Capitol Hill progressives have a singular mission in the Joe Biden administration — snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. How else to explain the effort to turn what should be a slam-dunk Supreme Court win into a divisive, no-win situation among Senate Democrats? According to Politico, Senate progressives are balking at Michelle Childs, the South Carolina judge endorsed by Rep. James Clyburn, for being too corporate — even though Childs could easily get through confirmation otherwise:

She is already President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court contender with the highest ceiling for GOP support, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pushes strongly for her alongside Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democratic leader.

But the South Carolina district court judge likely has more work to do to win over the progressive senators she’ll need to get confirmed. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declined to talk about Childs at all: “I’m not going to comment. Nope.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) predicted that Biden “wants somebody on the court who understands the struggles that working families are facing right now, who understands the enormous power of corporate interests.” He also offered a subtle warning as the White House vets its short list. “You want somebody who is going to be reflective of the needs of working families and understands that we are moving towards an oligarchy in this country,” Sanders said.

Those comments speak to the political calculations undergirding the Supreme Court decision now before President Joe Biden. He could pick Childs, the perceived moderate candidate, and court GOP votes at risk of fracturing Democrats. Or he could nominate someone whom Republicans may be more likely to oppose but may unite Democrats, such as D.C. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson or California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger.

These comments also speak to a fundamental disconnect among progressives in general. If indeed the US is “moving towards an oligarchy,” then Congress should act on it by passing legislation. It’s not the job of the judiciary to prevent oligarchies, after all. This is the kind of buck-passing by members of Congress to avoid taking difficult votes by demanding that the other two branches of government legislate instead. It’s how we’ve developed an over-powerful executive branch with agencies that do most of the job Congress is meant to do — a government by bureaucracies that was actually a progressive Utopia a century ago. And with that concentrated power comes more risk of oligarchical rule, too.

Anyway, Judge Childs suddenly now has to meet a “corporatist” test:

While most progressive lawmakers aren’t directly criticizing Childs for her past work, they are making it clear that the balance of power between corporations and the average American worker could prove their litmus test for Biden’s nominee. And on paper, it may be that Childs has the most work to do to meet that test.

So let’s get this straight. Biden boxed himself in with a stupid (although hardly unprecedented) campaign promise to pick a Supreme Court justice based on “representation.” Clyburn, Graham, and Tim Scott managed to rescue him with a choice that not only allows Biden to fulfill that promise but would make it a bipartisan win that Biden desperately needs. In fact, a bipartisan and drama-free confirmation might even assuage some of the confidence crisis that voters have in Biden (marginally, anyway), which in turn would help Democrats in the upcoming Red Wedding midterms.

And instead of recognizing this, Capitol Hill progressives will gum up the works by making the perfect the enemy of the relatively fabulous? Gee, where have we seen this before?

Progressives likely want to hold out for Ketanji Brown Jackson or Leondra Kruger, the other two top picks thus far. Brown Jackson did get three GOP votes for confirmation to the DC Circuit last year, but that’s not the same as a Supreme Court confirmation. With Ben Ray Luján out for at least a few weeks, Biden really needs at least one and maybe a couple of Republican votes even with Kamala Harris on standby. And Kruger’s not faring well in the scrutiny department at the moment either, as the Washington Post makes clear this morning:

The Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was a unanimous loss for the Obama administration and a landmark win for religious organizations. The justices for the first time agreed with lower courts and the organizations that the Constitution provides a “ministerial exception” that shields churches and other religious groups from anti-discrimination laws in certain hiring and firing decisions.

Kruger, then a lawyer in the solicitor general’s office and now a justice on the California Supreme Court, failed to win even the vote of her recent boss — Justice Elena Kagan, who was confirmed to the court in 2010 after serving as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general. Kagan termed the government’s argument “amazing,” and not in a good way.

Kruger, 45, is on Biden’s shortlist to replace retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and conservative groups are promoting Kruger’s role in the case as evidence she might not protect religious rights as a Supreme Court justice.

That at least has the virtue of being about actual constitutional law rather than progressive policies over corporations. The question is whether Kruger argued it out of personal passion or just because she got hired to do so. Then-Solicitor General Donald Verrilli claims it’s the latter and that the argument against Hosanna-Tabor was “100 percent on me.”

It didn’t seem that way at the time, as Robert Barnes recalls for the Post:

The government’s brief said the Constitution’s religion clauses — prohibiting government establishment of religion and guaranteeing free exercise of faith — had only limited impact when anti-discrimination laws were involved. More relevant, the government said, was the First Amendment’s right to free association. Under such a theory, Kruger said at argument, that would mean the “basic contours” of analyzing Perich’s complaint would be the same whether she was employed by a church or some other group with those rights, such as a labor union.

It made for a tough appearance before the justices.

“That is extraordinary,” Justice Antonin Scalia said. Twice.

“We’re talking here about the Free Exercise Clause and about the Establishment Clause, and you say they have no special application.”

Kagan employed a similar line of questioning, “because I too find that amazing, that you think that … neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause has anything to say about a church’s relationship with its own employees.”

Just to emphasize how radical this argument was, the Hosanna-Tabor decision went unanimously and without reservation against Kruger’s argument. That included liberal jurists such as Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the man Kruger would replace, Stephen Breyer. Putting Kruger on the court after this argument would be akin to pouring gasoline on an already-motivated conservative voter base in the midterms.

Want to bet that Sanders and Warren would enthusiastically back Kruger after that performance? And for just those reasons?

The path forward here is pretty clear for Joe Biden. He should stop taking advice from the crank wing of his party. Biden won’t take that advice, of course, but that’s what he should do.