Associated Press - High Court Selection Process for Nominee to Replace Justice O'Connor Winds Down
September 28, 2005
By Deb Riechmann,
Associated Press Writer
President Bush, nearing the end of his search for a successor to retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has whittled his list to a handful of candidates and could announce his decision by week's end.
"We have been listening to the views and ideas of members of the Senate, and the president will take those into account as he makes a decision about who should fill that vacancy," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Tuesday.
Bush is expected to announce his nominee quickly after Thursday's anticipated confirmation and swearing in of John Roberts as chief justice, the president's first pick for the nation's top court.
Bush advisers have consulted with nearly 70 senators, including 17 members of the 18-member Judiciary Committee, McClellan said. He declined to list people the president has interviewed or discuss his list of favorites.
Legal analysts monitoring the selection process, however, say the list has been narrowed to about five or six candidates, mostly federal appellate judges and a few individuals who have never worn a judicial robe.
Often mentioned are federal appellate judges Alice Batchelder, J. Michael Luttig, Edith Jones, J. Harvie Wilkinson, Priscilla Owen, Samuel Alito, Karen Williams and Michael McConnell.
Also said to be under consideration are corporate attorney Larry Thompson, White House counsel Harriet Miers, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Bush hinted Monday he might choose a woman or minority member, but some outside advisers were intrigued by another part of his comments. The president said he had interviewed and considered people from "all walks of life."
That raised speculation that Bush was actively considering people who were not on the bench such as Miers, a Texas lawyer and the president's former personal attorney, and Thompson, who was the federal government's highest ranking black law enforcement official when he was deputy attorney general during Bush's first term.
"It could be someone outside of the legal judicial field like a Larry Thompson, or it could be a senator," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest legal group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.
Sekulow said he's heard Miers' name mentioned "fairly significantly" during the past two days. She doesn't have judicial experience, but she's a "well-respected lawyer someone the president trusts."
Two other judicial activists, including one with contacts at the White House, said they too had heard Miers' name mentioned, but agreed with Sekulow, who cautioned, "I don't think anybody has that crystal ball but the president."
Miers is leading the White House effort to help Bush choose a nominee to the Supreme Court, so naming her would follow a move Bush made in 2000 when he tapped the man leading his search committee for a running mate Dick Cheney.
"Given the Cheney precedent and the president's well-known loyalty to his aides, it's certainly possible the president could turn to Harriet," said Brad Berenson, a lawyer who formerly worked in the counsel's office of the Bush White House.
Manny Miranda, a former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, said he thinks social conservatives have been less effective than the business community in communicating their views to the White House.
He said that could raise the prospects for Thompson, who is now a counsel at Pepsico Inc., or Corrigan, who was appointed in 1992 to the Michigan Court of Appeals by former Gov. John Engler, who is now chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers.