Two Riders Were Approaching, And the Wind Began to Howl

SCOTUS nominee to be announced at 9 ET.

For info on Edith Clement, see here and here.

If it is Clement, I don’t think a filibuster is likely. The fact that Hadley Arkes trusts her certainly isn’t encouraging, but no plausible nominee is any better; her lack of a record on many major issues is, I suppose, better than someone like Garza who is clearly bad, given that the Dems don’t have the votes to stop either…

…one thing to add is that the inevitable comparisons that will emerge between alleged “stealth candidates” Clement and Souter are not useful. It is true that Clement doesn’t have much of a public record on the most salient issues that will come before the Court. But she is a member of the Federalist Society, and was part of Republican politics in the South. That’s a very, very different context than the one which Souter emerged from. One can’t predict where she will come out on every specific area of doctrine, of course, but it is safe to predict that her jurisprudence will be closer to Scalia and Rehnquist than to Souter or Stevens.

…apparently there’s some rumbling that it could be Edith Jones insetad. If so, a filibuster should be absolutely automatic. Even if she cannot be kept off the Court, Republican faux-moderates need to be forced to fish or cut bait on Roe.