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Trump

File

At the close of the Democratic debate Tuesday night, former vice president Joe Biden made an unexpected pledge to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, prompting some of the loudest cheers of the debate. He repeated the promise Wednesday, saying he would be “honored” to do it, while accepting an endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn (R-S.C.).

Joe Biden meets his make-or-break moment in South Carolina

Within hours, the website <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/25/21153824/biden-black-woman-supreme-court">Vox</a> published a list of black women jurists who could fill the job. And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) took at a swipe at former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1232713329136799750">joking</a> that she “announced she already won the SCOTUS nomination last year.”

Though some critics may dismiss it as pandering, a promise like this has a proven track record. Ronald Reagan vowed to put a woman on the Supreme Court; it was a key part of his campaign for president in 1980.

The Equal Rights Amendment, originally passed by Congress in 1972, had become a major issue. Though the 1979 deadline had passed without ratification from two-thirds of states, as required, Congress had passed a three-year extension. Then-president Jimmy Carter had signed it, but it was unclear if the extension would hold up in the courts.

Then, at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/gop-warming-equal-rights-amendment">support for the ERA</a> was removed from the party platform for the first time in 40 years.

It was an early indicator of the party’s shift to the right. Democrats saw women’s rights as an important issue they could use to bring moderate Republicans over to their side. They attacked Reagan’s record, noting his opposition to the ERA and abortion rights, and that Reagan hadn’t appointed any women to his cabinet while he was governor.

At a meeting with Republican women who supported the Equal Rights Amendment, Rep. Margaret Heckler (R-Mass.) suggested that he consider a woman for the Supreme Court, saying “this single step could demonstrate his avowed commitment to the equal rights of women.” She told The Washington Post’s Bill Peterson that Reagan appeared “receptive.”

A few months later, at a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/15/reagan-pledges-he-would-name-a-woman-to-the-supreme-court/844817dc-27aa-4f5d-8e4f-0ab3a5e76865/">press conference in Los Angeles</a>, he made it official, saying: “I am announcing today that one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can possibly find... It is time for a woman to sit among the highest jurists.”

The promise became a central part of his last three weeks on the campaign trail.

At a fundraiser in Boston, Carter criticized the vow as pandering, saying, “What he doesn’t seem to realize is that equal rights for women involves more than just one job for one woman.”

Later, Carter said it would be a mistake to promise to appoint any particular kind of American.

The last time the Democratic field was so crowded, a peanut farmer won the White House

Post columnist Judy Mann <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1980/10/17/reagan-woos-women-with-same-old-line/402d8255-4b36-4b7b-9f8c-d78ff8a6538c/">wrote</a> that any woman Reagan selected would likely be of a conservative bent anyway, joking that he might nominate conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. Nancy Thompson, the former head of the Republican Women’s Task Force, noted the Reagan promise was “one of the first” not “the first.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just one more line,” Thompson said.

But it wasn’t. Weeks later, Reagan won the election, and by the next summer he had fulfilled the vow, nominating Arizona Court of Appeals judge Sandra Day O’Connor to replace retiring Justice Potter Stewart.

And O’Connor was no Phyllis Schlafly. Though conservative, she proved to be a key swing vote in her 25 years on the Court. O’Connor retired in 2006.

Reagan never again nominated anyone but white men to the Supreme Court. Other presidents have elevated three more women — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — and two black men — Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas — to the bench.

In fact, Biden, who hopes to win the South Carolina primary on Saturday, played a key role in Thomas’s confirmation in 1991. He presided over Senate hearings where law professor Anita Hill alleged Thomas had sexually harassed her when they were coworkers. And according to historians Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Womens-History-United-ReVisioning-American/dp/0807033553" target="_blank">A Black Women’s History of the United States</a>,” it was Biden who refused to hear from witnesses corroborating her testimony. He shut the hearings down, Berry and Gross wrote, apparently over fears the committee looked racist.

Biden called Hill to apologize in 2019, but Hill told the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-apologized-to-anita-hill-but-shes-not-satisfied/2019/04/25/0f2ff1d8-679a-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html" target=_blank>New York Times</a> she wasn’t satisfied.

I will be satisfied when I know there is real change and real accountability and real purpose,” she said.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/11/24/rewatching-joe-bidens-disastrous-anita-hill-hearing-a-sexual-harassment-inquistion/">Re-watching Joe Biden’s disastrous Anita Hill hearing: A sexual harassment inquisition</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/16/only-one-supreme-court-justice-has-ever-been-impeached-his-nickname-was-old-bacon-face/">Only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached. His nickname was Old Bacon Face.</a>

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/04/25/now-frontrunner-bidens-other-presidential-bids-were-disasters/">Biden is leading the polls. But his other presidential bids were disasters.</a>

NABJ Salute to Excellence Award for digital commentary, 2018

Emmy nomination for new approaches: documentary, 2017

Northwestern University, MS in journalism 

University of Texas at Austin, BA in history and English

Gillian Brockell is a staff writer for The Washington Post’s history blog, Retropolis. She has been at The Post since 2013 and previously worked as a video editor. 