USSC Nominee Short List

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
1

Interesting speculation on the most likely candidates to become Bush’s nominees for U.S. Supreme Court vacancies that most people believe will occur during his 2nd term – anywhere from 1 (Rehnquist almost certainly) to 4 (Stevens, O’Connor and Ginsberg (in descending order of probabiliby) also are speculated as stepping down.

I’m sure there will be all sorts of ridiculous accusations tossed around about whomever is nominated, but here is a speculative, opinion-style article on who comprises the “short list”:

Judging the Shortlist
While All Conservative,
Bush’s Roster of Possible Rehnquist
Successors Show Differences

By JEANNE CUMMINGS and JESS BRAVIN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 23, 2005; Page A4

The Supreme Court convenes today to hand down some of its remaining decisions on cases heard this term. But at the White House and the Senate, the focus is on the court’s future – and who among a new generation of legal stars of the right might succeed Chief Justice William Rehnquist, should he step down when the court’s annual term ends next week.

The jurists on the rumor-mill shortlist are likely to equal – if not exceed – the conservative views of Chief Justice Rehnquist. But there are some important differences in their r?sum?s and rulings that could determine how they would fare in the Senate, where Democrats have waged a scorched-earth campaign against some of President Bush’s nominees to lower courts – and will likely be even more geared for a fight with the highest legal stakes of all.

If Mr. Bush is willing to take on an ideological battle reminiscent of those over Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork, he may turn to Judge Michael McConnell, whom he placed on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver; Judge McConnell has been the most outspoken on the hot-button issue of abortion, making clear he thinks Roe v. Wade, the 1973 opinion that recognized abortion rights, should be overturned. The White House might expect a less-contentious conflict with another of Mr. Bush’s appellate-court nominees, District of Columbia Circuit Judge John Roberts, whose even demeanor and dearth of controversial rulings could make it tougher for Democrats to characterize him as an extremist candidate.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be the first Hispanic nominated to the high court and would fit well into Mr. Bush’s long-term political strategy of winning Latinos to the Republican Party. Mr. Gonzales also could appeal to centrists, because he would likely be criticized by conservatives for not being tough enough on abortion and by liberals for being too lax in protecting military prisoners.

Centrist Democrats who can make or break a filibuster attempt by party leaders decline to offer a public assessment of the candidates on the short list, worrying that even tepid acquiescence might kill that person’s chances, by stoking Republican opposition. Liberal activists are, for now at least, gearing up to push Democrats to fight any of the names bandied about. “We take a dim view of all of them,” says Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, a civil-rights group. “These aren’t consensus candidates.”

White House officials recently reinvigorated their screening of potential candidates, but officials decline to speak publicly about the process since no seat on the high court is open.

Mr. Gonzales, 49 years old, long has been considered a favorite of Mr. Bush for a Supreme Court posting. As the president’s first-term White House counsel, Mr. Gonzales, a fellow Texan, was skewered by Democrats for legal views and policy decisions that afforded limited rights to prisoners taken in the war against terrorism.

At the same time, Mr. Gonzales’s stature has slipped among members of the Republicans’ social conservative base, who are ramping up conference calls and mapping out a strategy to nix a Gonzales nomination. Abortion opponents have held him in suspicion after his Texas Supreme Court opinions construed wide exceptions in a state parental-notification law.

Mr. Gonzales also has said he benefited from the very affirmative-action programs that some conservatives pine to dismantle today. “I think Mr. Gonzales is a very good attorney general. I think there are other candidates out there for the Supreme Court that may get broader support,” says Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Family Research Council.

Judge McConnell, 50, of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, came to the bench with an extensive record as a law professor and wide backing from fellow academics. He is best known for arguments that courts have built too high a wall between church and state and for strenuous criticism of the 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion that recognized abortion rights.

In a 1998 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. McConnell called the decision’s “reasoning” an “embarrassment to those who take constitutional law seriously.” He has also compared Roe v. Wade to 19th-century high-court rulings upholding slavery and segregation that later were repudiated.

Mr. McConnell, who served as a law clerk to the liberal Justice William Brennan, has on occasion broken from Republican orthodoxy. In a letter to Congressional Republicans, he opposed the impeachment of President Clinton because it lacked bipartisan support and wrote that in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court should have directed vote-counting to resume in Florida under fairer standards.

Judge Roberts, 50, of the D.C. Circuit, served as a Rehnquist law clerk and as deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush. He has spent most of his career in private practice and his views aren’t as well documented.

During his service for the president’s father, Mr. Roberts did argue in a brief that “we continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled.” In his short tenure on the circuit court, Judge Roberts largely has sided with the administration, voting to prevent American prisoners-of-war from the Persian Gulf War from suing the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government for damages suffered under the Saddam Hussein regime, and holding that records of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force could remain secret – a view later endorsed by the Supreme Court.

The biggest test of Judge Roberts’s fealty to the administration’s views is now under way. He sits on a three-judge panel considering the government’s appeal of a lower-court ruling that the Geneva Conventions apply to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that military commissions assembled to try “enemy combatants” for war crimes are illegal.

The Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., is home to two rumored finalists, Reagan-appointee J. Harvie Wilkinson, 61, and J. Michael Luttig, 51, named by the first President Bush. They share core legal beliefs: both have upheld laws restricting access to abortions. Observers discern shades of difference, with the younger Judge Luttig taking a more aggressive conservative position.

In 2003, Judge Wilkinson issued an opinion that all but foreclosed judicial recourse for a U.S. citizen jailed as an “enemy combatant.” Judge Luttig complained that the opinion didn’t go far enough and wrote a dissent suggesting he would give the president nearly unfettered power to imprison such people. The Supreme Court agreed with neither; an 8-1 majority vacated the Wilkinson opinion last year and set the stage for hundreds of prisoners to challenge their detentions.

Another rumored short-lister, Judge Samuel Alito of the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, is considered a quiet and retiring member of one of the less-influential federal appeals courts. Still, his opinions have attracted notice, including a 1991 vote to uphold all restrictions to abortion in a Pennsylvania law, including a requirement that a woman inform her husband that she is seeking an abortion. In other opinions, Judge Alito upheld the placement of religious symbols in holiday displays at City Hall in Jersey City, N.J., and ruled that a high school student from Oceanport, N.J., who suffered depression after being harassed by classmates was entitled to special-education assistance under a federal law protecting disabled students.

Write to Jeanne Cummings at jeanne.cummings@wsj.com and Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com

2

This would really help the Senate Republicans if Bush can get his recomondation in the next 2 months.

This would galvanize the GOP base just like marrige amendments did this past November.

3

The key will be if Stevens or Ginsberg steps down. They are reliable left-wing votes, and a Bush appointee to replace either of them would be a big change in the weight of the court. Rehnquist should be a wash, unless Bush does as horrible a job picking judges as his father did (Souter).

It would be really interesting if O’Connor stepped down, as she and Kennedy are the two “swingers,” as it were (though Kennedy has fairly consistently swung to the left over the past few years).

Of course, it’s too bad we even have to consider this, but being realistic about how much power the USSC has amalgamated to itself and how much political (as in non-legal, non-Constitutional) crap goes into a lot of judges’ decision-making processes, you really do have to consider it.

4

The latest rumors:

Quietly, quietly behind the scenes the Supreme Court boiler is building steam waiting for a release. Anticipation builds with rumors now circulating that the Chief Justice’s health is only getting worse. As of this afternoon, he is in the hospital with a fever.
Here are the latest bullet points on the Supreme Court saga. Let’s just cut out the “sources say” business because everything below is what various previous sources (including my own little deep throat source) are telling me.

  1. The White House is expanding its search of possible nominees, including looking off the federal bench to the state level and off the bench altogether. The staff is focusing on both female and racial minorities for the O’Connor pick.

  2. Senator Reid has, in private, conceded that the Democrats are going to lose this fight, but they intend to (A) fight like hell to save face with their base and (B) work out the best possible solution with the White House on who the nominee will be. In other words, the Dems want to make sure the conservative who is appointed is reasonable, but they intend to also clean the floor with him to show the base they aren’t kids getting spanked by the Republicans, though that is what is happening.

  3. Even prior to his hospitalization, the White House is moving forward with its judicial picks to find someone to replace the Chief Justice. Michael Luttig and John Roberts are both getting a thorough review. The White House wants to make sure the Chief knows his Court will be left in good hands, should the Chief want to go on and get off the bench.

  4. Three-quarters of Washington says the Stevens rumor is garbage. The other quarter is right.

  5. John Cornyn looks to be a favored compromise pick. His name has circulated privately between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats want to fight like hell against any nominee, but doing so against a Cornyn pick would further break down collegiality between the Republican majority and Democratic minority in the Senate. Several folks in the White House have started mulling this idea with some seriousness.

  6. The judge who was removed from the list, just might work his way back on. Conservatives close to the White House are doing all they can to put him back on and might be successful, but the odds are stacked against them.

That’s all I’ve got.

And, some advice for President Bush from former President Clinton, as translated by Wendy Long:

http://bench.nationalreview.com/archives/069567.asp

CNN just conducted a live interview with Bill Clinton ( http://www.shadowtv.com/redirect/notification.jsp?vid=2c9878ce50eb7a426bd8115b0a653527 ), who had a few important words of advice for President Bush on how to go about picking a Supreme Court Justice. President Clinton obviously understands that the chief executive of the United States has the sole constitutional responsibility of nominating Supreme Court Justices. (Remember, Clinton’s picks were Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.)

Here were Clinton’s prominent pieces of advice.

  1. Democrats will launch political attacks on anyone President Bush nominates:

“[T]he people that are your political opponents will politicize anybody you appoint anyway.”

(Note: this describes the behavior only of Democrats, inasmuch as Senate Republicans kindly and quickly confirmed Ginsburg, the former general counsel of the ACLU.)

  1. Choose someone whose judicial philosophy is consistent with yours:

“There’s no substitute for appointing someone [who] has convictions that are consistent with yours.”

(He also said that a nominee should be able to “think” and should have “a heart as well as a mind,” but let’s assume that one’s not even being disputed by the liberals in his own Party.)

5

A name that is gaining steam in the rumor mills:

Edith Brown Clement

In addition to having her speculation as nominee written up in the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071900138_pf.html ) and mentioned all over the internet( http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/7/18/235226/521 ; http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/7/19/102823/364 ; http://bench.nationalreview.com/ ), her contract on Tradesports.com just shot up 35 points… ( http://www.tradesports.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/ – look under “Legal” and under “U.S. Supreme Court” on the left sidebar). I don’t know if there are enough investors to make for a good market, but you never know…

EDIT –

But then again, it may be we’re mistaking our 5th-circuit Ediths – some people think the Administration is pulling some misdirection, and that it will actually be the more conservative Edith Jones:

http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/7/19/135429/473

We’ll see tonight I suppose…

FURTHER EDIT –

And then there’s this, which is just amusing – especially if it’s indeed Edith Jones:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_17_corner-archive.asp#069976

STOPEVERYBODY.COM [Byron York]
There has been a brisk traffic today in buying web addresses that could be used to oppose Edith Brown Clement, were she to become the new Supreme Court nominee. The addresses opposeclement.org and supportclement.org were both purchased by the anti-Bush Leadership Conference on Civil Rights today – allowing the group to simultaneously oppose Clement and stop her supporters from using the pro-Clement address.

Another address, stopclement.org, was purchased by the the group People for the American Way on July 8, two days after NRO published an article, “The Coming Web Attack on the Court Nominee,” ( http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200507061737.asp ) which outlined how not only People for the American Way, but NARAL Pro-Choice America, the Leadership Conference, and others had purchased addresses like stopgonzales.com, stopwilkinson.com, stopluttig.com, and many others.
Posted at 03:50 PM

6

Hmmm.

Now ABC, AP and Drudge are all saying it’s going to be John Roberts from the DC Circuit.

I guess we’ll know for certain in an hour.

For some more info on Roberts, look here:

http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1121816986.shtml

and

http://bench.nationalreview.com/archives/070034.asp

and

7

Thought I would bump this given that there is now going to be a new nominee.

Actually, there could be two nominations, but probably just one. Bush could nominate two new justices, and then nominate one of the 9 folks on the USSC to be elevated to chief. However, it’s likely he will nominate a new justice to be chief, so there will be just the one confirmation fight.

8

Now that Miers has withddrawn from the confirmation process, it may be good to refresh on some of the likely candidates. My personal favorite would probably be Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit, but it’s hard to say that Bush won’t restrict himself to women for this nomination.

One thing we can hope for is that Bush & Co. don’t nominate Gonzalez, as this would focus attention on some of the same things that were problematic about Miers’ nomination, particularly charges of “cronyism” (though Gonzalez has a better CV) and issues regarding both possible future recusal problems and issues surrounding the fighting that would occur over request for the President to release documents from when Gonzalez was acting as WH counsel.

9

An excellently written case for McConnell, from George Mason law professor and libertarian-leaning blogger Orin Kerr:

http://volokh.com/posts/1127227458.shtml

The Case for Michael McConnell:
Lots of people are wondering who the President will pick to replace Justice O’Connor now that John Roberts is well on the way to confirmation as Chief Justice. I don’t have any special insight about who the President will choose: the President can consider any range of different personal and political factors. But if special insight is far beyond my ability, amateurish speculation based on a questionable assumption is not. So here is a little amateurish speculation based on a questionable assumption.

Specifically, let’s assume that the President is motivated purely by political considerations, both in terms of short-term goals such as the satisfaction of interest groups and the long-term goal of influencing the law. If those are the President’s concerns, who among the names on the short list should he choose? I think the smartest pick would be Michael McConnell of the Tenth Circuit.

Here’s my thinking, starting with the long-term considerations and then turning to the short-term considerations:

  1. McConnell is conservative enough to be a key conservative vote in lots of important cases, but not so conservative that he would alienate a centrist like Justice Kennedy. The basic math here is counting to five; moving the law in a particular direction at the Court requires a particular distribution of viewpoints rather than a strength of them. A more conservative nominee doesn’t mean a more conservative court, as what matters is the viewpoint of the center rather than the edges. McConnell is probably conservative enough to be a conservative vote in most of the kinds of cases in which five conservative votes are going to be feasible.

  2. McConnell would likely be a key ally of Chief Justice Roberts. My sense is that McConnell’s views of the law are roughly in the Roberts camp: conservative but institutionalist.

  3. McConnell is by all accounts quite brilliant, and his intellectual leadership (together with Roberts’) could help influence trends in American legal thought for a generation.

  4. Moving on to short-term considerations, a McConnell nomination would be controversial enough to please the Right, but uncontroversial enough that McConnell would likely be confirmed. Specifically, McConnell has been outspoken about abortion ( http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=5030 ), but is also an extremely bright and and articulate person who has considerable bipartisan support ( http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/michaelmcconnellsupportletter.htm ).

  5. McConnell would stand up well to harsh questioning in Senate confirmation hearings ( White House Said to Shift List for 2nd Court Seat - The New York Times ). He would provide a good contrast with Roberts, too. While McConnell is just as sharp, balanced, and articulate as Roberts, he is less suave and more direct.

  6. Although McConnell is a white male, my sense is that nominating another white male won’t have significant political ramifications for the Administration. I’m no expert on such questions, but I don’t think there are many people who are hinging their support for the Administration on the race or gender of its Supreme Court nominees. Those on the right want a conservative; those on the left would be relieved to have a more moderate white male rather than a more conservative nominee who is a woman or a member of a minority group.

That’s my amateurish speculation, anyway. As always, comments welcome.

10

The new versions of the “short list”.

I’m happy to see McConnell’s name in play…

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2005/10/new_short_lists.html

Here’s the scuttle:

Sources say that Judge Priscilla Owen of the 5th circuit, Judge Michael McConnell of the , J. Harvie Wilkinson of the 4th circuit, Judge Edith Jones of the 5th circuit and Judge Edith Clement of the 5th circuit and Judge Karen Williams of the 4th circuit had interviews with Bush. Alice Batchelder was also reportedly vetted, though some Republicans in Michigan expressed discomfort with her for reasons unrelated to her jurisprudence.

A Republican ally of the White House lists these names: “Luttig, Alito, Owen, McConnell, Wiliams. JR Brown.”

The AP’s list ( http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3420151 ) includes Judge Sam Alito of the 3rd circuit, Judge Emilio Garza of the 5th circuit, A.G. Alberto Gonzales, Jones, Judge Michael Luttig of the 4th circuit, McConnell, Ex-SG Ted Olson, Thompson, Wilkinson, Owen, Miguel Estrada, Clement, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the DC circuit, Batchelder of the sixth circuit, Williams, Chief Justice Maura Corrigan of the Michigan Supreme Court, DC lawyer Maureen Mahoney.

National Review’s Adler ( http://bench.nationalreview.com/archives/080947.asp ) has Williams, Batchelder, Sykes, Corrigan, Alito, Olson, McConnell, Judge Consuelo Callahan, Justice Raoul Cantero of Fla, Judge Jeff Sutton of the 6th circuit and Mahoney.

Real Clear Politics has its own short list: RealClearPolitics - Supreme Court Shortlist

11

Boston,
Any thoughts on who the next nomination will be? Who would your preference be? It seems that Janice Rogers Brown is no longer a hot name…maybe the speech about grandparents “cannibilizing” their grandchildren was considered a tough sell.

12

[quote]dermo wrote:
Boston,
Any thoughts on who the next nomination will be? Who would your preference be? It seems that Janice Rogers Brown is no longer a hot name…maybe the speech about grandparents “cannibilizing” their grandchildren was considered a tough sell. [/quote]

I still hope he nominates her…at the very least the hearings would be interesting tv!

13

[quote]dermo wrote:
Boston,
Any thoughts on who the next nomination will be? Who would your preference be? It seems that Janice Rogers Brown is no longer a hot name…maybe the speech about grandparents “cannibilizing” their grandchildren was considered a tough sell. [/quote]

It depends on whether Bush is going to open his field to all comers or attempt to make an “affirmative action” pick.

Should he go the latter route, I’d have to put this name out there as a dark horse:

Consuelo Callahan on the 9th Circuit. Hispanic and female, pre-vetted by the Senate (she was appointed to the 9th Circuit in 2003 and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate).

My first choice would still be McConnell though, and his name is still getting play, according to the rumors. He would have as much or more support among academics and judges as Roberts did, though he’s definitely thoroughly aired his opinions concerning Roe v. Wade.

14

I think Gumby and Snoopy are high on the president’s list!

15

Judge Emilio Garza is my favorite. I’m buying a $2 ticket on Garza to win.

16

Very interesting and have not decided yet. I’ll think about it.

17

Rainjack,

If you’re betting, it seems Tradesports likes Alito at the moment:

http://tradesports.com/aav2/trading/tradingHTML.jsp?evID=36882&eventSelect=36882&updateList=true&showExpired=false#

He just took a big jump – don’t know how much volume trades on these things though – presumably much less than on the Presidential elections.

18

Given Alito’s name is getting a lot of play, here’s a nice, informative post on his corporate jurisprudence by corporate law professor and blogger Larry Ribstein:

Justice Alito

It?s beginning to look (at least on Intrade: InTrade ) like Justice Samuel Alito. Scrutiny will no doubt focus on his dissent in Casey. But, by my count (Westlaw search “OPINION OF THE COURT” W/2 ALITO & “CIRCUIT JUDGE”), Alito has also written 243 majority opinions. And as I discussed regarding Miers, e.g., here ( Ideas, Quotes and Sayings - Inspirational Quotes ) and here ( Ideas, Quotes and Sayings - Inspirational Quotes ), it?s important we get a judge who will decide business cases with some sensitivity to the value of free markets and the problems firms face from litigation and regulation.

Based on a quick check Alito is such a judge. Although he may not be the nominee, I think it?s worth briefly discussing some of Alito?s opinions, at least to indicate what a business-friendly justice might look like. So here goes (no cites ? those of you with Westlaw can find them fast enough by running the above search, or you can search on Findlaw by name):

* MBIA Ins. Corp. v. Royal Indem. Co.: enforced a waiver of an insurer's fraudulent inducement defense, applying Delaware?s ?objective theory of contract.?

* Trippe Mfg. Co. v. Niles Audio Corp.: applied a NY choice of law provision in an asset purchase agreement to the issue of the duty to arbitrate.

* Pitt News v. Pappert: struck down a Pennsylvania statute prohibiting advertisers from paying for alcoholic beverage advertising by news media affiliated with educational institutions, reasoning under the Central Hudson test for commercial speech that the financial burden the regulation imposed infringed the newspaper?s First Amendment rights.

* National Data Payment Systems, Inc. v. Meridian Bank: held that the contract precluded an oral waiver of a contractual termination date and that the seller was not estopped from invoking the termination provision.

* U.S. ex rel. Merena v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.: denied a reward to a qui tam relator whose claim was subject to dismissal for being based on publicly disclosed information

* Keller v. Orix Credit Alliance, Inc.: held that an employer's articulated reason for an allegedly discriminatory employment action was not pretextual.

* John Wyeth & Bro. Ltd. v. CIGNA Intern. Corp.: applied a forum selection clause giving exclusive jurisdiction to English courts.

* Barton & Pittinos, Inc. v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.: held that a company lacked an antitrust injury sufficient to support standing to sue.

* In re Burlington Coat Factory Securities Litigation: denied securities claims for failure to adequately allege scienter and materiality, and for lack of a duty to update.

* Hakimoglu v. Trump Taj Mahal Associates: denied recovery to a patron under a dram shop law for gambling losses allegedly caused by casinos' serving free booze and allowing the patron to continue gambling after becoming drunk, saying ?[w]e are also influenced by the difficult problems of proof and causation that would result from the recognition of claims such as those involved here.?

* Cooper Distributing Co., Inc. v. Amana Refrigeration, Inc.: reversing award of $4.37 million in damages under New Jersey Franchise Protection Act, holding that the contract unambiguously provided for a nonexclusive distributorship, and denying punitive damages for tortious interference on award of $0 in compensatory damages.

* Gade v. Csomos: denied civil liability for authorizing or permitting an unlicensed driver to operate a vehicle where the car's owner neither knew nor had reason to know that the driver's license had been suspended.

* Clowes v. Allegheny Valley Hosp.:  holding that a nurse failed to establish constructive discharge for ADA claim.

In short, Alito has displayed a marked tendency to enforce contracts as written, specifically including choice of law/forum and arbitration provisions that are intended to mitigate litigation costs. He’s also obviously aware of the problems that can be caused by lax proof standards and open-ended liability.

Alito isn?t my first choice. In a perfect world I would have Frank Easterbrook or Edith Jones. But, unlike Miers, he actually has a long record on these issues and not just tea leaves, and the record is a good one. It may be too much to hope that the debate won’t get bogged down on the sole issue of abortion, but if it actually gets around to whether Alito would be a good justice, the above analysis offers one relevant perspective.

19

Alito and Luttig seem to be getting the most play as the likely choices for nominee.

Here are their bios from the Wall Street Journal’s descriptions:

Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Born 1950 in Trenton, N.J. Graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School. Was assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey before becoming assistant solicitor general in 1981 and deputy solicitor general in 1985. Returned to New Jersey as U.S. attorney in 1987. Nominated by George H.W. Bush and confirmed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990. Known among conservatives as a strict constructionist in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia. Abortion-rights activists point to his dissent in the 1991 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey – in which he argued to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring a married woman to inform her husband before getting an abortion – as putting him in the anti-Roe v. Wade camp.

J. Michael Luttig
Born 1954 in Tyler, Texas. Graduate of Washington and Lee University and University of Virginia law school. Was assistant counsel to the Reagan White House. Clerked for Justice Scalia when he was a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Clerked for U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger from 1983 to 1984. Was nominated by George H.W. Bush and confirmed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991. Has close ties to several high-court justices, both conservative and liberal. A supporter of the death penalty – even before his father’s murder in a 1994 carjacking. Has penned several opinions considered anti-abortion, including one reversing a lower-court decision against a Virginia ban on so-called partial-birth abortion and another that backed the state’s law to require parental notification in teen abortions.

20

Boston,
From the people on your list, who would be most objectionable to the left? Who is most in the mold of Roberts, i.e. a definite conservative whose intelligence and credentials make him palatable to the moderate left?