Opinion: Georgia Senator to play key role in looming SCOTUS fight
Sen. Jon Ossoff sits on the committee that will question the President's nominee.
On Wednesday, Washington was rocked by the news of longtime Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement. The 83-year-old jurist was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and is known for siding with the court’s liberal bloc on most social issues. So his retirement will not impact the court’s current 6-3 conservative bent.
Still, the impending vacancy sets up President Joe Biden’s first chance to nominate a Justice to the nation’s highest court, and a Georgia Senator is set to be at the forefront in the push to confirm the President’s nominee.
Before a Supreme Court nominee can face a vote from all 100 Senators, he or she must sit before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel of Senators that oversees the Department of Justice and is tasked with considering judicial nominees.
Georgia’s Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) is one of the Senators on the committee. Shortly after he was elected, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer assigned Ossoff to the powerful committee that is now set to decide the fate of President Biden’s eventual nominee to replace Justice Breyer.
While the Senate has confirmed a record number of judicial nominees in Biden’s first year as President, the looming Supreme Court fight is still set to be an inflection point for the 34-year-old Democrat, as it will be his first time questioning a Supreme Court nominee.
The fact that President Biden will even get to make this appointment at all would not be possible without Ossoff. Had it not been for his upset victory in last year’s runoff elections, Biden would have to run all of his judicial nominees by Mitch McConnell. And Republicans have signaled their willingness to stymie any Democratic President’s judicial slate if they control the Senate, just as they did with President Barack Obama in 2016.
Ossoff’s questioning will be particularly interesting to watch because he is an outlier on the Judiciary Committee. Most Senators on the committee are lawyers, attorneys or otherwise have law degrees. Ossoff has never practiced law before, so it will be interesting to see what type of questions he will be asking when the hearings begin.
Sen. Ossoff’s youth will also be on full display at the confirmation hearings. He is the first millennial to ever serve in the U.S. Senate. As such, he is the youngest Senator on the Judiciary Committee. This might not seem significant, but it's worth remembering that liberal activists are encouraging President Biden to nominate a younger Justice who can remain on the court for several decades (Supreme Court Justices can serve for life). Ossoff’s youth could come in handy as the White House has these discussions.
“Presidents typically prefer to name justices who are, at most, in their early- to mid-50s so that their nominee will still have a long career ahead of them.”
There’s no question that Ossoff will support President Biden’s eventual nominee. Judicial vacancies are probably the only thing that Senate Democrats have been united on since they took the majority. But nevertheless, Ossoff’s role in the nominating process will be a pivotal moment in his career. In his short adult life, he has gone from interning for Congressman John Lewis, producing documentaries in the middle east, and now determining who will adjudicate the laws of this land for the rest of their life.
Supreme Court confirmation hearings can also elevate a Senator’s national profile — for better or for worse. Both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris can attest to this. Biden, who once chaired the Judiciary Committee, was heavily criticized for the committee’s handling of Clarence Thomas’ nomination in 1991. In 2018, Harris went viral for asking then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh if he knew of any laws that regulate the male reproductive system during a discussion about Roe v. Wade (the court is set to decide a major abortion case later this year). These hearings could give Ossoff the chance to define his tenure in the U.S. Senate.
The stakes could not be higher: Democrats are on track to fill this vacancy ahead of November’s midterm elections, when the party could very well lose the Senate majority. Not to mention, Supreme Court Justices weigh in on our country’s most important legal matters, from immigration, to voting rights, campaign finance reform, marriage equality and abortion, just to name a few.
I’m not going to mince words: of all of the Senators on the Judiciary Committee, Ossoff stands out because of his youth and his inexperience. But that might be what makes his role on the committee important. In fact, some of the more well-known Senators on the committee aren’t even lawyers. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the committee, has never practiced law before. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has never practiced law either, and she became the top Democrat on the committee during the Trump administration.
The very fact that Ossoff is a U.S. Senator makes this confirmation process possible. Now, the Georgia Democrat is about to play a critical role in that process. It’s almost as if everything leads back to Georgia these days.
Excellent reporting, Niles!