Four Paths Obama Could Take With His Supreme Court Nominee
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/22/3751530/four-paths-obama-could-take-with-his-supreme-court-nominee/
By many accounts, President Obama hopes to name his choice to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia within two weeks, so there is precious little time to speculate about who that nominee may be. There’s also a dauntingly long list of potential nominees. Seven years in the White House, including more than a year when a Democratic Senate could confirm nominees without fear that they would be blocked by a filibuster, enabled Obama to elevate a number of potential justices to lower courts. Additionally, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) appears to have used his three appointments to his state’s highest court to build a farm team for Democratic presidents looking for a future Supreme Court nominee.
The person the president eventually picks will reveal a great deal about how he plans to confront Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) plan to block anyone Obama sends up. Below are four potential strategies the White House may deploy. This list is not meant to provide an exhaustive catalog of potential nominees. Many names that have been suggested in the media as possible nominees (Loretta Lynch, Pam Harris, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Pam Karlan, Paul Smith, etc.) are not discussed below.
The Olive Branch
Under ordinary circumstances, if a Supreme Court vacancy opened up at a time when different parties controlled the White House and the Senate, the president might seek out a nominee with broad appeal and a record that points toward moderation. The obvious candidate, if President Obama should seek to go this route, is Judge Sri Srinivasan of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Srinivasan was confirmed 97-0 to his current job on the DC Circuit, which is often viewed as the second most powerful court in the country. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, described Srinivasan as “terrific.”...
The Conventional Superqualified Nominee
Though the White House has largely been coy about what kind of nominee they will select to replace Scalia, President Obama has emphasized one trait — the nominee will be “an outstanding legal mind” who “indisputably is qualified for the seat.” Whoever the president picks, in other words, it appears he wants to box his opposition into a corner by choosing someone with impressive credentials that will be hard to denounce as unsuited for the nation’s highest court.
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