Joe Biden Would Consider Barack Obama for Supreme Court 'If He'd Take It'
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he is open to nominating former President Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court if he wins the 2020 election
“If he’d take it, yes,” Biden, 77, said after being asked if he’d consider Obama for a position in the Supreme Court while in Iowa for a campaign rally over the weekend, according to The New York Times.
Biden — the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 election — served as vice president for all eight years of Obama’s time in the White House. If Obama does one day join the Supreme Court, he would be only the second former president to do so. Former President William Howard Taft served as the 10th chief justice of the Supreme Court, according to CNN.
During the rally, Biden said he wanted to nominate justices who saw the Constitution as a “living document,” meaning, those who see the constitution as one that evolves and changes over time in light of new circumstances in society.
While Obama, 58, has never openly expressed a desire for a position on the Supreme Court, his credentials would make him a worthy candidate. As noted by Fox News, he became the first African American to be named president of the Harvard Law Review, and he worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
Obama has previously questioned whether he thinks he would be a good fit for the job, considering the solitary life that comes with being on the highest court in the land.
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“When I got out of law school, I chose not to clerk,” Obama told The New Yorker in 2014. “Partly because I was an older student, but partly because I don’t think I have the temperament to sit in a chamber and write opinions.”
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“I love the law, intellectually,” he added. “I love nutting out these problems, wrestling with these arguments. I love teaching. I miss the classroom and engaging with students. But I think being a justice is a little bit too monastic for me. Particularly after having spent six years and what will be eight years in this bubble, I think I need to get outside a little bit more.”
According to recent national polls, Biden has an eight point lead over Bernie Sanders, and an 11 point lead over Elizabeth Warren.
The next Democratic debate is set for January 14 in Iowa.
