South Carolina federal judge Michelle Childs is under consideration to succeed retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court, the White House confirmed late Friday.
Childs, 55, is based in Columbia, South Carolina, and was nominated last year by President Biden to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, often regarded as the second-most prominent federal court because of its proximity to the high court, the caliber of cases it considers and because so many of its judges have been elevated to the Supreme Court.
The Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing for Childs’s nomination next week, but aides confirmed Friday that her hearing would be postponed.
The White House explained late Friday the postponement is because Childs is under consideration to succeed Breyer.
“Judge Childs is among multiple individuals under consideration for the Supreme Court, and we are not going to move her nomination on the Court of Appeals while the President is considering her for this vacancy,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Bates added that news reports “indicating that the President is only seriously considering three potential nominees is incorrect.”
Childs has a powerful cheerleader in her corner. South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, the House Majority Whip, is publicly pushing her to take the spot, arguing she brings unique professional and personal experience to the court. Among other things, she is a graduate of state universities — the University of South Florida and University of South Carolina — attributes that Clyburn argues are sorely missing from the court.
Childs is among several contenders under consideration, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, also a judge on the D.C. appeals court, and Leondra Kruger, a justice on the California Supreme Court who once served in the Justice Department’s Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Biden has set a self-imposed deadline of late February to announce his choice and is vowing to fulfill a campaign pledge to appoint a Black woman to the court for the first time.
