Obama Vows To Move Quickly On Stevens' Replacement

President Obama Pledges To Move Quickly On Justice Stevens' Replacement


Justice John Paul Stevens, who came to embody the liberal voice on an increasingly conservative Supreme Court, announced Friday that he is retiring — giving President Barack Obama his second seat to fill on the nation’s high court.

Stevens’s announcement, coming less than two weeks before his 90th birthday, was not a surprise but marks the passing of an era on a court he joined in December 1975, an appointment of President Gerald Ford.

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."

Speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden after returning from a trip to Europe, Obama offered ample praise for Stevens and promised to move quickly to replace him.

“Justice Stevens has courageously served his country from the moment he enlisted the day before Pearl Harbor to his long and distinguished tenure on the Supreme Court,” Obama said. “During that tenure, he has stood as as an impartial guardian of the law and he has worn the judicial robe with honor and humility. He has applied the Constitution and laws of the land with fidelity and restraint,” the president said, pointedly rejecting conservatives’ claims that Stevens has practiced judicial activism on the court.

“While we cannot replace Justice Stevens’s experience and wisdom, I will seek someone in the coming weeks with similar qualities: an independent mind, a record of excellence and integrity, a fierce dedication to the rule of law and a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people,” Obama said.

While Obama’s comments Friday didn’t shed much new light on whom he might pick, the president did vow to select someone who “knows that in a democracy powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.” That appeared to be a reference to a recent Supreme Court decision Obama has denounced that allows corporations to spend money for and against federal candidates.

Sources close to the process have said the president and his advisers are focused primarily on several potential nominees who were considered last year, including 7th Circuit Appeals Court Judge Diane Wood, 59; Solicitor General Elena Kagan, 49; and D.C. Circuit Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, 57.

Other possible contenders are State Department legal adviser and former Yale law dean Harold Koh, 55, who would also become the Supreme Court’s first Asian-American justice; and Cass Sunstein, 55, a longtime constitutional law professor now overseeing the federal government’s regulation-approval unit at the Office of Management and Budget.

Stevens’s replacement is not very likely to change the ideological makeup of the court because Obama is sure to replace Stevens with a liberal-leaning justice. But Stevens was at times able to rally swing votes toward his cause, as when he helped build a majority to block some of President George W. Bush’s expansions of executive power after Sept. 11.

Stevens’s retirement leaves Obama facing a choice. Obama named Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court last year — at a time when Democrats had the 60 votes needed to block any Republican filibuster attempt, though she ultimately won some Republican votes.

The landscape is different now, as Democrats have just 59 votes and Republicans haven’t ruled out attempts to block an Obama nominee.

That means Obama must decide whether to put forth a liberal nominee who is sure to draw a fight from Republicans — which could help Obama rally his dispirited liberal base right before the upcoming midterm elections this fall.

Or he could decide to offer someone who is less objectionable to the GOP, in hopes of avoiding a major distraction as he tries to get major pieces of his legislative agenda through, including financial regulatory reform, campaign finance law changes and an education bill.

The White House said a representative from the Supreme Court delivered a letter from Stevens to the White House at 10:30 a.m. Friday announcing his intent to retire this summer. White House Counsel Bob Bauer connected on the phone at 10:45 a.m. with the president, who was returning home from Prague on Air Force One.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled that the GOP is ready for a fight over Obama’s choice. “Americans can expect Senate Republicans to make a sustained and vigorous case for judicial restraint and the fundamental importance of an even-handed reading of the law,” he said.

Praise for Stevens came in from Democrats. “Justice Stevens’s unique and enduring perspective is irreplaceable; his stalwart adherence to the rule of law is unparalleled. The federal judiciary, and indeed the entire nation, will miss his principled jurisprudence,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he hopes Republicans will get on board with Obama’s nominee. “At a time when Americans are yearning for bipartisanship, we hope the president will choose a candidate who both merits consensus support and lives up to Justice Stevens’s fine legacy. We hope both sides of the aisle in the Senate would quickly confirm such a nominee,” Schumer said in a statement.

Toward the end of his time on the court, Stevens increasingly played the role of liberal resistance to the increasingly rightward-tilting bench, which saw the additions of conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito by Bush.

As for the potential successors, Obama and Wood both taught at the University of Chicago, and the president is said to be particularly fond of her. “Judge Wood was way up there and is from his, so to speak, home circuit,” said John Brittain, a well-connected civil rights lawyer, recently.

Wood is well-regarded by liberal groups for defending abortion rights and the rights of immigrants. At 59, she is somewhat older than recent Republican nominees.

Kagan could have more staying power on the court, but she is viewed more warily by civil rights and civil liberties advocates. She was a decidedly centrist force as a policy adviser in President Bill Clinton’s White House, and as dean of Harvard Law School she made a concerted effort to bring conservatives onto the faculty. Kagan, who has never served as a judge and has little courtroom experience, also has a slimmer paper trail than other possible nominees.

D.C. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland, 57, is seen as a pick that would signal Obama is intent on avoiding a fight, as even conservative activists believe Garland would attract several Republican votes.

The choice of Garland could be appealing to Obama, who has viewed himself as a consensus builder. Some also suspect Obama will pick a male nominee to replace Stevens and opt for another woman if and when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaves the court.

Koh, a prominent human rights advocate, seems to be trying to appear a bit more muscular as the Supreme Court derby nears. In a speech last week, he stepped forward with the first serious effort by the Obama administration to mount a public defense of the legality of the drone strikes that have become one of the most favored tactics in Obama’s war on terror.


Sources: Politico