Biden Supreme Court pick: What to watch

Justice Stephen Breyer’s impending retirement gives President Joe Biden his first, and possibly his best, chance to fill a seat on the Supreme Court. It’s clear he wants to make it count.

Biden last week reaffirmed his campaign promise to nominate a Black woman to the high court and said he intends to announce his selection by the end of February.

He and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have both vowed to move quickly to replace Breyer, likely aiming for a new justice to be appointed well before the court’s summer recess.

The White House said Monday that Biden will begin consultations this week with potential nominees to succeed the 83-year-old justice. Some of the likely top contenders include Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger.

If they nail the timing and execution, Democrats could score a major political win — appointing the first Black woman to the nation’s highest court, while protecting a liberal seat — that pays dividends a few months later in the midterm elections.

They need all the help they can get. A sitting president’s party typically loses seats in the midterms, and Biden’s sagging approval ratings have boosted Republicans’ confidence that they will at least regain the House, if not the Senate as well.

The confirmation fight will also kick off during a hectic time for Congress, as lawmakers return to Capitol Hill this week to address issues including the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and a fast-approaching deadline to pass an omnibus spending bill.

The Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee will hold public hearings with Biden’s nominee that will likely span multiple days. If that panel approves the nomination, it goes to the full Senate for a final vote.

While it is not required by the Constitution, the nominee also typically converses with individual senators, including members who are not on the judiciary committee.

It takes weeks to even reach the hearing stage after the president submits his or her pick to the Senate. For modern nominees it has taken 41 days on average, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Since 1789, there have been 164 Supreme Court nominations. The overwhelming majority have been white men.

The White House has suggested that Biden is considering a wide crop of potential nominees, though no official list has been released. More than a dozen names of Black female judges have already cycled through the political rumor mill as likely short-listers for the Supreme Court.

Among the buzziest would-be…