Washington, May 06: U.S. President Barack Obama sounded out senior Senate Republicans on Wednesday about Supreme Court justice candidates and was warned he could expect a tough confirmation fight if he chooses an overt liberal.
With administration officials saying Obama could announce his pick as early as this week, Obama held talks with Orrin Hatch and Jon Kyl, members of the Senate Judiciary committee, at the White House.
After the meeting, Hatch cautioned that Obama should not select anyone who adheres to their own views rather than the dictates of the U.S. Constitution.
“A judicial activist would be a poor and unnecessarily divisive choice at any time,” Hatch said in a statement.
“After the highly contentious health care debate, it is more important than ever that the president choose someone who will get overwhelming support from the American people and the United States Senate,” he said, referring to Obama’s sweeping healthcare overhaul, which passed this year without Republican votes in the Senate.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met on Tuesday with federal Judge Diane Wood, one of the most liberal of the potential nominees.
Obama was expected to decide quickly on a nominee for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens, with November elections looming for his fellow Democrats who will be fighting to keep their majorities in Congress.
White House officials say they expect a tough confirmation fight in the U.S. Senate no matter who is nominated, even though the appointment will not shift the court’s basic ideological balance of five conservative and four liberal justices.
LEADING LIBERAL LEAVES
The retiring Justice Stevens, 90, is the leading liberal on the court.
The favourites among Obama’s potential picks are U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan; Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, and Wood, who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Obama has also met with Sidney Thomas, a federal appeals court judge in San Francisco with a more liberal record than some potential nominees.
Wood, who strongly supports abortion rights, may get a rough ride from Senate Republicans in a confirmation hearing. A battle could distract from Obama’s long list of policy initiatives: to overcome stubbornly high unemployment, tighten regulation of Wall Street and pass energy legislation.
Analysts say Garland would attract the most support from Republicans.
Stevens is known as a consensus-builder whose intellect and persuasiveness have at times helped push the conservative-leaning court toward his opinions. Administration officials say Obama is seeking a liberal of intellectual heft who also possesses consensus-building skills.
Obama has said he wants to announce his pick by the end of May, so the new justice can be confirmed before the next Supreme Court term begins in October. He announced his first high court nominee, then-federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, on May 26, 2009. She was confirmed in early August.
Also said to be on Obama’s short list: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Martha Minow, the dean of Harvard Law School; Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm; Ann Claire Williams, a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Leah Ward Sears, who retired last year as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
—-Agencies