In fact, it’s past time for a qualified black female to be nominated and approved to serve on the highest court in the land. And there certainly is no shortage of super talented black women to choose from: Kamala Harris, California’s personable 51-year-old attorney general; Janice Rogers Brown, the 67-year-old judge who currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (who was an associate justice of the California Supreme Court); and Leah Ward Sears, the 61-year-old former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia are among the first to come to mind, but there are many others who would serve with distinction.
However, President Obama is not going to select any of these highly qualified potential black candidates, nor probably any other person of color, be they female or male — and I don’t blame him. Please allow me to explain.
The Senate is not going to approve anyone the president nominates, choosing to instead delay the process in hopes of a Republican winning the presidency and then nominating an Antonin Scalia 2.0, a newer version of the right wing ideologue. And there’s nothing Obama can do to force senators on the judiciary committee to bring a nomination to the floor of the Senate. It’s simply not going to happen.
So the wisest course of action for the president is to nominate someone who is wildly popular among the widest swath of population, and sorry, that would not be a black female, which would be viewed as too partisan — and defeat his purpose.
By nominating someone who has broad popular support among the electorate, Obama paints Republican senators further into an obstructionist corner — and doing it in an election year when many voters already see them as the “party of NO!” By failing to even vote on a popular nominee, Republican senators in tight races in their state could lose, and consequently they could lose control of the Senate. Happy days would be here again.
But who might that nominee be? I know I’m contradicting one of my earlier statements, but New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is one name that immediately comes to mind. He fits the bill in terms of broad popularity, and it would be highly embarrassing if fellow senators didn’t support one of their own. Also, Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard Law professor who, in 2015, briefly flirted with mounting a presidential bid would be another popular candidate, especially in legal circles albeit he is lesser known than Booker.
But this is the type of political maneuvering the president is very, very good at. Rest assured that whomever he nominates is certain to cause apoplexy among Republicans, and further hamper their chances of capturing the White House. Did I say happy days?
In a presidential election year like no other in history, Scalia’s sudden death creates even more turmoil, drama, and suspense. And considering the direction in which politics is headed in this country, like the ’ol time carnival barker used to intone, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, folks!”
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.