Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 in April, has hired only one law clerk for the 2010-2011 term (which begins in October 2010). Supreme Court Justices are entitled to four. Retired Justices are entitled to one. And, importantly, Stevens has tended to be among the first of the Justices to hire law clerks.
This isn’t a slam-dunk, of course, but it certainly suggests that Stevens is thinking about retiring from the Court in June of 2010 when the current term ends. It makes perfect sense — he would presumably prefer that a Democratic president name his replacement (even though he was appointed by Republican Gerald Ford), and he shares deep Chicago roots with President Obama.
So we don’t know for sure that Stevens is retiring, but it seems likely, so let’s start another round of Name That Supreme Court Nominee!!
My guess: Solicitor General and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan. She obviously is close to Obama; she will get a lot of conservative (as well as liberal) law professors to back her appointment; she has a lot of interesting government as well as academic experience; she is very smart. And Obama, having taken the “seasoned federal judge” route for his first nomination, is now IMHO freed up to be a bit less conventional for his second (and subsequent) nominations. Should be fun to watch.
Seriously.
A 19% governor from a state with one Senator, and a former corporate lawyer/oil company board member to boot?
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p>What about Bill Richardson? Since Obama didn’t have the cojones to stand by him in return for Richardson putting it all on the line during primary season, he could make up for it now that the phony notscandal has blown over. I don’t really expect Mr. Public Option Trigger to do that, but it would be nice.
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p>What about Jonathan Hiatt, longtime AFL-CIO general counsel? About time we have someone on the Supreme Court who actually understands labor law.
I’m also not sure how having one Senator is really a detriment either.
…your ride is smoothed if you have two people working the process. I don’t think Deval would be subject to a vote down, but in the pre-nomination process having only 1/2 the weight of other potentials can’t help. And certainly, there’s no legal obstacle to appointing a figure so disliked at home for such a post. But it doesn’t make Deval look any better.
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p>Frankly, right now appointing Deval would look more like getting a friend out of the problems he created for himself than anything else. There are better people out there.
Fair or unfair, Richardson was being investigated by the Justice Department regarded possible criminal charges and was only “cleared” in the last few days…if Obama tried to get Richardson confirmed to the cabinet, it would not have been cojones that Obama had…but nuts for brains.
…the facts of the case were known months before Iowa…Bush’s DoJ was just sifting around looking for any other junk they could throw at a leader of the party. Now one of the most accomplished Democrats in the country is going to be term-limited out of his job and those talents will not be helping everyone out.
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p>I realize Obama doesn’t like to take chances — he’d rather use spending power to change education than talk to Congress, he’d rather get any kind of deal on health care possible than actually have people vote no, he’d rather stay the course on Afghanistan, and he’d rather shaft a key supporter than confront a fake scandal.
Hey everyone, I think that it’s a little premature to start listing names of people who could replace Justice Stevens. So rather let’s focus on who Deval Patrick should appoint to the Senate. Of course, the state legislature must make it legal, but I think there’s a good chance of it.
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p>I think everyone should get behind Noam Chomsky. He has been the premier intellectual in the world for the past 40 years. It’s a logical fit for so many reasons.
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p>Imagine that: U.S. Senator Noam Chomsky. I like the sound of that even if it’s only for a little over 100 days.
can Obama nominate/appoint for the highest profile positions before a narrative of uber-affirmative-action strikes in more mainstream media?
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p>I’m not asking about what’s fair or right or moral… I’m asking about the USA, 2009 and onward.
it’d be hard to find a white male with the same qualifications as Kagan, especially once she’s been in the SG’s job for over a year. There aren’t that many Solicitor Generals out there who’ve also been the Dean (and, by the way, an extremely successful one) of Harvard Law School.
Reading Kagan’s bio again reminds me how much her accomplishments read as a “how-to” manual for reaching the Supreme Court. Plus (incredibly, given all she’s done), she’s still relatively young — only 49 right now. She’d be on the Court for a long time.
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p>I’m sure somewhere somebody already has odds on this. I’d guess it has to be at least 2:1 Kagan right now?
I think the answer is moot. It happened with Sotomayor.
I’d add one more possibly relevant piece of evidence to David’s list: Justices tend to stagger their retirements if possible, so Stevens may be thinking that next year fits right in between Souter’s retirement this year and Ginsburg’s possible retirement (if she chooses) in a couple years.
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p>Elena Kagan would be a very solid choice, and I’d have to think she’s a (the?) favorite for the gig. A couple other possibilities who might be high on the list:
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p>Kathleen Sullivan (54 years old). She’s a professor (and former Dean) at Stanford Law School. She is very intelligent and knowledgeable (I used her excellent Con Law textbook), she’s argued cases in front of the Court, and would be another that has experience outside of being a federal judge. A third (and highly qualified) woman to the Court would be a positive as well. One negative includes her failing the California Bar Exam the first time, which would be sure to come up (though she was very busy around the time she took it, and the bar exam has more to do with knowledge/studying than raw intelligence, which she’s amply demonstrated).
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p>Cass Sunstein (55 years old). He’s a professor a Harvard Law School but who is on leave serving as Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a very important (if also very obscure to the public) White House office. He’s unquestionably one of the top academic legal minds today, and he has Obama’s ear (he served as a legal adviser on the campaign, and is married to one-time Obama senior adviser Samantha Power). If Obama is not dead-set on appointing a third woman to the Court, Sunstein has to be near the top of the list. The negative? A very LONG paper trail, given how prolific of an academic he is.
A couple thoughts on each:
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Kagan has a great resume, and I think would function well at the USSCT. My bias is very simple: “enough Harvard already”!
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p>Choosing only one law clerk, and the preference for staggered retirements does look like Stevens is seriously planning to retire.
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p>Now, that all being said there are other law schools than Harvard that produce top flight attorneys and legal scholars.
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p>So my challenge is this – who would you like to see nominated who is not a product of the Harvard Law School culture? I have a few thoughts as to legal scholars with a social conscience and serious appellate and other experience – but haven’t researched them yet, frankly.
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p>David’s post was a scoop, really had not thought that the “next Obama Scotus Appointment” was quite so just around the corner. Good work, David.
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Being from MA I’ll take all the Crimson I can get, just out of hometown pride:)
Like my alma mater, BC — we’re number 26!
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p>However, seriously, the pattern that just about all of the SCOTUS appointees in the last 40 years are are alums of either Harvard or Yale Law. The only notable exceptions I can think of are Rehnquist and O’Connor (Stanford) and Ginsburg (Columbia, I think). There begins to be an intellectual echo-chamber effect which really isn’t healthy. There is serious scholarship at all of the top-50 law schools, and certainly graduates of them who have had distinguished careers in practice and on the bench. It would be healthy to diversify the court for geographic and educational background just as much as it would for gender and ethnicity.
Obama is too “old school” for a move like that. Hope she gets it next time around, though.
I think just the opposite. I think he’s likely to nominate a woman, both because there happen to be a lot of extremely well-qualified women around, and because he would for the first time in history increase the number of women on the Court to three, and he’ll like that.
But your thoughtful response leads me to wonder about whether I’m projecting some deep personal prejudice on the President. Maybe, as an attorney, I take comfort in the slow steady course of the Supreme Court and I see three women (or two in a row) as a radical move. Please understand, I’m not defending that perspective, just wondering aloud where my previous quick opinion came from.
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p>I am also cognizant of the fact that, for a huge number of people in the country, the President’s choice of two women in a row would represent the coming apocalypse. Can’t you just envision the hand wringing? And, despite your analysis that Kagan is a perfect pick, qualification-wise, don’t most SCOTUS picks come out of left field? What was the book on Sotomayor, before the search officially started? Aren’t there a few “perfect” picks out there?
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p>My point is that it’s not a “do or die” nomination, but one in a (hopefully) series of choices. And I believe our President is sensitive to things that go beyond the (admittedly extremely important) analysis of what would make a fantastic progressive SCOTUS and what will send fewer citizens running for the cover of right wing ideologues.
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p>In short, I think in the crap shoot of choosing the right nominee, I believe Barack will take a pass on Kagan.
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p>But thanks for getting my brain going this early in the morning.
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Heh. Yes, yes I can. And it makes me smile. đŸ˜‰
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p>I think, actually, that Sotomayor was thought to be at the head of the hypothetical “Democratic president’s short list” for some time, even before Obama won the election. Her personal story is unbearably perfect, and her track record on the bench is both long and distinguished. Plus the whole “first Hispanic Justice” thing. You’re right that some picks are surprises — Sotomayor, though, was the (unusual?) case where the favorite actually wins the race.