Legal News

The Daily Scotulbutt: A Two-Horse Race?

By Ashby Jones

When it comes to Supreme Court nominations, twists and turns can be the norm (see, e.g., Harriet Miers; Robert Bork). But much as the focus leading up to last week’s Preakness increasingly fell upon two horses — Mine that Bird and Rachel Alexandra — the smart money on the Scotus pick seems increasingly to be landing on two candidates, Elena Kagan and Diane Wood.

At least such is the point made by Washington Post reporters Robert Barnes and Shailagh Murray in an article out Thursday.

The article focuses on this Georgetown conference that we touched on Wednesday. Several mentioned as possibilities to succeed Justice David Souter attended the conference, but most of the buzz reportedly centered on Wood and Kagan, who gave the keynote address.

Wood, who was surrounded by both reporters and lawyers at the conference, reportedly met with President Obama earlier this week. Click here for an NYT article confirming that meeting. For her part, Kagan gave the keynote address. Her speech was largely about the independence of the Solicitor General’s office, but she began with a tribute to former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was also in attendance.

In other Scotulbutt, WSJ Supreme Court reporter Jess Bravin covers a corner of this story that’s been hitherto largely untouched: How does Big Business feel about the presumptive frontrunners?

According to Bravin, the business community is “laying low,” mostly because, writes Bravin, “both business advocates and their counterparts in the consumer and labor camps say the potential candidates most frequently mentioned seem likely to share retiring Justice David Souter’s interest in providing what business wants most from courts: clear, narrow and predictable rules.”

“The business community is hopeful that whoever the president nominates will approach business issues in a fair and evenhanded manner,” said Robin Conrad, who runs the National Chamber Litigation Center, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s litigation operation. Click here for a video of Bravin on the topic.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 21, 2009 (boomark / email).