Biden pledges to nominate black woman to Supreme Court

Former Vice President Joe Biden during Tuesday night’s Democratic debate pledged to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court if he’s elected president.

The former vice president used a question round about every candidate’s personal motto to make the pledge, pivoting to his message about the high court after listing his personal values.

“When you’re get knocked down, get up, and everyone’s entitled to be treated with dignity — no matter what, no matter who they are,” Biden began. “Also, that everyone should be represented. No one is better than me and I’m no better than everyone else.”

“We talked about the Supreme Court — I’m looking forward to making sure there’s a black woman on the Supreme Court to make sure we in fact get everyone represented,” he went on.

The brief comment was the only mention of the Supreme Court at the debate in Charleston, S.C., Tuesday night and one of only a handful of mentions that the court has gotten throughout the campaign.

Some progressives have criticized the Democratic field for not making it a bigger issue, given President Trump’s success in securing conservative control of the court and the federal judiciary more generally.

Some of the candidates have proposed structural reforms to the court, like term limits for the justices or increasing the number of seats — an idea known as court packing.

A pair of progressive groups last month gave businessman Tom Steyer’s court reform plan the highest grade out of the entire field for his explicit embrace of court packing.