From the Det. News:
Gov. Jennifer Granholm is apparently on the short list for the U.S. Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Her nomination would be an interesting, unusual choice.
Granholm is included along with more conventional candidates such as U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard’s law school and several federal appellate court judges. The other political figure prominently mentioned as a candidate is Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, former governor of Arizona.
If Granholm is nominated, it will break at least one pattern: all of the current justices are former federal appellate court judges.
It would mark a return to a previous style in nominations, in which political figures were named to the court, such as former California Gov. Earl Warren and former Michigan Gov. Frank Murphy. Murphy distinguished himself in the high court’s history by being one of the few justices to dissent from a now embarrassing Supreme Court ruling during World War II approving the West Coast round-up and removal to remote camps of Americans of Japanese descent.
Granholm would bring to the court political experience as a former governor and state attorney general, albeit one whose gubernatorial record, including a brief government shutdown and a controversial tax hike, has been a disappointment, though she did win a second term against a novice but well-funded opponent.
As one court watcher, Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution, told The News, a Granholm strength is that she would “bring empathy as the governor of a state that has had such high unemployment.”
A drawback could be her record of staunch support for her political party and its constellation of interest groups, hardly unusual for a governor but not the currently preferred record of candidates for federal judgeships.
She would likely be a reliable vote on what is termed the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. In that respect she would not change the balance of the court.
As a former assistant U.S. attorney, county corporation counsel during the regime of the late county Executive Ed McNamara and state attorney general, she has had practical experience in the real-world application of the law and its correlation with politics, an interesting perspective for the court.
A number of observers have said she is a long-shot for the nation’s highest judicial post, but presidents throughout history have made surprising choices for the high court.
If President Barack Obama wants to vary the mix of Supreme Court justices, the nomination of Granholm would offer him a chance to do so.
Turtle Talk 