Obama To Review Court Picks Over Weekend

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 15 May 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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President Obama on Wednesday said he would review potential Supreme Court nominees to replace retiring Justice David Souter over the weekend, prompting those involved with the process to believe he will make an announcement within days, the Washington Post reports. Obama was speaking to a group of senators that included Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee's ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). According to White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, Obama told the senators that he "would choose a nominee who respects the Constitution and judicial precedent and also has the good judgment and common sense to reach fair decisions" (Murray, Washington Post, 5/14). Although a list of six to eight potential names has been circulating in public, a White House official said an official pick is not likely to be announced before Memorial Day (Weisman, Wall Street Journal, 5/14).

During the meeting, the president also urged senators to act quickly during the confirmation hearing so the new justice is confirmed prior to the court's next session, which begins in October. Obama told Reid that the goal was to hold the confirmation vote before the Senate leaves for its summer recess, for which the official adjournment date is Aug. 7 (Washington Post, 5/14). However, Republican members at the meeting "poured cold water on that idea," the Journal reports. According to McConnell, 60 days usually passes between the naming of a nominee and the first confirmation hearing in the Judiciary Committee. According to the Journal, Obama is aiming to avoid partisan controversy over the summer and "ease his choice onto the court." Obama "got a lift" from Sessions during the meeting when the senator indicated that a filibuster attempt is not in the works, the Journal reports (Weisman, Wall Street Journal, 5/14).

Court Watchers Say Next Pick Likely To Be a Woman

While there has been much speculation on who will be nominated, court watchers have said Souter's successor likely will be a woman, as the "lack of women [on the court] is widely perceived as the gap that most needs to be addressed," the Journal reports. Advocates for a female nominee argue that the need for a woman on the court is not only a matter of perception. Hannah Brenner, executive director of the University of Texas Center for Women in Law, said that the U.S. and the court benefit from justices with differing experiences and viewpoints. She added that "there is no one who can argue there is not (an) overwhelming number of qualified women who could be nominated to the court" (Forsyth, Wall Street Journal, 5/14).

NPR's "All Things Considered" reports that a list of potential nominees circulating in the public includes the following names: Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals judge in New York; Diane Wood of Chicago's federal appeals court; Elena Kagan, the new solicitor general and former Harvard Law School dean; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D); and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Merrick Garland of the Washington, D.C., federal appeals court is the only male included on the list. The "triumvirate mentioned most often" is Sotomayor, Wood and Kagan, "All Things Considered" reports (Totenberg, "All Things Considered," NPR, 5/13).

However, some critics -- namely conservatives -- say that there is danger in using gender or race as the primary criteria for selecting a nominee, arguing that such an approach could cause justices to believe they need to reflect the views of a particular group instead of act as a neutral figure. Stephen Presser, a legal historian at Northwestern University, said, "You have to be very careful of having the court be a representative body and thinking about it in political terms, because that weakens the rule of law." Deborah Rhode, director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford University, said that studies show a justice's legal ideology to be a greater predictor of decisions than his or her gender. She said, "People who care about women's issues realize that not just any woman will do" (Wall Street Journal, 5/14).

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