Supreme court vacancy

  So, Justice Souter is retiring. 

Me, I vote for Sonia Sotomayor. Why?  C'mon, it's obviousFirst, she's from the Bronx.  Second, she ended the baseball strike back in '95. Third, I need a third?

I reserve the right to change my opinion should I discover that she does not have a New York accent of the modern type.

But I'd sure love to have a guest post about the Court from somebody who, you know, actually knows something about it.  Hint.

Comments

[Dennis Brennan]

Don't look at _me_-- my con law is rusty. Doesn't come up very often in an M&A practice. Paging David Tenner?

I would think that Laurence Tribe (age 67) would be on the short list; but the plagiarism thing alone might sink him.

[Luke]

Spike, he's...old...

Kagan, Preeta Bansal, Neal Katyal, Koh are for later.

Though I'd be amused to see Koh withdrawn from State and set up for the Supreme Court.

Diane Wood, Cass Sunstein being the perpetual darkhorse that people like Mark Ambinder love.

[Dennis Brennan]

Or, he could coopt and conquer:

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=d2f38db8-3c8a-477e-bd0a-5bd56de0e7c0

Or another U. of C. Law rock star who is nominally a conservative:

http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/N40ML1LR.pdf

[Peter]

Sonia Sotomayor indeed seems well qualified. Unfortunately, if she's selected and confirmed she'll always have to deal with the suspicion that she was chosen primarily because of her race. That stigma is a drawback of affirmative action that doesn't get much attention.

[Luke]

Spike

Richard Posner....so special....must not say...so many things. The other link appears broken.

Peter,

No. This isn't 1993

[Dennis]

Luke, come on. Must say. Don't be a tease.

I know perfectly well that although Posner is wicked smaht, he has way too long a paper trail- including years of blogging and explicit advocacy of drug legalization- for him to have any natural constituency at all apart for those who value brainpower for its own sake.

The other link was to one of Frank Easterbrook's opinions where, as he frequently does, he goes for the yuks.

[Luke]

It's not just a matter of "paper trail." Like Sunstein, he's the essence of anti-Brennan. Specifics are grim and different between the two of them, and are available, via email. But either would have a fairly antic confirmation hearing. For all that Posner is the intellectual shark who's pro-legal pot, he lacks the testimony of, say, Martha Nussbaum.

As a Lab Brat, I find ongoing amusement in the fact that the media has yet to discern that bright academics tend to have limited abilities at playing sandbox.

That aside, hometown pride cheers for a UChicago-trained justice, especially since Stevens is to retire.

[Noel Maurer]

Peter, I don't agree with you about Sotomayor having to worry that anyone is going to suspect that she was nominated for the Court over a better-qualified or smarter white man.

She graduated from Princeton summa cum laude and then edited the law journal at Yale. She then went into a series of jobs in which performance is easily measured: assistant D.A. in NYC, partner at a commercial firm, and then a federal judgeship. There is nothing subjective about any of those achievements or her performance in those jobs.

So I don't understand why you think "she'll always have to deal with the suspicion that she was chosen primarily because of her race." That doesn't seem to make any sense.

[Noel Maurer]

Peter, judging from recent Republican rhetoric, you were right and I was wrong.

It still doesn't make any sense. But "sense" doesn't seem to matter much when you've got a major political party to destroy. Self-destroy, that is.

Caray.