Biden pressured to unveil potential court picks
ATLANTA — Joe Biden is resisting calls from President Donald Trump and even some fellow Democrats to release his list of potential Supreme Court picks seven months after he pledged to name the first Black female justice.
Some on the left suggest that outlining potential picks would help Biden build enthusiasm in the final weeks of the campaign, particularly after he already selected California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first Black woman on a major presidential ticket. Trump, meanwhile, is eager to comb through a list to find possible nominees who would bolster his false depiction of Biden as an extreme liberal.
Trump helped insert the Supreme Court squarely into presidential politics in 2016 by taking the unprecedented step of releasing a list of potential nominees before he was elected, a move that helped rally the conservatives who ultimately carried him to victory.
But some of Biden's allies say a list won't provide the same payoff for him and could hurt him by distracting voters from Trump's handling of the coronavirus and give the president fuel to suggaest Biden's choices are too far left.
“Why play into Trump's hands?” asked Karen Finney, a prominent Black Democratic strategist.
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Biden protégé and confidant, pointed to the former vice president's 36 years in the Senate and his brand as a liberal pragmatist as assurance enough for voters.
“He doesn't need to issue some lists in order for Democrats to be comfortable that they know his values and his priorities,” Coons said, arguing that voters of all stripes know Biden would elevate “highly qualified, mainstream jurists.”
Still, the issue represents a familiar tightrope for Biden. He's a center- left establishment figure aiming for a broad ideological coalition to defeat Trump in an era when the loudest voices come from the political poles. On issues from health care to the climate crisis, progressives hammer Biden as too incremental while conservatives cast him as too liberal. A Supreme Court nomination is certain to amplify those dynamics.