President Obama Starts Discussions With Potential Supreme Court Picks

WASHINGTON, April 21, 2010— -- President Obama has started discussions with potential Supreme Court nominees and today met with top senators -- both Democrats and Republicans -- to talk about the vacancy left by Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement.

Besides speaking to several potential nominees, President Obama is reviewing their legal writings, their speeches and their briefs, among any number of other considerations, as he weighs his decision.

The main things Obama is looking for are fidelity to the law and the Constitution, he told CNBC, adding that he is looking for "somebody who has the kind of life experience so they understand how their decisions are impacting ordinary people."

Obama cited "life experience" in 2009 as he weighed his options before nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

But when Obama states that criteria this time, does he mean he might consider someone with experience outside the judiciary?

Right now, for the first time in history, every member of the Supreme Court is a former appellate judge, coming from what Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vermont, calls the "judicial monastery."

The president and his team are taking any number of factors into consideration and some commentators, including former President Bill Clinton, are pushing Obama to consider someone who is not a judge.

"Some of the best justices in the Supreme Court in history have been non-judges, people that, as Hugo Black once famously said, had been sheriffs and county judges, people that have seen how the lofty decisions of the Supreme Court affect the ordinary lives of Americans," Clinton said. "I hope he'll take a look at somebody who hasn't been a judge."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said after his meeting with President Obama today at the White House that he supported him going in that direction.

"I hope that we would have someone who is not a circuit court judge," Reid said. "I personally feel it should be someone who is an academic, someone who has had a public office, someone who is an outstanding lawyer. And the president said that he will take that into consideration."

"We have not had a politician on the court for a long time," said Jeffrey Rosen, the legal affairs editor of The New Republic. "It's striking that a majority of the court that decided Brown v. Board of Education -- the great segregation case in 1954 -- were former politicians."