Senator Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss the nomination process to fill a Supreme Court seat following the announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement.

The 83-year-old justice announced his retirement this January effective at the end of his 2021-2022 term after serving the country’s highest court for over two decades. Sen. Grassley tells KCII he compliments Breyer on his public service, and shares that his meeting with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) at the White House last week went well. Grassley says particular candidates were not discussed, but President Biden should make an announcement on a nomination by the end of this month, “I tried to make the point that what I’m interested in isn’t whether the person is African American, their color, their nationality, their religion. I am interested in people being well educated in the law, I’m also interested in people in the lower courts having some experience, although that isn’t an absolute necessity.”

Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign to choose a Black woman if he had the chance to name a new justice to the court. Two of the court’s current justices did not previously serve as a judge on a lower court. You can hear more from Grassley during Tuesday’s Halcyon House Washington Page on air and at kciiradio.com.