President Biden spent decades in the Senate and presided over the transformation of Supreme Court fights into hyperpartisan affairs. Now he is pushing to lower the temperature for his own nominee.
WASHINGTON — President Biden is staying up late in the White House residence, poring over the biographies of four potential Supreme Court nominees and cases they have decided.
He is reaching out to Republican senators, seeking their views on whom he should pick and gauging their willingness to back a Democratic president’s choice.
He is retreating to Camp David this weekend for a Supreme Court cram session, and he plans to begin personally interviewing candidates next week.
Mr. Biden, who led the Senate Judiciary Committee for a dozen years and is a battle-scarred veteran of high court battles, is probably the most experienced president ever when it comes to filling a Supreme Court vacancy, having cast his first vote for a justice in 1975. He has also been a central figure in the transformation of the Supreme Court confirmation process from somewhat staid affairs to brutal partisan clashes.
Now, he is trying to bring all that knowledge to bear as he makes his own historic choice of the first Black woman to be nominated to serve on the high court, a selection that will be a significant element of his presidential legacy.
Whether all that personal history pays off will become evident within the next two weeks if Mr. Biden sticks to his timeline of disclosing his choice before the end of the month, touching off a Senate process that has become one of the capital’s most closely-watched rituals.
“This is a committee that Joe Biden knows so well,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who will be presiding over a Supreme Court confirmation for the first time. “He chaired it. He lived in this committee. He has been through so many battles and he understands what we’re facing.”
As the panel’s chairman in 1987, Mr. Biden led the charge against President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork, whose slash-and-burn confirmation hearings set a precedent for later confirmation fights.
And in 1991, he presided over explosive hearings to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas. Those hearings featured sexual misconduct charges that left some accusing Mr. Biden and his all-white, all-male committee of having mistreated Anita Hill, who had accused Justice Thomas of sexual harassment. Mr. Biden has since expressed regret to Ms. Hill.
Mr. Biden was vice president when Republicans took things to yet another level, blockading President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick B. Garland, in 2016. Mr. Biden was seeking the presidency four years later when Republicans rushed through President Donald J. Trump’s pick, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in record time.
Now, with his own court selection looming, Mr. Biden has consciously tried to lower the partisan temperature, build consensus and move more deliberately than has been the case in recent nominations.
During a private White House session on Thursday evening, Mr. Biden told Mr. Durbin and nine other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of his strong desire to win bipartisan backing for whomever he puts forward — and to avoid the rancor that has surrounded recent hearings — although he added that such an outcome was not a necessity.
The president said he hoped to begin speaking face-to-face with potential nominees next week, in keeping with his plan to announce his choice by the end of the month. He told senators that he had begun reviewing the backgrounds of at least four candidates, though he mentioned no names.
Democrats who discussed the pick with Mr. Biden on Thursday said that as he ponders who should succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, he wants someone who has demonstrated legal excellence, strong character and the ability to persuade not only the other members of the court — which now tilts 6-to-3 in favor of conservatives — but members of the public as well.
“Someone in the model of Justice Breyer, someone who will write stirring, compelling, lasting arguments — hopefully in the majority at some point, but probably, in the coming few years, in the dissent,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, describing the criteria that Mr. Biden laid out during the meeting.
Multiple Democrats said the White House’s ability to identify highly qualified judicial nominees and conduct thorough background reviews has already been demonstrated with the confirmation of a record 40 judges in the president’s first year, despite an evenly divided Senate.
“A number of us commented on how well he has done on nominations,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “They have experience, and they know where the traps are and where they ought to look, so the nominees they have vetted are pretty much bulletproof, even though Republicans may still try to attack them.”
Mr. Biden is not the only one involved who knows the confirmation process inside out, and Republicans will not be pushovers, even as they weigh how aggressively to attack a Black female nominee.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, presided over two of the most recent hearings and has taken part in more than a dozen other Supreme Court confirmations along with hundreds of deliberations for lower-court posts.
Who Are Some of the Contenders for the Supreme Court?
A transformative pick. The decision by Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire will give President Biden the chance to make good on his pledge to name the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Here’s who could be in the running:
“There is no one more experienced or savvy on judicial nominations,” said Garrett Ventry, a former senior adviser to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.
During his 36 years in the Senate, Mr. Biden, a lawyer by training, presided over six Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the extremely contentious clashes over Judge Bork and Justice Thomas, and he participated in about a dozen more. Mr. Biden is also surrounded by others on his staff who have deep expertise in judicial confirmation fights.
Ron Klain, the president’s chief of staff, attended Thursday’s meeting with Senate Democrats and has been engaged in court politics for decades. He was Mr. Biden’s counsel on the Judiciary Committee during the 1991 showdown over the Thomas nomination, and he was a top court adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Given the backgrounds of Mr. Biden and Mr. Klain, it is no surprise that administration officials say planning to fill a Supreme Court vacancy has been underway since the transition from the Trump administration. Once Mr. Biden took office, his inner circle began laying the groundwork for a possible replacement that would fulfill his campaign promise to nominate a Black woman to the high court. Eight of Mr. Biden’s first 16 nominees to federal appeals courts were also Black women.
Mr. Biden and his team seem intent on restoring a measure of bipartisanship and dignity to the Supreme Court confirmation process — a goal some Republicans say they share.
The president and Dana Remus, the White House counsel, have been diligently sounding out Republicans on their thoughts. “I’m serious when I say it that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent,” Mr. Biden said at a meeting with Mr. Grassley and Mr. Durbin.
Republicans say the key to drawing their support will not be in the outreach, but in the nominee herself. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the president could make a selection in line with the moderate image he emphasized in his campaign — or he could move to the left and risk losing the backing of most Republicans. Mr. Graham is a leading voice in support of a Federal District Court judge from his state, J. Michelle Childs.
“If you want 60 or more votes, you go with her,” Mr. Graham said of Judge Childs. “If you want to play the politics of the left, you go with somebody else.”
Also believed to be on Mr. Biden’s short list is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former clerk for Justice Breyer who won the support of Mr. Graham and two other Republican senators when Mr. Biden elevated her last year from a district court seat to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Another prospective candidate is Justice Leondra R. Kruger of the California Supreme Court, who served in the Obama administration and has many of the qualifications typical of nominees.
Officials say extensive background checks have begun on possible picks.
Some Democrats and activists remain worried that Mr. Biden’s deliberate approach could slow the process and sap it of political momentum. But others say he should invest the time and energy to get to know the top contenders and their judicial philosophies.
“We encouraged him to do it the right way,” Mr. Durbin said. “But we’re anxious to get started.”
