“O’Connor and Her Clerk”

On Monday, the President nominated two candidates to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is often described as the second most important court in the nation. (Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Ginsburg all served on the D.C. Circuit before being named to the Supreme Court.) They are Caitlin Halligan, a New York prosecutor, and Srikanth Srinivasan, currently the principal deputy solicitor general. Halligan was nominated previously, and Republicans prevented her from receiving an up-or-down vote. This is the first time around for Srinivasan, and the White House has recruited a high-profile surrogate to speak on his behalf.

“It’s a wonderful choice,” Sandra Day O’Connor told me in a telephone interview this afternoon. “I’m sure he would be a good appellate court judge.” Srinivasan, who is known as Sri, clerked for O’Connor on the Supreme Court in the 1997-98 term, and has since shuttled between private practice at O’Melveny & Myers and stints in the solicitor general’s office. “I just remember him as being a very skilled, intellectually gifted clerk,” O’Connor said. At this point in his term, President Obama has left only a modest imprint on the lower federal courts. Persistent opposition by Republicans in the Senate (often in the form of filibusters) has pushed Obama well behind the pace of Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton for confirmations of judges he’s named. Obama’s own slow pace in making nominations has played a part, too.