carolina. He complained that Biden’s choice of Jackson meant “the radical left has won President Biden over again.”