WASHINGTON - At least eight Texans are being mentioned as potential Supreme Court nominees as anticipation builds over prospects that President Bush soon may face his first vacancy on the high court.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips are late additions to a familiar list of Texas contenders that includes Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and several judges.
Bush may also use the opportunity to name the first full-fledged Texan on the court in nearly four decades. Tom C. Clark of Dallas served from 1949 until he resigned in 1967 when his son, Ramsey Clark, became U.S. attorney general. O'Connor was born in El Paso but was nominated from Arizona, where she grew up on a cattle ranch and launched her legal career.
At least three other Hispanics from Texas are also on the list of possible nominees: Emilio Garza and Edward Prado, both from San Antonio and both justices on the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and District Judge Ricardo Hinojoso of McAllen.
Other potential nominees are J. Michael Luttig, who grew up in Tyler and serves on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and Edith Hollan Jones, descendant of a wealthy San Antonio family who serves on the 5th Circuit. Jones was runner-up when President George H.W. Bush selected justice David Souter in 1990.
And AG Gonzales
The femininists are all yelling that because O'Connor was a woman, then it should be a woman who's named. Wouldn't it be funny if started a movement that it should be a Texan because O'Connor was a Texan?