In theory, If Hillary Clinton would have been Pres, her SCOTUS picks would have been.....

Follow-Up to the Democratic (Not So) Short List
Saturday, July 14th, 2007 5:52 pm

1. Three women received very favorable commentary as potential nominees, in the following order: (i) Diane Wood (an overwhelming response); (ii) Sonia Sotomayor; and (iii) Elena Kagan. No doubt, the great respect Dean Kagan gained for her conservative appointments at Harvard played a role here. She also has the benefit of being substantially younger than the other two.


Given those reactions, I am revising my short list of potential appointments for the first seat to: Kagan, Sears, Sotomayor, Wardlaw, and Wood. The additional names for later seats are: Granholm, Garland, Jordan (assuming an immediate elevation to the Eleventh Circuit), Patrick, and Salazar.

As for the particular predictions (which truly are wildly speculative), here is my thinking. A Democrat will want to correct the gender imbalance on the Court immediately. There is no reason to defer a Hispanic appointment with two highly qualified Hispanic women available. So the first seat will go to Sotomayor (to whom I now lean) or Wardlaw.

The second seat will go to a recognized intellectual heavyweight. That means Garland, Kagan, Sullivan, or Wood. Kagan gets the nod from me because she is the youngest (by five to ten years) and helps the gender balance of the Court.

For the third seat, I believe a Democratic President will prefer to expand the Court’s racial diversity by appointing an African American. My full list has twelve candidates. (In my original post, I predicted Deval Patrick because he is known to the Clintons and has political experience.) Because this appointment would come at least two years into a Democratic Administration, I’ll pick Teresa Roseborough, who could be appointed in the meantime to the D.C. Circuit, Second Circuit (where she works), or Eleventh Circuit (where she lives). (Walter Dellinger advocated appointing her to the Eleventh Circuit towards the end of the Clinton Administration.)

Interestingly, this would mean three consecutive appointments of women.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2007/07/follow-up-to-the-democratic-not-so-short-list