Who will replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor? It's going to be a tough call for President Bush. Everybody wants something different out of the next Supreme Court justice.
It is the right and duty of the American President to nominate the person he feels would serve the office best. Yet Senators Edward Kennedy, Patrick Leahy and Charles Schumer have already issued a public ultimatum. They told the president (through the media of course) to name justices acceptable to them or face a bitter fight.
We know whoever is considered must be under the age of 60. History has proven that all too often justices turn out to be more liberal than the president who appointed them ever expected. Look at John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter. To think that Reagan chose O'Connor and to now look back at most of her rulings, it seems an unlikely match in hindsight.
If the whitehouse seeks to replace a woman with another woman, appellate Judge Edith Brown Clement (5th Circuit, New Orleans) may be the one to tap. She was confirmed as a Louisiana district judge in 1991, seven weeks after her nomination by the first President Bush, and was confirmed as an appellate judge in 2001, two and a half months after George W. Bush named her.
It's anybody guess at this point. The only thing for certain is the president now must face either a fierce confirmation battle or the alienation and angering of his political supporters who put him in the position to choose.
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