WASHINGTON (ABP) — The White House has said President Bush will announce his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at 9 p.m. Eastern time July 19, and speculation is swirling around Washington circles that a relative unknown will be his pick.
The move could mean that what many court observers had expected would be a bruising partisan battle over the moderate justice's replacement will now be defused.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced to reporters midday July 19 that Bush would be making his choice for the seat public in a prime-time address to the nation that evening. Administration insiders — and those who listen to them — have been reporting all day that the choice is likely to be Edith Brown Clement, who since 2001 has been a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Reported to be a longtime friend of the Bush family, Clement was named to that court by the current president Bush in 2001 and won confirmation on a unanimous Senate vote. Previously, she served on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. She was named to that court in 1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush.
Although Clement has contributed to Republican campaigns and has a conservative reputation, little is known about her views on the divisive social issues that are paramount to many partisans in the battle to replace O'Connor. O'Connor often was a crucial “swing vote” on abortion-rights, gay-rights and church-state issues.
In her brief time at the appeals-court level, according to staffers for church-state agencies, she has rarely ruled on such divisive issues. In her 2001 Senate confirmation hearing, she called the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states “settled law.”
A 2001 article in the Washington-insider magazine National Journal quoted a Tulane University law professor as saying that Clement admired the jurisprudence of Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most conservative members. However, John Kramer went on to say, Clement had not had the opportunity to rule on the sorts of issues that might cement her credentials among social conservatives.
Bush, answering a handful of reporters' questions during a brief White House appearance with Australian Prime Minister John Howard July 19, avoided discussing Clement specifically. “I do have an obligation to think about people from different backgrounds, but who share the same philosophy — people who will not legislate from the bench,” Bush said. “That's what I told the people when I ran for president.”
Clement, who is Catholic, practiced law for 16 years in New Orleans before being elevated to the federal bench. A Birmingham, Ala., native, she is a graduate of the University of Alabama and Tulane University Law School. She and her husband, Rutledge, have two children.