Stephen Breyer: U.S. Supreme Court

Some conservatives are upset. Legal commentators and pundits are aghast that President Joe Biden would stand by his commitment to naming a Black woman to the Supreme Court.

A few also point out that Biden made his promise in the heat of the presidential campaign. Based on multiple reports, it's likely Biden's hastily made vow during a Democratic primary debate wrapped up the endorsement that helped springboard him to the White House.

There's just one problem. If Biden is being "woke," misguided, or corrupting the supposedly pure process of selecting Supreme Court nominees, then he's not alone. President Ronald Reagan went by the same playbook.

Reagan's own words, news accounts, and the private memos his aides authored at the time make abundantly clear that both the conception and later commitment to the historic vow to name the first-ever woman to the Supreme Court was about more than just high-minded idealism.

One top Reagan advisor told the president that delivering on his pledge to nominate a woman to the highest court "would be a good political move."

"It will strengthen our base among women and probably among men also," the aide wrote.







This was about politics, too. And the parallels don't end there.

Renee Knake Jefferson, who co-wrote a book about women considered for Supreme Court nominations, said Reagan also considered naming a Black woman. In fact, US Circuit Court Judge Amalya L. Kearse was on the shortlist for seats that ended up going to Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Stephen Breyer. Breyer's retirement, of course, is opening the seat for Biden.

"This is a long time coming and to the extent that anyone is suggesting that any of the Black women who would be selected wouldn't be chosen but for the fact Biden made this campaign pledge that rings very hollow to me," said Jefferson, who is also a law professor at the University of Houston and co-author of "Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court." "Black women have been eminently qualified for a lifetime."

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Reagan had some problems. As governor of California, his record of appointing women to the bench was anemic compared to President Jimmy Carter's historic pace of naming women and people of color to federal courts. It didn't help matters that Reagan opposed the Equal Rights Amendment, while first lady Rosslyn Carter and her husband took up the cause to finally push the ERA to ratification.

"Reagan had to offer something in order to earn the vote of women who would care very deeply about that stark contrast," Jefferson said.

Reagan knew he needed to do something to show women that they wouldn't be forgotten in his White House. He acknowledged to reporters that he was lagging behind with female voters, though he disputed whether that was linked to his opposition to the ERA. At a news conference defending his record on October 15, 1980, Reagan made the commitment that would later lead to a historic moment.

"I am announcing today that one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can possibly find, one who meets the high standards I will demand for all court appointments," Reagan told reporters midway through a speech that began with him declaring that it was untrue that he was "somehow opposed to full and equal opportunities for women in America."

Unlike Biden, Reagan didn't really need his pledge to power his campaign. The Reagan-Bush ticket delivered one of the worst beatdowns to an incumbent president since FDR trounced Herbert Hoover out of office.