My personal choice to replace either would be Janice Brown, formerly on the California Supreme Court, now on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has often been a stepping stone for elevation to the Supreme Court. But control of the Senate, even by a slim majority, is essential to this effort.
I expect that whoever replaces Frist as Majority Leader in the Senate will have to use the constitutional option to force a vote on the floor. Keep in mind that that option requires only a majority vote to make it work, since it would be a vote on a ruling from the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, ruling that a filibuster is illegal as applied to a judicial nominee.
The longest legacy that most Presidents have is their appointment of federal judges, since the judges serve for life and often outlast the Presidents who appointed them by a quarter century or more. Therefore, I second the opinions presented in this article.
Congressman Billybob
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Please see my most recent statement on running for Congress, here.
my favorite example is John Marshall...the Federalist USSC Chief Justice served from 1801-1836...even though the Federalist party ceased to exist after 1817.
Read my tagline.
I was watching media whore Barack Obama rallying a crowd in Maryland saying that it didn't matter what color your skin was if the person didn't "share our values" he didn't deserve "our" support. Opposing conservative judges of minority race or ethnicity will never cost Dem senators.
She would be your go-to if the 'Rats took over the Senate; as a black conservative she'd split the Left, or at least embarrass it, the way Justice Thomas did.
On the other hand "the two Ediths" and Judge Luttig remain better choices -- Rodgers Brown has under her belt a case in which she looked the Second Amendment in the eye, in a California gun-control case, and simply walked away. That was when she was in the California court system. She failed to sustain 2A in a case where the right was clearly bound to the State of California by the operation of the 14th Amendment. One is left to surmise that she didn't broach the issue because California, for historical reasons, doesn't have in its constitution an article equivalent to the Second Amendment. There is no personal right of firearms ownership under California law.
This was a criminal case involving a possible conviction, and she walked away from 2A.
"The two candidates for replacement are Ginsburg (cancer survivor) and Stevens (age and infirmity)."
I agree that there is a good chance these two will be out soon.
The third justice that needs to step down next year is Justice Scalia, and Bush should allow him to name his own replacement.
Scalia is currently 71. And I don't trust Hillary, Romney Guiliani, or McCain to name his replacement.