The Search to Fill the Souter Vacancy

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The search for Souter's replacement began before the Obama administration even knew it was his replacement they were preparing for. Supreme Court vacancies are generally beyond the control of the president (Lyndon Johnson being the exception). It is best to be prepared, lest a vacancy occur with no warning. Of course, Justice Souter has now given them advance notice, and the team for identifying and vetting various choices has been working diligently to address the president's prerogatives and provide him with options.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals qualified to be a justice of the Supreme Court. If you can think of just 10 in your state alone, then we could be sitting with over 500 potential names. Beginning to narrow the list, think about what the president is likely to want. If you have read the president page on this site, then you can get some idea of what kind of justice Obama seeks. Next, apprise the political setting for this nomination so you can understand what constraints there might be on the president regarding his choice. What you discover is that the president can likely gain confirmation for just about anyone he picks, though some will clearly stir opposition more than others.

Here are the relevant factors for this vacancy: ideology, jurisprudence, age, sex, ethnicity/race, temperament, intellect, experience, legal acumen. Try to evaluate the various names put forward as possible nominees by these various criteria to see who Obama might pick (not who you would pick, you're not the president) . Presidents and justices don't like to talk publicly about ideology, but you and I know that he wants someone that most of us would consider liberal. See the ideology page for a treatment of ideological distinctions. Obama wants someone who believes in a jurisprudence that recognizes that the framers of the Constitution and many of its amendments sought to establish ideals that might find fulfillment in different ways in a nation that would never cease to evolve in its effort to establish that elusive "more perfect union." With respect to age, my guess is that Obama wants to appoint a justice who might serve on the Court for 30 or more years. That has certainly been the Republican strategy, Roberts and Scalia being 50 at the time of their appointment, Souter being 51, Alito being 55, and Thomas only 43. Surely Obama wants another woman on the Court, though he also would like to see greater ethnic/racial diversity as well. He also wants someone with a compassionate understanding of those who need the equal protection provided by our constitution and laws, someone who can be an intellectual force on the Court, yet who can work well with the other justices. With respect to experience, Obama may wish to depart from the recent standard of selecting a nominee from the US Court of Appeals. Prior judicial experience is not a qualification for the Court and both conservatives and liberals have icons (Rehnquist for the conservatives, Warren for the liberals) who represent the value of selecting justices whose experience lies in different areas of the legal world. Obama may well wish to see greater diversity on the Court with respect to background experience.

Here is a list of potential nominees, categorized as the judges, the politicos, and the academics, and ordered within by sex and age.

The Judges

• Sonia Sotomayor—Hispanic female appointed to the Appeals Court by Clinton in 1998, previously appointed by Bush as a District Court judge in 1992. She will turn 55 in June.
• Leah Sears—African-American female finishing her career as the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Turns 54 this summer.
• Kimberly Wardlaw—

The Politicos

The Academics

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Created on May 1, 2009 by GW