Biden promise: Woman veep, Black chief justice
WASHINGTON: Former Vicepresident Joe Biden on Sunday committed to selecting a woman as his running mate if he won the Democratic presidential nomination and to appointing the first African American woman justice of the Supreme Court if elected to the White House.
Indian American senator Kamala Harris has figured in many speculative lists of Biden’s running mate, along with senator Amy Klobuchar, Georgia state politician Stacey Abrams; and former deputy attorney general
Sally Yates, who first alerted the Trump White House to lying by former national security adviser Michael Flynn about his contacts with Russians. Even Elizabeth Warren, who recently pulled out of the race, has been touted as a potential running mate by some experts.
Biden’s announcement could also have implications for Republicans. Although President Donald Trump has declared he will stay with Vice-president Mike Pence for his 2020 re-election bid, speculation has continued about his former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, another Indian American.
The US Supreme Court’s first African American justice was Thurgood Marshall, who was appointed in 1967, and the top court has several women on the bench, including three at present. But there has never been an African American woman justice, which Biden promised to change if elected.
“I will pick a woman to be vice president,” Biden said at a Democratic presidential debate , adding, “There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow.” He has spoken before about picking a woman running mate, and there are more women in the list of his probables than men. Sunday night, however, was a commitment.
Biden, who appears to be the presumptive nominee, could pick someone else entirely. But whoever it is, she will not be the first woman running mate. Geraldine Ferraro ran with Democratic Presidential nominees Walter Mondale in 1984, and Sarah Palin with Republican nominee John Macain in 2008. They all lost.
Sanders hedged when asked by one of the moderators to respond to the Vicepresident’s announcement. “In all likelihood, I would,” Sanders said, adding, however, that progressive ideology more than gender would be more important for him. But he checked himself in time to wrap up his matching commitment. “There are progressive women out there,” he said.
The Sunday debate took place in CNN’S studios in Washington DC instead of Phoenix, Arizona, where it was originally scheduled to be held, because of the coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 3,500 Americans, killed at least
65, shut down schools and colleges and disrupted daily life.
Both Biden and Sanders slammed the Trump administration’s response to the outbreak.