In today’s Confirmation Tales post—“Replacing Harry Blackmun: Clinton searches for candidate ‘with a big heart’”—I pivot back to Bill Clinton’s Supreme Court nominations. If you’ve been enjoying Confirmation Tales, I think that you’ll find the next two posts of special interest, as I recount some never-before-told tales relating to Justice Breyer’s nomination. Please sign up for Confirmation Tales.
Here are excerpts from today’s post:
Twenty-six years, and fourteen consecutive Supreme Court nominations by Republican presidents, had passed between LBJ’s appointment of Thurgood Marshall in 1967 and Bill Clinton’s appointment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993. Blackmun’s retirement meant that Clinton would now be able to make his second pick just a year after his first.
At a White House ceremony on April 6 with Blackmun, Clinton promised to nominate someone “of genuine stature and largeness of ability and spirit.” That promise echoed his vow the previous year to select “someone with a big heart.” …
White House officials gave the Washington Post and the New York Times the same list of leading candidates to replace Blackmun: Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell; federal district judge José Cabranes; Interior Secretary (and former Arizona governor) Bruce Babbitt; Solicitor General Drew Days; and Clinton’s fellow Arkansan, Eighth Circuit judge Richard Arnold.
Conspicuously missing from the White House list was the previous year’s runner-up to Ginsburg, First Circuit judge Stephen Breyer. But the omission of Breyer was not surprising.
Clinton had interviewed Breyer in 1993 for Justice Byron White’s vacancy. But (as Jeffrey Toobin reported) the interview with the wonky former law professor and regulatory expert “went badly.” Clinton told his staff that Breyer, far from meeting his “big heart” criterion, seemed “heartless”:
“I don’t see enough humanity. I want a judge with soul.”