Speculation

Filling Justice Souter's Seat

Former law school deans, Obama czar in the running.

Now that Supreme Court Justice David Souter has announced he'll retire at the end of this session, who will Obama appoint to fill his seat? So far, a frontrunner is federal judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York, who grew up in the Bronx, attended Yale Law School and was Clinton's appointee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Also in the running is Elena Kagan, Obama's solicitor general, who is liberal, but made a point to reach out to conservatives while dean of Harvard Law School. Other possibilities, according to Politico, include Diane Wood from Chicago (who worked in the Department of Justice for both Reagan and Clinton and is considered moderate); Kathleen Sullivan (the liberal former dean of Stanford Law School who is an expert on Constitutional Law); Harold Koh (current dean of Yale Law); the moderate Cass Sunstein (Obama's information czar); and Ann Williams, who could be "tough for Republicans to oppose" because she was appointed by Reagan and elevated by Clinton to the appeals court.