ConfirmThem

Who would be acceptable picks for Obama for the Supreme Court? I have heard what is wrong with all the leading candidates, but let's be pragmatic. Obama does get to pick someone. He is not going to pick a conservative. If you are a Republican senator and you get to advise Obama on who he should pick, who do you promote? Who are the democratic judges who are "moderates", who are willing to work with conservatives? We can't just knee jerk be against Obama period no matter what. We need to be involved in the process and propose judges that perhaps Obama could pick.

Jeffery Rosen has a very interesting article on Judge Sotomayor. In it, he recounted conversations about the judge with former clerks and Court watchers. He wrote he was surprised to find that no one raved about her. In fact, some found her to be a bully on the bench who didn't ask questions that were very probing.

As for who Obama might choose, I see he has enlisted the advice of Hatch and Specter. I hope Hatch mentions a name seen at NRO, Jose Cabranes. Benchmemos says he at least understands the concept of judicial restraint.

I dont think Cabranes could be considered a good faith suggestion as he will be 69 years old this year. They will want to pick somebody in their early to mid 50s as we did. Are there any democratic judges in that age range who evidence some understanding of judicial restraint? Any that show they have a mind of their own and are willing to buck the PC establishment occasionally when to be PC means subverting the law as it is plainly written?

All the liberal sites I've scanned have a distinct lack of enthusiasm for Sotomayor. Dunno why, no one can possibly think she'd drift Rightward. But nobody regards her as a superstar, either. If she wasn't a Hispanic woman she wouldn't get a moment's consideration.

I think Barry had a 90% firm list on 1/20. Wood, Kagan, Sears-Ward, Wardlaw, Granholm (tho politicians are inherently risky in today's "gotcha" atmosphere). He has to want to make this one quick n' easy, which IMO means Wood or Kagan.

The dream scenario would be him reaching w/a non-judge and it blows up in his face at the last moment a la Anita, nominee forced to withdraw, Dems erupt on each other, hello Justice Callahan!

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

Consuelo Callahan & Maureen Mahoney are acclaimed moderates previously pre-approved by Reid & Schumer for the Alito slot. Who is the moderate male Hispanic judge from Texas?

You're absolutely right that we can't just blindly oppose Obama, and have to at least try to sneak a moderate in or lay the groundwork for doing so later, but long-range strategy & tactics on anything esp judges are far beyond the current GOP senators, it seems.

Who'd ever thought we'd be praying for Callahan or Mahoney on THIS site? :D

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

http://www.abanet.org/antitrust/at-bios/wood-diane.pdf

Diane Wood would be a homerun for Obama. She has excellent academic credentials, was a Blackmun clerk, and has been a 7th Circuit judge since 1995.

She is widely regarded as a liberal genius. She has spent the last 14 years honing her judicial ideology against the likes of Posner and Easterbrook. She would not drift right, but is not regarded as dogmatic liberal ideologue whose personality would clash with those already on the court.

http://www.slate.com/id/2217591

I dunno if Obama wants to finesse, "Pedophiles have a right to go the park". Admittedly, there's some gray to it, but the spin war is awful, and she was resoundingly overturned en banc and failed to apply the most appropriate SCOTUS precedents that anyone on either side knows instantly.

Were I advising Barry, I'd say no, but if he does want her up there, now would be the time to try. And she is 58.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

The more I think about her, the more I'm leaning she might be it. Blonde hair-blue eyes, but she'd have Specter & Biden and tears with this:

"Her father, a salesman, was Scotch Irish; her mother, an accountant, was born in the U.S. to Mexican parents.

Her parents' marriage incited disapproval from both sides of the family. And her mother, Wardlaw said, faced some "pretty serious discrimination."

Even though she identified equally with her Anglo and Latino backgrounds, Wardlaw said she was ostracized for being the only Mexican girl in elementary school.

"I saw a lot of unfairness and injustice growing up," she said. "I have a strong sense of justice and a strong moral compass.I've always had that."

Academics look pretty strong, and she's gotten awards from Hispanic legal groups. She does think winos have the right to sleep on the street at night, but also has denied stays of excution.

She's been confirmed twice already (she'd be the only current J who'd been a trial/District judge, right?), was a delegate to the '92 DemCon, DiFi adores her (as seemingly all who work with her do), she turns 55 on 7/2, and would obv look great on TV. Imagine her at the introductory press conference with her elderly weeping mother. And she'd sail thru.

Were I advising Barry, I'd say yes, w/the usual qualifiers about her hubby's business affairs & kids' Facebook pages needing a close look.

Here's a long profile: http://ms-jd.org/node/175

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_McLane_Wardlaw

Elections have consequences, tho I'd still vote "no" as a GOP senator, and spend all my questioning time with her BBQing Obama for voting against Roberts & Alito, and demanding she give her thoughts on why they got so little Dem support compared to the GOP support RBG & Breyer got.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/deal-struck-on-judiciary-2009-05-04....

"Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) will be the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the confirmation of retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s successor, but Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will take over in the next Congress.

The deal is a good one for Grassley, who will retain his powerful position as ranking member of the Finance Committee through the end of 2010 before jumping to Judiciary."

"Sessions will immediately take over on Judiciary for Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), whose departure from the GOP last week left the committee without a ranking member.

Sessions will serve as ranking member until the 112th Congress, when he will take over the ranking-member post on the Senate Budget Committee. Current Budget."

Did some searching over there. Some fear/hate her because she's friends with Kozinski, supported Riordan, and was a FOB. She was 5th in her UCLA Law class, but is supposedly a "lightweight". And "vindictive" towards former clerks. LOL.

Heck, I'm actually getting a lil excited, tho I'd prefer she replace JPS or RBG. C'mon, Barry, you can do this! :)

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/sessions-seeks-fair-treatment-of-cou...

"Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the incoming ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned his GOP colleagues not to distort the record of President Obama’s yet-to-be-announced Supreme Court nominee.

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are expected to vote Monday evening to accept Sessions as the top GOP member of the panel until the end of the 111th Congress. Sessions has agreed to give the Judiciary gavel to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2011, when the 112th Congress begins.

Sessions is also the only member of the Senate who knows what it’s like to go through the arduous judicial confirmation process.

President Reagan nominated him to serve as a district court judge but the Senate Judiciary Committee, then controlled by Republicans, rejected him in 1986 by a vote of 10-8..."

Although I agree with BoBo that Diane Wood is an obvious Obama pick and one who would not be easy to oppose, to Woodland's point, I also think that Merrick Garland (who will obviously never be chosen for this vacancy but still could be a contender for another Obama vacancy down the line) would be an Obama home run nominee as well. Great academic credentials, clerked for Friendly and Brennan, viewed as a law-and-order guy, former assistant US attorney, former deputy AAG, got 76 Senate votes for the DC Circuit in an era when the opposing party controlled the Senate (try to imagine that happening today for a DC Circuit nominee from either party!), and is friends with Roberts. And I don't think Garland is regarded at all as a dogmatic liberal ideologue. Merrick would definitely attract a reasonable number of Republican senators' votes.

Conservative groups and writers largely have ignored Garland and his record in recent days (and weeks), chiefly, of course, because they don't see him as a contender for demographic reasons. As a result, there aren't nearly the negative comments/sniping and/or negative campaigns about Garland right now that there are regarding Kagan (mostly for her actions and comments on gays in the military), regarding Wood (mostly for her rulings on abortion and on religious litigants) and regarding Sotomayor (mostly for debatable and far-from-certain allegations about her temperament and brainpower, and also about her also unclear role in the Ricci case).

I think either Garland or Wood would be very hard to oppose. As it is, though, I don't think any Obama nominee is going to meet with more than standard GOP opposition. This nomination is going to be a great opportunity for both conservative and liberal nonprofit groups to make a lot of noise (in order to drive fundraising), but in the end, whoever Obama's nominee is will be confirmed with 60-70 votes.

So my answer to Woodland's question would be probably Garland. Since Garland obviously doesn't appear to be an option for this vacancy, the name (besides Cabranes) that Ed Whelan and others *ought* to be floating most is Johnnie Rawlinson. African-American woman, from Harry Reid's state, nominated to COA by Clinton, in her mid-50s, mostly votes with Ninth Circuit's conservative judges. I have no evidence that Johnnie's actually an originalist, but I do think that she's far more likely to be a Souter-in-reverse (largely because her voting record is pretty explicitly conservative) than Wardlaw (although BillM makes some fine points about Wardlaw). Which is why I see no likelihood of Obama actually picking Johnnie; he'll go with Leah Ward Sears long before Johnnie Rawlinson.

One final note: Even apart from the age issue, there's no more of a chance of Cabranes being picked by Obama than there was of Mahoney and Callahan being nominated by Bush. In both cases, you have adherents of the opposing party suggesting names that the president's own supporters would never go for. The funny thing about Cabranes is that part of the reason he was never nominated to SCOTUS by either party is because neither party fully trusted the guy.

Great discussion here, ConfirmThem colleagues!

From all the feedback, it sounds like Wardlaw and Rawlinson would be the best picks we could hope for. In looking at Wardlaw's husband's activities though, would Obama risk opening up that can of worms? Would Reid have enough clout with Obama to push for Rawlinson?

..would be grand slams for our side in the current situation which is why I dont think they have a chance.

Lots of interesting names, but all lberals of one sort or another. That's the price we pay for not winning, though. I know Obama is going to appoint someone who is a liberal, but I hope he appoints someone who is not dogmatic. It's one thing to come down on the liberal side of the opinion, it's another to create wild eyed liberal views out of whole cloth to get there.

One of these days we're going to get a Souter in reverse, but not under this president. He cares about the Court too much. Republicans are in a tough position in that they have no power. I don't always oppose a filibuster, but I doubt Obama is going to nominate a true radical. Despite that, it's not unreasonable for Republicans as a group to vote against the nominee. It doesn't hurt public perception. Look at how many voted against Alito.

Thirty five votes against would be a nice marker for Republicans.

Maybe she's not the slam-dunk after all for Obama. I thought Ed Whelan did a fine job of looking at her NOW v. Scheidler opinions. The pro-life community will come unglued if it's her.

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjAxNzQxZDQwZjAwZTIzZThhOWM1ZDdm...

I think he might well be the pick to replace Scalia or Kennedy, should the unthinkable occur. I think he's considered much more of a heavyweight than Wardlaw, Sotomayor or Sears Ward, and he doesn't appear to have the baggage of Kagan or Wood. Be almost impossible to stop.

Wood likely would be confirmed, but I dunno if Barry wants any bumps on this particular road. Wardlaw and esp Soto are almost as liberal, and are also Hispanic. Soemthimes you just have to pick the low-lying fruit, which is a lesson W, Frist & McConnell had a hard time with.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

To be honest, criticizing a candidate because the SCOTUS overruled a minor abortion opinion sounds a lot like whining that O'connor overruled Alito's Casey decision.

It won't carry a lot of traction.

Sorry to change the subject for moment, but the NYT has a new article stating the Obama Justice Department is likely to ask for the disbarment of several Bush era lawyers. They include John Yoo, Steven Bradbury, and Jay Bybee.

If this is the case, I find it very disturbing. This is how a banana republic handles the defeated after a new leader comes to power. None of these men committed crimes, nor did they exhibit lapses of judgement. I hope Republicans stand and fight on this issue. We can't forget the circumstances and the feelings that predominated when these memos were written.

Well, I didn't see this one coming:

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/05/judge-michael-mcconnell-leavin...

Wow. So now Obama has current or announced openings to fill on every circuit but the Federal Circuit and the Eighth Circuit.....

This really illustrates the peril of choosing professors to the bench. The prospect of lifetime tenure on the bench doesn't mean as much to legal scholars as it does to ordinary lawyers, since legal scholars *always* have access to lifetime tenure in the academy!

At various points, Republicans went to the mattresses for McConnell. Democrats attempted a unsuccussful filibuster of him. Just like Luttig, now he flees from the bench. I don't understand why conservative leaning judges or politicians don't grasp the importance of the bench. Liberals never give up anything once they have it. I think that sets the two sides apart as much as any other difference.