Clyburn Pushes Management-Side Labor Attorney for Supreme Court

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Some context here: Some voices on the left are beginning to warn against Michelle Childs, Clyburn’s preferred candidate, because of problems they have with her legal career. This is what happens when people argue in public about the best candidate.

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Clyburn Pushes Management-Side Labor Attorney for Supreme Court
Michelle Childs, a potential choice to replace Stephen Breyer, worked for years defending employers accused in racial, gender, and other discrimination cases.

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Clyburn Pushes Management-Side Labor Attorney for Supreme Court

Michelle Childs, a potential choice to replace Stephen Breyer, worked for years defending employers accused in racial, gender, and other discrimination cases.

BY ALEXANDER SAMMON JANUARY 31, 2022

Democrats have given every indication that they will move quickly on nominating a Supreme Court justice to replace the outgoing Stephen Breyer, with the White House confirming that Joe Biden will keep his campaign-trail promise of putting up a Black woman for the job. Already, speculation has solidified into a short list: D.C. Circuit Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the presumed front-runner, with California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger mentioned second.

But a third candidate has been gaining in the speculative fervor: South Carolina District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs. Her biggest enthusiast is home-state Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the highest-ranking Black leader in Congress and a close adviser to Biden. In fact, Clyburn was the one who got Biden to make the Supreme Court pledge. ... Clyburn has been whipping support for Childs with an enthusiasm far beyond that which he dedicated to Democrats’ police reform bill or the Build Back Better Act. In just a few short days, he has hit a number of news networks to advocate for her appointment. “She has the experience that is needed,” he said on MSNBC, a dig at Jackson, who has been criticized in the early goings as underqualified for the post.

Elsewhere, Clyburn has made explicit what CNN has argued implicitly when the network lamented that “another testy Supreme Court battle is the last thing America needs.” Answering this call for Democrats to hone their pick to Republican preference, Clyburn has put forward Childs as a bipartisan answer. “I want to make sure that it’s a woman that will get universal support. When I say universal, I mean bipartisan support,” he said Wednesday on CNN. “I know that Michelle Childs will have the support of several Republicans.” One of them, South Carolina’s own Lindsey Graham, appeared to endorse Childs over the weekend.

Childs’s experience is worth scrutinizing closely. As a lawyer, Childs served as an associate and then partner at Nexsen Pruet Jacobs & Pollard, from 1992 to 2000. At Nexsen Pruet, Childs worked primarily in labor and employment law, principally working on behalf of employers against allegations of racial discrimination, civil rights violations, and unionization drives. ... Bloomberg Law has 25 cases registered in which Childs participated during her time at the firm; 23 of those involve alleged employment discrimination or other employment-related civil rights violations. Race and gender were common factors in such suits; seven such cases entailed race-based job discrimination, and another three involved sex-based job discrimination. In all but two registered instances, Childs was not representing the plaintiff but the defendant, meaning that she overwhelmingly represented employers accused of violating civil rights and gender discrimination laws in the workplace.

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[YorkRd]

1. We need to nominate the most charismatic politician we can get away with

[FreepFryer]

6. Politician or judge? It's a Supreme Court seat, not an elected office. (Nt)

[YorkRd]

8. The line has become blurred. We need a politically astute judge that's a cultural hero

[WHITT]

2. The Purported Advantage

is they could get Lindsey's vote, but I think the other top contenders could get Murkowski, Romney, Collins, perhaps more, so maybe not so munch.

[Casady1]

3. A little context here

She joined Nexsun as an associate. As an associate she has no say in what cases she will work on. Some lawyer at the firm was her mentor. Practicing law at a firm is mentor relationship. She worked in that field and got good at it. They then offered her a partnership because she had the ability to bring in revenue. That is how partnerships work at law firms. It would be pretty hard for anyone to decide after toiling as an associate and building a "business" to decide to turn down her income.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Thank you for providing that insight.

Full disclosure: I am not a lawyer.

[tirebiter]

5. Some on the left never accepted Harris because she was a prosecutor.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Michelle Childs's Punitive Criminal Justice Rulings Were Repeatedly Overturned

David Weigel Retweeted

We told you that Supreme Court candidate Michelle Childs was a management-side labor lawyer. She's also notable for several tough-on-crime rulings that were so out of step legally that they were routinely overturned by higher courts.

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Michelle Childs’s Punitive Criminal Justice Rulings Were Repeatedly Overturned
The candidate for the Supreme Court vacancy has a history of tough-on-crime sentences and opinions that higher courts subsequently tossed out.