I do think he has names in the past and just wants to re-check and re-ponder them to make dang sure they will be good.
This retirement is momentous, but this still is a liberal court despite claims otherwise by the NYT calling it a conservative one.
Why?
4 justices are liberals. 3 conservative. 2 swing votes.
To get a 5-4 majority, all the liberal has to do is pick off ONE swing vote. Just one.
To get a conservative majority, we need BOTH swing votes.
With O'Connor's retirement, it helps in that we can add one justice to the conservative column. That would leave one swing vote.
We would just need that vote to get the majority, but with Kennedy increasingly going to thet left, it is ironic that O'Connor's leaving actually may not help us much at all since Kennedy may soon join the liberal bloc.
If that occurs, the liberals will have an unassailable majority, and we would never win a case again.
We need a liberal to retire.
It simply has to happen for a real change in this court.
IOW, hopefully Stevens decides to quit now that O'Connor has.