Ted Cruz claims Biden pledge to put Black woman on Supreme Court could be illegal

Conservative Republicans have balked at president’s diversity pledge

Sen Ted Cruz became the latest GOP senator to cry foul over President Joe Biden’s pledge to nominate the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court on Sunday.

The Texas conservative joined a list of Republicans who have decried Mr Biden’s promise to fulfil his campaign pledge and see a history-making nominee confirmed to the bench. The nomination became possible after it was announced earlier this month that Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the Court’s liberal wing, would step down at the end of the term.

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Mr Cruz made the comments on Fox News Sunday, telling interim host Bill Hemmer that the promise could be “illegal” as it supposedly discriminates against any potential nominee who isn’t a Black woman. He compared it to a traditional job application process, despite the nomination being at the sole discretion of the president.

"What the president said is that only African-American women are eligible for this slot, that 94 per cent of Americans are ineligible," claimed the senator.

"If Fox News put a posting, we're looking for a new host for Fox News Sunday and we will only hire an African American woman or a Hispanic man or a Native American woman, that would be illegal," he went on to add.

Other GOP senators including Roger Wicker of Kansas have made similar arguments in recent weeks, while some members of their party have called the president’s intention well within his purview and pointed to a similar vow by GOP President Ronald Reagan to nominate the first woman to the Court. Mr Wicker claimed that the president’s selection of a Black woman would amount to “affirmative racial discrimination”.

Sen Susan Collins, widely recognised as one of the Senate’s few swing votes, told ABC News that Mr Biden’s announcement regarding the matter was “clumsy at best”, and claimed in an interview that it furthered the belief that the Court was becoming a political institution rather than an apolitical arbiter of the law.

Others, like Sen Lindsey Graham, have called the president’s plan appropriate.

"Put me in the camp of making sure the court and other institutions look like America. You know, we make a real effort as Republicans to recruit women and people of color to make the party look more like America," he told CBS News.

Mr Biden has vowed to make his nominee selection by the end of February, which is fast approaching.