According to the AP wire story that came across a bit ago, Bush will have to do more looking because he was prepping much more for a Rehnquist retirement.
They probably will need more time to go through the lists they considered in the past for O'Connor's retirement in past years. I would be surprised if they pick a male.
Judge John G. Roberts
This post is part of a series of profiles of potential Supreme Court nominees. Each entry includes a brief biography, relevant links, and (if applicable) short descriptions of some notable opinions.
Brief biography:
Judge Roberts was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in 2003 by President George W. Bush (he was also nominated by the first President Bush, but never received a Senate vote). Before his appointment, he practiced at Hogan & Hartson from 1986-1989 and 1993-2003. During the interlude, he was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the first Bush administration. He also served in the Reagan administration as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General from 1981-1982 and as Associate Counsel to the President from 1982-1986.
Judge Roberts attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He then clerked for Judge Henry Friendly on the Second Circuit and for Justice Rehnquist.
Judge Roberts is fifty years old. He and his wife have two children.
Relevant links:
Judge Roberts's Federal Judicial Center profile is available here. His Department of Justice nomination bio is here. Tony Mauro's profile for Law.com is here.
The possibility of a Roberts nomination has been thoroughly covered by legal blogs. SCOTUSBlog's four-part series can be found here: Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV. The Volokh Conspiracy's recent discussion wrapped up here (see the end of the post for links to the rest of the discussion).
The debate on Judge Roberts's nomination to the D.C. Circuit (he was nominated in 2001 and confirmed in 2003) provides a preview of likely public reaction to a Supreme Court nomination. Liberal groups criticized many of the positions he argued while working in the Reagan and Bush I administrations. This report from the Alliance for Justice is representative. As this report from NARAL illustrates, pro-choice groups focused on the anti-Roe stances taken in briefs written by Roberts during his time in the Solicitor General's office. The Department of Justice's summary of the support for Judge Roberts's nomination is available here.
Selected notable opinions:
Hedgepeth ex rel. Hedgepath v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 386 F.3d 1148 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (available here). Writing for a unanimous court, Judge Roberts rejected Fourth Amendment and Equal Protection Clause challenges to the arrest and detention of a twelve-year old girl for eating french fries on a Metro train. The case received some media attention because of its extreme facts--as Judge Roberts noted in the first line of his opinion, "[n]o one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation."
Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, 334 F.3d 1158 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (available here). In his dissent from a denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Roberts criticized the panel's holding that a regulation governing the treatment of a non-commercial species of wildlife was within Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. He argued that Lopez and Morrison required the court to adopt a narrower rule for Commerce Clause challenges, but also suggested that there might be other bases on which to sustain the regulation.
The AP story is "full of it." The President has probably been prepared for a long time, for whatever was about to happen.
The AP is ridiculous. If they think GW was not prepared for multiple vacancies they are sadly mistaken. It has been speculated for years that she would retire.
I won't believe an AP wire story telling the country, and the world for that matter, that President Bush was caught off guard by this resignation.
In the long term, Bush has known all along he would most likely get two SC picks. In the short term, he's known for several weeks, O'Connor did not rehire her staff for the fall court term.
Every other news source is telling us (ad nausum), both sides have been gearing up for SC resignations. Oh the msm might have been caught off guard it was O'Connor who retired first, and it coming today, but I don't believe for a minute Bush didn't know this was coming.