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Washington Prowler
In Moderation
Lining up women successors to Justice Ginsburg. Also: Reid's Republican trio.
A WOMAN'S SEAT
The White House Counsel's Office, as well as its political staff,
have begun vetting several prospective Supreme Court nominees
with an expectation that President Barack Obama
will be making a nomination within the next year, says an Obama
White House adviser.
"We're expecting that Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg will be retiring or otherwise not be able to perform her responsibilities," says the adviser. "There isn't a timeline, and no one here has spoken to the Ginsburg family in that kind of capacity, but we all know how serious pancreatic cancer can be, and this vetting process has to be better than what we've been doing with our Cabinet positions."
The Obama White House is currently looking at three women at the top of the list to replace Ginsburg, all of whom have had their names linked to a potential Obama Supreme Court nomination: Judge Sonya Sotomayor; Elena Kagan, Obama's Solicitor General nominee, and Judge Diane Wood.
Sotomayor, who sits on the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, was appointed to the bench in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush. She is favored, according to the White House insider, because she comes off as a centrist. "She has shown a distrust of federal government, but has also been pro-labor, which is a plus for us right now," says the insider. "The fact that she would be a historic pick, doesn't hurt." Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic-American appointed to the Supreme Court if she were nominated and confirmed.
Kagan, is about to undergo confirmation hearings for the Solicitor General position. Some fireworks are expected due to the Harvard Law School dean's position to block or limit access by military recruiters from college campuses, but she is expected to be confirmed as the first woman to that post. "She's been vetted once for this job, and my guess is that from a background perspective, she'd be an easy nomination, but given her political jobs in the past, there would be problems," says the White House insider.
Kagan worked as both an associate White House Counsel and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Clinton White House. She also clerked for both U.S. Appeals Court Judge Abner Mikva and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. She has been at Harvard since 2001, becoming deal of the school in 2003.
"Her jobs for Clinton would be gone over much more extensively than perhaps they've been done this time around," says the adviser.
Finally, there is Judge Wood, who worked in the Carter Administration's State Department as an attorney in the Office of the Legal Adviser, and at Georgetown Law School and at the University of Chicago Law School before being nominated to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Wood's paper trail would also be rich for researchers, as beyond her work for Carter she also served as a legal adviser to the Department of Justice in the Reagan Administration, as well as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for international, appellate, and policy in DOJ's Antitrust Division during the Clinton Administration.
GOP MOD SQUAD
Senate Democrats and their aides were privately crowing about the
deal cut over the weekend on the Reid-Pelosi-Obama spending bill.
"There isn't anything we cut that we would have fought over
anyway," says a senior Senate Democrat leadership aide. "If it
makes the Republicans feel better cutting stuff we didn't care
about, then fine. In the end, we got everything we wanted and the
ability to hang this on Republicans in two years if things
continue to go south. This is now a bipartisan bill, whether they
like it or not."
On Sunday, Senate majority leader Harry Reid was telling reporters that he had the votes to pass the spending bill by the middle of the week, and that the vote would almost certainly garner at least three Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, and Olympia Snowe. All three were involved at some point in negotiations with Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson, and won cuts in funding that would have computerized personal medical records, covered tax breaks for solar and wind firms, and allowed a $500 payroll tax credit to individuals earning less than $75,000 -- that ceiling is apparently now at $70,000.
"These were a drop in the bucket compared to what we wanted," says a GOP leadership aide. "The mod squad doesn't represent the rest of the Republican Senate, and my guess is that Reid will get his sixty votes, but it won't be because conservative Republicans in the Senate went along. We're going to fight this thing as much as we can."
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Rocco| 2.9.09 @ 7:01AM
"If it makes the Republicans feel better cutting stuff we didn't care about, then fine. In the end, we got everything we wanted and the ability to hang this on Republicans in two years if things continue to go south. This is now a bipartisan bill, whether they like it or not."
All the reason in the world for Republicans to vote "no" for this abomination of a spending bill. But, the stupid party will act true to form and vote for it to jump on the bandwagon. And it will come back and bite them on the a** in a big way soon. Now, isn't it the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? That's the Republican party in a nutshell. They never learn.
Andy Grego| 2.9.09 @ 7:07AM
GOP MOD SQUAD
Specter, Snowe and Collins are not only Republicans in name only, but obvious fools who accept insults from the very people who use them for their stupidity without comment.
"There isn't anything we cut that we would have fought over anyway," says a senior Senate Democrat leadership aide. "If it makes the Republicans feel better cutting stuff we didn't care about, then fine. In the end, we got everything we wanted and the ability to hang this on Republicans in two years if things continue to go south. This is now a bipartisan bill, whether they like it or not."
If these three addled Senators still vote for this outrageous stimulus bill...well, what more can one say?
If Republicans think they are going to gain any respect from the electorate who are more than 50% against this stimulus, the next time Republicans caucus they should place someone at the entrance to the room and refuse these three admittance and actively work for their defeat next time they run for reelection.
Andy Grego
Richland, WA
Steve| 2.9.09 @ 9:15AM
Absolutely agree with Andy. I have emailed and called both Sen. Collins and Snowe regarding this disaster. In fact, Sen. Collins said last week on local radio that some of the things should go thru proper channels of appropriation.
I am of the belief that unless Senator Snowe changes, she wil have an opponent from her own party next time. As she should.
Senator Specter is a dolt (Footballs' Spygate) comes to mind, but to have the Democrats spit in your face and then ask "Please sir, may I have some more?" is more then I would expect from even my two senators.
skep41| 2.9.09 @ 11:02AM
Even though the Republicans have, in their days of exile and despair, found fiscal religion and are making a few pathetic noises about restraint they fully deserve the 'credit' for this horrible monstrosity of a spending bill and for the catastrophe that will result from its enactment. Six years of Republican control of the Congress and an alleged Republican in the White House didn't lead to the enactment of one single measure to stop or even slow the growth of the mentality of statism or the handing out of taxpayer-funded goodies to all and sundry. The mentality that has led us to this total failure of leadership is shared by the party which oh-so-cleverly stiffed its conservative base and installed by a slimy slight-of-hand political maneuver the most pathetically hopeless and misguided chump of a presidential candidate since Bob Dole took on the nauseating Clintons without mentioning the millions they were getting from the Chicoms. The Republicans are a lame and spent force that adheres to the dogma of Rooseveltian Big Government. The New Age Of Change will have only one party. To suggest otherwise borders on crimethink.
mfalatko| 2.9.09 @ 11:27AM
Which Republicans vote for this horrific package of rediculous spending and non-stimulus and the response of the RNC will be Michael Steele's first test as the new Chairman. If the Republicans are going to re-make themselves into the party that won lanslide victories in 1980, 1984 and 1994 then Steele and the RNC are going to have to get up the nerve to run strong conservative candidates against the "Group of Three" to send a clear message to the party. Even if the challengers defeat the incumbents and then lose the general election, the party will be no worse off since the "Group of Three" are basically Democrats in Republican Clothing and havebeen for years. If McCain, who loves a compromise better than good legislation, is against this bill then it must be a stinker and any defectors need to be punished with extreme prejudice.
ckrcsmith| 2.9.09 @ 1:04PM
mfalatko said: "If McCain, who loves a compromise better than good legislation, is against this bill then it must be a stinker and any defectors need to be punished with extreme prejudice. "
Well said. Michael Steele, are you listening?
ruth| 2.9.09 @ 1:27PM
This stinker of a spending bill will bury those who've created it: Democrats.
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