New judges dominate Obama’s SCOTUS nominee list

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is considering nearly a half-dozen relatively new federal judges for his nomination to the Supreme Court. He is focusing on jurists with scant discernible ideology and limited judicial records as part of a strategy to surmount fierce Republican opposition.

As Obama prepares for what probably will be his last opportunity to try to shape the high court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, he faces an unprecedented hurdle, with the Senate's GOP majority vowing to ignore any nominee he proposes.

Based on interviews with legal experts and others, including some who have spoken in recent days with Obama administration officials involved in the vetting process, the president is leaning toward a sitting federal judge to fill the vacancy — and probably one the Senate confirmed with bipartisan support during his tenure.

These insiders, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations, noted that the administration is winnowing its list of candidates — but could add more.

On the list

The candidates under consideration include two judges who joined the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2013, Sri Srinivasan and Patricia Millett; Jane Kelly of Cedar Rapids, who was appointed that year to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit; Paul Watford, a judge since 2012 on the California-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit; and a lower-court judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed in 2013 to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Another name being vetted by the White House is one with a longer judicial record: Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. He is a moderate who has served on the court for nearly two decades and was considered by Obama for a previous Supreme Court vacancy.

What they offer

Each candidate would offer a distinctive attribute for a president with a penchant for fostering diversity. Srinivasan would be the high court's first Asian-American and first Hindu. Kelly would be the first with a public defender's background. Watford or Jackson would add a second African-American to the court. And as with Obama's last nominee in 2010, Justice Elena Kagan, Millett would increase the number of women on the nine-member court.

None has carved out a distinct identity in their views on the role of law or their positions on any divisive legal question facing the nation and the courts, according to an examination of the judges' public statements and writings, their mentors and their career paths.

In the current climate of acrid partisanship, White House officials regard the opaqueness of their views as a selling point, say those familiar with the administration's thinking.

Brief tenures

Most of the judges being considered by the White House have been on the bench for two to four years — not much time to have amassed records of opinions. In comparison, of the seven current justices with previous judicial experience, their average tenure on the bench when they were nominated to the Supreme Court was 11 years.

Brief as the tenures may be of those the White House is vetting, their judicial work doubtless will be scrutinized by the White House and its allies and by the administration's opponents for clues to their leanings.

The judges have written relatively few opinions that have attracted much public attention, but several have received notice.

Why choose a moderate

Those familiar with the thinking of White House officials said Obama may be able to apply the greatest pressure on resistant Republican senators by choosing a highly qualified federal judge regarded as moderate and non-ideological.

Even one of the moderate candidates, administration officials think, could significantly shift the balance of the court after Scalia, the outspoken anchor of the court's conservative wing for three decades.

Alternate theory

Conservative veterans of Supreme Court nomination fights reject the idea that Obama is preparing to nominate someone without ideology.

'What Obama is trying to do is find someone he knows will be a very reliable liberal voice on the court. But he's going to present them as if they were moderate,' said Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group, which has hired a research firm to help excavate the records of potential nominees.

She cited a plea deal that Kelly secured as a public defender for a child predator.