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Obama Considering 10 SCOTUS Candidates

New names from Montana and Georgia swell list.

The White House is now considering ten candidates on its short list to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. The newest name to be revealed by the Obama administration is that of Judge Sidney Thomas, an appellate court judge from Montana. The addition joins a diverse collection of women and men, as the White House stretches to show that not only the Ivy League-bred or Obama intimates are under consideration. Another new name is that of Leah Ward Sears, the former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice. Tom Goldstein, the editor of SCOTUSBlog, said not to be fooled by the breadth of the list. "The process itself is a signal about the things that they value," Goldstein told The Wall Street Journal. "There are three or four very serious people and other dark-horse candidates who are being discussed in part because they have a constituency."