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From Yahoo News: Obama seeks Court nominee who backs women’s rights. WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, treading carefully in the explosive arena of abortion and the Supreme Court, said Wednesday he will choose a nominee who pays heed to the rights of women and the privacy of their bodies. Yet he said he won’t enforce any abortion rights “litmus tests.” Obama said it is “very important to me” that his court choice take women’s rights into account in interpreting the Constitution, his most expansive comments yet about how a woman’s right to choose will factor into his decision. In line...

With Justice John Paul Steven just months away from retirement, the White House says President Obama is considering a more diverse pool of candidates, including whites, blacks and Hispanics -- men and women -- to tap for his replacement. "I think he will have a broad group of people that represent many – that represent America as a way of looking at the nominee," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. Fox News has confirmed the latest name in the mix: Judge Ann Claire Williams of the 7th Circuit, who was the first black nominated to the federal bench, by...

Federal appeals court nominee Goodwin Liu’s confirmation hearing on Friday quickly turned into a partisan showdown. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee attacked Liu’s public remarks and writings as reflecting an activist agenda, and also said Liu lacked experience arguing cases before the Supreme Court. Democrats aggressively defended him, and complained that Republicans were holding Liu to a different standard than used for Republican judicial appointees. Both sides are watching the confirmation closely because Liu’s nomination to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is viewed as a prelude to this summer’s fight over President Barack Obama’s second Supreme Court...

Justice Stevens announced his intention to quit on April 9th. President Barack Obama is expected to nominate a replacement within weeks. Leaks suggest that he has a shortlist of about ten candidates, including a couple of big political names: Janet Napolitano, the homeland-security secretary, and Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan. Most pundits, however, expect him to nominate a professional jurist. The most-mentioned names include Diane Wood and Merrick Garland, both appeals-court judges, and Elena Kagan, the solicitor-general. His nominee must be confirmed by the Senate, which should be easy, since his party has a hefty majority. In theory, Republicans...

There's not yet an official nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens — but the Obama White House's rapid-response machine is already working overtime to squelch speculation over the politics of the nominations process. Last week, it took just a few hours for the administration's communications team to tamp down a rumor that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on the short list of prospective nominees. (See our coverage of the Hillary rumor, and other names floated at the margins of the nomination debate here.) And yesterday, the administration blasted CBS News for a blog post on...

<p>The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court.</p> <p>Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, wrote that President Obama would "please" much of his base by picking the "first openly gay justice." An administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing personal matters, said Kagan is not a lesbian.</p>

WASHINGTON — US First Lady Michelle Obama Thursday said she favored diversity on the nation's top court, wading into risky political waters as her husband weighs his second pick to the bench. Asked in an interview with MSNBC television her preference for the upcoming nomination to the Supreme Court, Obama said of President Barack Obama: "I think he knows what he's doing in this instance." "Diversity in this country is a good thing whether it's gender or race or socio-economic background or religion. You know, that's the world I come from," she said.

Obama and the vast majority of Senate Democrats believe that Lady Justice should peek from under the blindfold every now and then.

The President Will Again Have To Consider A Complicated Political Calculus It didn't take President Obama very long to pick Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, but he may face the same difficult choice again soon. With Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens likely approaching the end of their tenures, Obama could end up naming at least two more justices to the high court. What would he be looking for in his second and third nominees? Court observers predict he will seek out consensus candidates -- or at least non-provocative ones. In...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An administration official says President Barack Obama is considering federal appeals court judge Sidney Thomas of Montana for the Supreme Court, one of about 10 people under serious review.

White House kills Hillary SCOTUS buzz The White House moved quickly today to squelch the widening speculation that Hillary Clinton could be nominated to the Supreme Court, as Senator Orrin Hatch suggested this morning. "The President thinks Secretary Clinton is doing an excellent job as Secretary of State and wants her to remain in that position," said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor. Clinton's spokesman had said she was flattered by Hatch's flotation, though happy in her current posts, and others in Clinton's circle had quietly responded warmly to the notion. But Veitor's comment is aimed at putting an end to...

The irony of Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement is that it is likely to change the Senate more than the Supreme Court. Stevens' announcement Friday gives President Obama his second chance to reshape the court. But as with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter, Obama's choice would be replacing one of the court's existing liberal stalwarts. That means even if he chooses another liberal like Sotomayor, the court's ideological balance would remain the same. The string of recent narrow 5-4 decisions would likely remain unbroken. But court watchers agree that is not likely to make this choice...

On Friday, April 9, 2010 a significant retirement announcement made the National news, Justice John Paul Stephens is leaving the bench. His departure must be a rallying cry for all those who recognize the true fundamental human rights issue of our age, the right to life from conception to natural death. Justice Stevens is by all accounts a gentleman and an intellectual. His demeanor has earned him the respect and admiration of many, including his colleagues on the bench who disagreed with many of his judicial opinions. The most notably wrong among those opinions was his support of the majority...

Justice Stevens’ retirement from the Supreme Court creates a potential game-changer for the midterm elections. If Republicans respond correctly to this, they can recapture the House, make big gains in the Senate, and bring most of the Tea Party crowd back into the GOP fold. On April 9, Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court this summer. This move has been anticipated since late 2009, when Stevens didn’t hire his full allotment of law clerks for the Court’s next term. But making the announcement now completely changes the national dialogue, with widespread implications. Many...

Forget “throws like a girl.” Try "throws worse than an octogenarian" . . . How weak was Pres. Obama’s first pitch at the Nationals game on Opening Day this week? Well, have a look at officially ancient John Stevens throwing out a first pitch, and compare and contrast with PBO’s puny effort [after the jump]. MSNBC ran the clip of Stevens’ throw in the course of a segment on the Supreme Court justice’s announcement today of his retirement. View videos of Stevens and Obama's pitches here.

WASHINGTON—Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced Friday he will retire from the court this summer. Justice Stevens, 89 years old, said in a letter to the White House that he will step down when the high court takes its summer break. "Having concluded that it would be in the best interests of the court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the court's next term, I shall retire from regular active service as an associate justice...effective the next day after the court rises for the summer recess this year," Justice Stevens wrote.

We already miss Justice John Paul Stevens — the Justice Stevens of the 1970s, that is: the Stevens whose opinion on why racial preferences in college admissions violate the Civil Rights Act has never been refuted, the Stevens who was skeptical of judicial micromanagement of local law enforcement. That Justice Stevens retired a long time ago, replaced by a down-the-line liberal activist, one whose flippant abortion rulings went nine-tenths of the way toward justifying a right to infanticide. We know that President Obama will nominate a replacement who is also committed to imposing liberal policy outcomes over the objections of...

<p>WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's oldest member and leader of its liberal bloc, he is retiring. President Barack Obama now has his second high court opening to fill.</p> <p>Stevens said Friday he will step down when the court finishes its work for the summer in late June or early July. He said he hopes his successor is confirmed "well in advance of the commencement of the court's next term."</p>

According to Bloomberg News, the Obama administration has zeroed in on three candidates to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who now says he "will surely" retire during Obama's presidency, and two are women. The front-runner is Solicitor General Elena Kagan and the other two are federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

A leading Democratic senator hopes Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens doesn't decide to retire this year. The 89-year-old Stevens says he "will surely" step down during Barack Obama's presidency, and will decide soon whether it's this year or next. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., worries that a nomination fight this year would mean gridlock in the partisan Senate. Specter thinks there's a better chance for consensus next year. Specter tells "Fox News Sunday" he hopes Obama would pick someone who would be a check on executive power, as he says Stevens has provided. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican...