HAIL TO THE CHIEF

Bush May Tap Calif. Justice for Federal Seat: Appointment From State Supreme Court Would Bolster Conservative Tilt in D.C. Circuit (Charles Lane, 7/17/03, Washington Post)

President Bush plans to nominate Janice Rogers Brown, a justice of the California Supreme Court, to a seat on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, according to Republican sources familiar with the Bush administration's judicial nominations process.

An eloquent conservative whose sometimes sharply worded writings include a ruling against affirmative action and a dissenting opinion in favor of a state parental-consent law for teenage abortions, Brown, 54, would add to the recent rightward tilt of a court whose current roster of nine judges is made up of five Republican appointees and four Democratic appointees.

Brown, who has served on the California high court for seven years, would also become the second African American woman judge on the D.C. Circuit, which is often considered second only to the Supreme Court in the federal judicial hierarchy. Judith W. Rogers, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, was the first.

Brown has been frequently mentioned as a possible Bush nominee for the Supreme Court, and legal analysts said that her elevation to the D.C. Circuit could mean that the president is grooming her for the high court. Three current members of the Supreme Court -- Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- served on the D.C. Circuit.

She's the ideal pick for Chief Justice when Rehnquist retires, forcing the Left to portray a black woman as an unacceptable conservative extremist. At age 54 she could be on the Court for three or even four decades. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 17, 2003 7:53 PM