var runningmates = {"people": [ { "name": "Hillary Clinton", "sex": "Female", "age": "61", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton", "position" : "Secretary of State", "slatelink" : "#hclinton", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/hclinton.jpg", "comments" : ""The law is Mrs Clinton's frame of reference for her sense of justice, rather than vice-versa. She defined herself in youth in the law and believes in herself in this flux more than in that of politics, where her comparative ineptitude has kept her from suiting herself or others. Moreover, her manifest energy for justice, resembling that of William O. Douglas, is greatly needed to balance the energy for casuistry and arbitrariness we find in Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and--sad to say--Roberts." --C. Nicholas" }, { "name": "Merrick Garland", "sex": "Male", "age": "56", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_B._Garland", "position" : "United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.", "slatelink" : "#mgarland", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/garland.jpg", "comments" : ""I support Garland for this post because my wife, Candy, went to grade school with him in Wilmette IL, and still has a schoolbook from that time with a column of entries, in her girlish hand, that reads: Candy Garland, Mrs. Candy Garland, Mrs. Merrick Garland, etc. in numerous variations. It is my hope that Justice Garland serves a long and distinguished career on the Court, and that this book is someday worth a bundle on eBay." --Jonathan King

"A judicial moderate who has admired John Marshall seems to me to be type of centrist justice who is not necessarily interested in re-defining the Constitution." --Roslyn Holt Swartz" }, { "name": "Jennifer Granholm", "sex": "Female", "age": "50", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Granholm", "position" : "Governor of Michigan", "slatelink" : "#jgranholm", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/jgranholm.jpg", "comments" : ""She is progressive, while still maintaining rationality and an attachment to reality that makes me believe she make fair, workable decisions based on the best interpretation of the law." --Robert Monjay

"Do any of the other nominees combine a Harvard Law Degree with an appearance on The Dating Game and rowing tourists around in a canoe at Marineland?" --Garret White

"She will bring a strong dose of administrative and political reality to a Supreme Court which has increasingly become an ivory tower institution as all the nominees during the past two decades have come from federal courts of appeal. The Court needs bright people who have engaged in the give-and-take of governing at a high level and not just focused on how legal opinions are written." --Al Lapins" }, { "name": "Elena Kagan", "sex": "Female", "age": "49", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Kagan", "position" : "Solicitor General", "slatelink" : "#ekagan", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/ekagan.jpg", "comments" : ""Elena Kagan is both a constitutional scholar and a consummate manager. She has built consensus and driven positive change wherever she has gone. She should have been on the DC circuit bench for the last ten years; we should not miss this opportunity to make up for lost time and put her on the Supreme Court." --Timothy Porges

"As my law school dean, she was inspiring; as my administrative law professor, she was terrifying. The Scalia-Kagan throw-downs will be legendary." --Kerry Dingle

"Elena Kagan has a brilliant legal mind, has good familiarity with the justices, and has tamed the conflicting egos of Harvard Law professors--a talent that could come in very handy on the Court. Her publications focus on First Amendment and administrative law, both important areas for the Court. Though she wouldn't bring regional or school diversity, she would bring a diversity of experience; every sitting justice had prior experience as an appellate judge, and Kagan's perspective from the Clinton administration and academia could prove valuable." --Brian Schroeder

"Given the current ideological split in the Court, the ideal new Justice would be able to persuade others to adopt more moderate positions. In addition to her legal experience and intellectual rigor, Dean Kagan's years as Dean of Harvard Law School gave her the kind of 'political' and consensus-building experience that will make her an effective Supreme Court Justice. She managed very successfully to lead the Harvard Law School faculty, a notoriously fractious bunch." --Mary Anne Mayo" }, { "name": "Pamela Karlan", "sex": "Female", "age": "49", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_S._Karlan", "position" : "Stanford law professor", "slatelink" : "#pkarlan", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/pkarlan.jpg", "comments" : ""Pam Karlan is whip smart, hilarious, liberal, incisive, a terrific writer, operates in the reality-based world, concerned about how the law affects real people but not in a bleeding heart kind of way, and intellectually rigorous. In short, she is the Scalia-antidote, and she would own the Court within a few years." --Amy McManus

"Demonstrably the smartest of all the lawyers whose names are being mentioned. Knows the Supreme Court inside and out. Has worked at the grass roots in civil rights, and continues to this day her work with the voting rights and civil rights bar throughout the US. Wrote the best amicus brief in NAMUDNO. Brilliant on her feet and in writing. Funny as hell. In short, she's probably too good to be nominated." --James Blacksher

"Karlan perfectly matches Obama's style. She is a brilliant and prolific professor, a bona fide liberal jurist, and a practitioner who has made a career of representing public interest plaintiffs at the highest level. In that sense, she's like Ruth Bader Ginsburg--granted, without the appellate court experience. But it seems like all of Obama's choices who DO boast that experience have never gotten their hands dirty with public interest, plaintiff-side advocacy." --Eugene Marder

"As one of Pam's students (she insisted in our first-year torts class that we call her Pam so that we could really take journey through the law together), I cannot imagine a better pick for the Supreme Court. Pam is likely the smartest lawyer I have ever met. She has an inexhaustible command of law, and can marshal any or all of it at any time. She is at once a generalist, able to draw analogies across broad expanses of law, and a specialist, able to probe an issue in depth with acuity. I've had the pleasure of arguing moot courts in front of her, and she is the toughest judge imaginable -- always finding the weak spot in my case, and relentlessly attempting to probe it, but always willing to help resolve the tough questions that arise. More importantly, she is a wonderful colleague. As funny as they come, and kinder than I could have imagined, Pam is a warm, wonderful person who will bring both the intellect and empathy that President Obama seeks."--Student of Karlan's" }, { "name": "Harold Koh", "sex": "Male", "age": "54", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hongju_Koh", "position" : "Yale law professor", "slatelink" : "#hkoh", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/hkoh.jpg", "comments" : ""Emphasis on human rights and civil rights, U.S. applicability of precedents from transnational and international law. Non-parochial worldview partly due, perhaps, to formative childhood years and family associations overseas (similar to Obama's own Indonesian experience). First Asian-American Supreme Court nominee. As a minority member and polio victim, might evince first-hand empathy for less advantaged sectors of society. Successful consensus builder at Yale Law, despite his unabashed liberal leanings." --Lincoln Kaye

"He brings to the Court two things that are conspicuously missing right now: (1) Real expertise in international law and real background in human rights ... He has made a career of examining and litigating cases related to US compliance with international treaty obligations, and that's a counterbalance we strongly need to Alito and Roberts, both of whom were nominated in part due to their opposition to the domestic application of international law, even treaties that have been ratified and signed. (2) Koh is not a political pick. He's an actual legal scholar, and a really brilliant one ... We need someone on our side with a similarly subtle and effective command of legal theory, not an appointment based on purely political considerations or to satisfy one demographic or another." --Scott Portman" }, { "name": "Lisa Madigan", "sex": "Female", "age": "42", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Madigan", "position" : "Illinois Attorney General", "slatelink" : "#lmadigan", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/madigan.jpg", "comments" : ""She is young enough to have an opportunity for a significant tenure on the Supreme Court, but old enough to have a sense of who she is (as vital a qualification for a good judge as anything else I can think of). And, as an attorney general of a large and diverse state, she has the kind of real world experience that the recent parade of federal appeals court judges elevated to the Supreme Court have lacked. And being a woman is the final plus, as the Court desperately needs some diversity." --David Head

"As Sandra Day O'Connor once pointed out, Supremes are often too removed from realities of real life when they come from academia. Madigan has worked with the poor, been an elected official, had to deal with law enforcement. This gives her a broad background to deal with many of the questions coming before the court. Someone with practical experience, who appears to have exercised good judgment in her life, is the type of person I want to see sit on the court."--Michael Neu" }, { "name": "Margaret McKeown", "sex": "Female", "age": "57", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Margaret_McKeown", "position" : "United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit", "slatelink" : "#mmckeown", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/mckeown.jpg", "comments" : ""Judge McKeown is supremely qualified. First and foremost, she's a great legal mind--a lawyer's lawyer--and takes pride in approaching cases carefully without intellectual predispositions. Second, she's not an ideologue. In a circuit full of judges with strong ideological views on both sides, she sits squarely in the center without her own agenda. Finally, although the first two qualifications are sufficient, she would bring representation for two groups that are sorely lacking on the current Court: Women and the West." --Shane Stansbury" }, { "name": "Martha Minow", "sex": "Female", "age": "54", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Minow", "position" : "Harvard law professor", "slatelink" : "#mminow", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/minow.jpg", "comments" : ""Martha Minow is a rock-solid academic which is a filter I apply even if there isn't a button for it. Her human rights work seems to satisfy Obama's claim that he would like to nominate someone who actually cares about real people (also, her work in Kosovo prepares her for deciding whether to grant cert on appeals from denial of habeas corpus that are sure to come after the convictions of the Bush Six.)" --Mark Lyons

"She will be a strong defender of basic civil rights, while realistically appraising the needs of government in an age of terrorism. She will be sensitive to the equal justice claims of women and minorities in the modern context and will uphold the reproductive rights of women. She appreciates both empirical evidence and legal doctrine. She gets along well with almost everyone, and has the intellectual acumen and writing ability to be a strong counterpoint to the Court's right wing intellectuals: Scalia, Roberts and Allito." --Former law professor" }, { "name": "Janet Napolitano", "sex": "Female", "age": "51", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Napolitano", "position" : "Department of Homeland Security", "slatelink" : "#jnapolitano", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/napolitano.jpg", "comments" : ""I think that the Supreme Court needs to return to its tradition of drawing from a broader selection of Americans than just appellate judges. I also think that the most effective justices are often those with good political skills. A former Governor fits the bill nicely." --Jim Mason" }, { "name": "Teresa Wynn Roseborough", "sex": "Female", "age": "50", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Wynn_Roseborough", "position" : "Chief Litigation Counsel at MetLife", "slatelink" : "#troseborough", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/roseborough.jpg", "comments" : ""I like Ms Roseborough's non-Ivy league background (I'll excuse her time at Boston University because she did her Education Masters there) and a nice mix of public and private sector service. I see skipping the appeals circuit as a bonus, so many of the justices go that route and plucking someone directly from the financial industry would give the high court and insiders perspective on an industry about to generate a ton of new legislation, much of which is likely to end up in front of the Supreme Court in the next 3-5 years. Certainly a being a woman and minority addresses several of President Obama's constituencies, however, her intelligence, experience and activism mark her as an ideal candidate for the post and a bastion of liberal thought for several decades. Call her the anti-Roberts if you will, but she would mark a great start as President Obama attempts to remake the court and enshrine the balance that has served us so well these past decades but has eroded since the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor." --Jonathan Stone" }, { "name": "Leigh Saufley", "sex": "Female", "age": "54", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Ingalls_Saufley", "position" : "Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court", "slatelink" : "#lsaufley", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/leigh.jpg", "comments" : ""Federal experience. Not too controversial. Fits the moderate profile" --Doug Echols" }, { "name": "Leah Ward Sears", "sex": "Female", "age": "53", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Ward_Sears", "position" : "Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court", "slatelink" : "#lsears", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/sears.jpg", "comments" : ""Justice Sears has been a tremendously influential member of the Georgia Supreme Court. She's demonstrated justice tempered with a sense of pragmatism and mercy not common in the South. She would serve the nation well." --Martin Fisher

"I think Leah Ward Sears brings stature and experience to the Court and I want a real litigator to hear cases. I want someone from the South with a direct experience of the Voting Rights Act and of the effects of discrimination. She is brilliant and well-respected and anyone who takes on the Republicans AND the Christian Right and WINS in Georgia can handle a Senate confirmation hearing just fine." --Dianne Carter"Justice Sears has a notable life history which will add tremendously to her qualifications as a Supreme Court Justice. Not only is she well trained and experienced in court proceedings, she has managed to succeed in a hostile environment (black woman in Georgia) and thrive despite controversial decisions. She has shown with her record that she can be tough and empathetic at the same time. Probably most important, however, she brings an entirely new voice to the court which has been long lacking."--R. Coleen Stice

"Leah Ward Sears has the much needed balance of life experience and legal expertise. Her questioning of the death penalty and innocent defendants is a welcome perspective on the court. The court needs more diversity--Sears provides it in spades: a southerner, non-east-coast law school graduate (Emory), woman, and an African-American." --Ben Johnson" }, { "name": "Sonia Sotomayor", "sex": "Female", "age": "54", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor", "position" : "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit", "slatelink" : "#ssotomayor", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/sotomayor.jpg", "comments" : ""Judge Sotomayor is in at least one significant way very much like Justice Souter. Without straining for hyper-intellectual readings of the law, she displays in her speaking and writing a deep, detailed knowledge of legal interpretation and respect for the rule of law. Counsel and colleagues in the Second Circuit know her as brilliantly analytic, but equally as accessible, warm and humane, and with a measured recognition of the need to do justice. Knee-jerk critics who call her too liberal are, I fear, revealing their own stereotyping of a Latina woman born into economically straightened circumstances. Her opinions reveal objectivity and careful weighing of the consequences of judicial decisions. President Obama can not do better than to appoint Judge Sotomayor." --Martha Gifford

"I think it is important to have another woman's voice on the Court. Sotomayor has a well-rounded background and is of the age where she would have a long time on the court and therefore an influence. I also like the fact that she is a Latina. I think diversity is important, no matter what those on the right think." --Carol Jensen

"I went to see Judge Sotomayor on a law school field trip with one of my classes at NYU. We were there to see oral arguments, and beforehand our professor had mentioned that one of the judges on the panel that day was on the short list for a Supreme Court position. From the moment that Judge Sotomayor spoke, I knew it was her. She did not allow lawyers to slip past her, and hammered them when they did not know enough about the case. Some critics have called her temperamental, but all I saw was a judge who wanted the truth." --Casey Doherty" }, { "name": "Kathleen Sullivan", "sex": "Female", "age": "53", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sullivan", "position" : "Stanford law professor", "slatelink" : "#ksullivan", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/ksullivan.jpg", "comments" : ""There are enough lawyers on the court; we need, badly, some proper constitutional scholars. Sullivan is superbly qualified, has the 'real-life experience' President Obama has mentioned, and has the ability to write clearly and powerfully, something not to be underestimated when considering the possible significance of her future opinions and their place in history." --Justin E.A. Busch

"Gracious, tenacious, persuasive and smart, Sullivan has an encyclopedic knowledge of constitutional issues (after all, she wrote the textbook that law school students use), the soul of a liberal and mind of a rationalist. She is an unwavering defender of personal freedoms." --John Fensterwald

"Well-honed constitutional scholar, administrator and appellate practitioner, who happens to be female and lesbian, and who approximates Roberts in age. A high-octane nominee hitting on all cylinders. No other prospect has all of these qualities. Clearly the best of the lot." --Jeff Dickerson

"First, I feel that Kathleen Sullivan has the academic credentials in an important area of law to hold the position. With the many issues around constitutionality of G. W. Bush policies, I think it would be timely and very wise to appoint an expert on constitutional law. Secondly, and on a very personal note, I respect her work around LGBTQ issues. As an American who was not allowed to sponsor his same-sex life partner for citizenship, I made the only choice I could live with – immigration to Canada, where I was allowed to sponsor my partner. I await the day when the discriminatory policies against 'bi-national couples' are changed, and I think she might be the only appointee who would have any genuine sympathy on this issue. "--David Glickman

"I'd nominate Kathleen Sullivan. As one of America's leading scholars in Constitutional Law, she can present cogent arguments and counterpoints to Scalia's jurisprudential rulings that often make his position seem like the only 'true' interpretation of the constitution. As an openly gay woman, it would certainly increase the diversity of the Supreme Court!"--Matthew C. Hintzen" }, { "name": "Cass Sunstein", "sex": "Male", "age": "54", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein", "position" : "Harvard law professor", "slatelink" : "#csunstein", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/sunstein.jpg", "comments" : ""Sunstein has been one of the leading lights on constitutional law for many years, and also increasingly interested in more general public policy and law and economics. Moreover, he has consistently been interested in communicating with the public at large with his prolific writing for non specialist journals like TNR. It would be good to have a non jurist on the bench, and especially one who is eloquent and has a long standing relationship with the President." --Nicholas Kabcenell

"If we are looking for a new liberal lion, a judge that can display a sense of purpose that aligns itself with that of the Obama movement, it is Cass Sunstein. Though he is a white male (and we have enough of them on the court already), he has displayed an ability to understand the questions that face us today, not only in theory but in practice. Many of the current justices have little experience with issues of copyright in new media and with infrastructure/economic justice, which gives the conservative wing a distinct advantage. Sunstein has shown a belief in judicial minimalism, prefering to focus not on broad, overarching reforms, but on redesigning the architecture of our free choice." --Vignesh Ram

"This seems to me the choice that would show most clearly that the president was trying to form a court that was looking out for the best long term good of the people through the continuation of basic freedoms and cautious common sense rulings."--David Bennett" }, { "name": "David S. Tatel", "sex": "Male", "age": "67", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tatel", "position" : "U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia", "slatelink" : "#dtatel", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/tatel.jpg", "comments" : ""I recently attended a moot court competition at my law school, Berkeley, where Judge Tatel served as one of the judges on a distinguised panel, which included Justice Stephen Breyer and Judge Michael McConnell of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Tatel totally blew me away, standing out, despite his soft-spokeness, as wildly bright, spot on and funny panelist. Perhaps more substantively, I think that his private practice work, as a partner at Hogan and Hartson, and public/social background, especially his work around education, not to mention his years on the bench, give him a very broad understanding of the legal and social issues facing the Court. He seems like a remarkable human." --Kim Fox" }, { "name": "Myron Thompson", "sex": "Male", "age": "62", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Herbert_Thompson", "position" : "United States District Court, Middle District of Alabama", "slatelink" : "#mthompson", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/mthompson.jpg", "comments" : "" }, { "name": "Kim Wardlaw", "sex": "Female", "age": "54", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_McLane_Wardlaw", "position" : "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit", "slatelink" : "#kwardlaw", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/wardlaw.jpg", "comments" : ""Judge Wardlaw is extremely intelligent, well-respected across the ideological spectrum, young, and would bring experience with business and commercial issues that are sorely lacking on the current Supreme Court. Judge Wardlaw's opinions are clear and concise, and she has consistently been able to convince colleagues who might not have been expected to agree with her on ideologically charged issues."--Anonymous" }, { "name": "Diane Wood", "sex": "Female", "age": "58", "wikipedia": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Wood", "position" : "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit", "slatelink" : "#dwood", "pic" : "http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123087/2208015/2217430/2217439/2217440/dwood.jpg", "comments" : ""Diane Wood has middle class roots, with an education that comes from outside of the Ivy League circle. She has experience as a Supreme Court clerk under Harry Blackmun, and understands the minutia and dynamics of that court's ebb and flow. She has worked with a broad swath of legal organizations, public and private, and has developed a strong ability to work in conjunction with other jurists. While one of the youngest candidates for the Supreme Court out there, she has a strong body of legal opinion that both sides of congress can look at and make a well founded decision during the approval process." --Jon Hallgrimsson

"She's quick on the uptake. She also has a deep understanding of the law and the American constitution in particular. In particular, she is very aware of walking the fine line between protecting individual rights, and protecting the broader society."--Bruce Stallsmith" } ]};