Jerry Brown's recent appointees to the California Supreme Court are starting to look like an all-star team of US Supreme Court appointees-in-waiting.
This report of confirmation:
Stanford law professor Mariano-Florentino Cuellar made his recent confirmation to the California Supreme Court look easy.
There was not a single letter opposing him from anywhere in the state. The only critique of him was that he is "annoyingly cheerful."
...contains this understatement:
Cuellar ... was immersed in some of the most contentious domestic and international issues in his time at the White House. These included everything from food safety regulation to the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, as well as heavy involvement in formulating immigration policies such as border control and refugee treatment.
...as detailed
here, with titles of and links to interesting publications,
Prof. Cuéllar has published detailed analyses of numerous politically provocative issues:
1. mainly federal, which equips him well for an eventual move to the US Supreme Court, and
2. many relating to the increasingly central issue of decision-making by administrative agencies.
Cuellar neatly complements Gov. Brown's prior appointment, of former Berkeley law professor
Goodwin Liu, who also has an impressive scope of publications (listed
here, without links).
These guys are both smart, relevant, practical and plain-spoken, with the ability to isolate the extremism of Samuel Alito, and see through the gamesmanship of John Roberts, after the departure of Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy.
So who will be first to be nominated to the US Supreme Court -- the Stanford or the Berkeley prof? Stanford's Cuellar, after a few years of judging experience, should become a political no-brainer appointee for a Democratic President, while Berkeley's Liu has already accrued three years of experience on the California court (my how time flies).
I can hardly wait to see Red State Republican Senators lining up to oppose and malign the Mexican-born Cuellar, and the Chinese-American Liu, thereby offending new generations of Latinos and Asian-Americans.