 |
| Deval Patrick |
The recent announcement that Justice John Paul Stevens will eventually retire from the Supreme Court, along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s declining health, has many speculating on who might be on Obama’s short list of nominees. Here are few names being bandied about as tenable replacements in the future.
Deval Patrick: Currently the governor of Massachusetts. Patrick was born in Chicago, and like most of the aforementioned potential nominees, obtained his law degree from Harvard. He was also a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1983 to 1986. Before becoming governor, he was vice president and general counsel for Texaco Inc. in 1999. Patrick also served as executive vice president and general counsel for The Coca-Cola Co. from 2001 to 2004.
PROS: Personal friend of Obama and an African American.
CONS: No judicial experience and would be used as a pin cushion since he runs Massachusetts’ statewide health care plan.
 |
| Leah Ward Sears |
Jennifer Granholm: Curently the governor of Michigan, Granholm worked for former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988. She obtained her law degree from Harvard University.
PROS: No judicial experience.
CONS: Born in born in Vancouver, Canada and she has no judicial experience.
Leah Ward Sears: Was former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. She received her J.D. in 1980 from Emory University and LL.M. degree from University of Virginia School of Law in 1995.
PROS: Being female and black, she would represent a historic appointment
to the court.
CONS: She is a member of the American Constitution Society — an organization whose mission is to stand against conservative jurisprudence (she is a liberal activist judge).
 |
| Harold Hongju Koh |
Harold Hongju Koh: Currently he is the top legal adviser to the State Department. He also received his law degree from Harvard and served as law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun from 1981–82. Koh was a law professor in 1985 at Yale University, where he stayed until he became Yale’s law school dean in 2001. He left Yale to work for the State Department after Obama was elected.
PROS: Would make history as the first Asian-American Supreme Court nominee.
CONS: No judicial experience, hard-core liberal and the GOP would fight tooth and nail to keep him out
Merrick B. Garland: Currently is a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was born in Chicago in 1952 and is a Harvard law graduate who clerked Supreme Court Justice William Brennan from 1978–79 before working for the Justice Department in 1981.PROS: Held in high esteem by both GOP and Democrats based on his work in investigating Oklahoma City federal
building bombing in 1995.
CONS: Too moderate for extreme right and left wingers.
–torrance stephens
