Picture Hillary Rodham Clinton wearing a black robe, standing between fellow Supreme Court justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer. It could happen, suggests one legal correspondent who covers the high court.
Might a President Obama appoint the former first lady to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court? According to Tony Mauro, a correspondent for Legal Times and American Lawyer Media whose column appears today on USAToday.com, it would not be the first time a sitting president has de-clawed a past and possibly future competitor. "[H]istory tells us that a Justice Hillary Clinton is more than possible," states the legal correspondent. Abraham Lincoln, for example, named political rival Salmon Chase to the federal bench in 1864, notes Mauro. And decades later, he says, President Dwight D. Eisenhower effectively defused the presidential aspirations of fellow Republican Earl Warren, then the governor of California, by naming him to fill the chief justice's position. Mauro notes that unlike every other justice currently on the Supreme Court, Senator Clinton (D-New York) has no judicial experience. But previous presidents -- including Bill Clinton -- have stated the high court's membership "should be leavened with a politician or two," says Mauro, so the theoretical approach usually employed by the court would be tempered with the practical approach a politician would bring. But would Hillary Clinton consider a seat on the Supreme Court a positive step along her career path? According to Mauro, she might -- because "the prospect of returning the Senate might be just as unappealing as running for vice president."
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