Breaking news courtesy of Michigan Messenger:
DETROIT — U.S. Rep. John Conyers told a gathering of progressive activists gathered at the Cobo Convention Center on Saturday that he has withdrawn his support for Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Obama.
"[Obama] had no doubt she would make a good Supreme Court justice and I don’t either. But I am not supporting somebody who is — especially when she is waiting to be considered as a possible nominee for the highest court in the land — she can write a letter telling us some U.S. attorney has done a good job when everyone in the state knows that he hasn’t," Conyers said in an interview with Michigan Messenger following his address at Cobo.
We're still waiting for confirmation on the name of the US attorney nominee, but I'm sitting in the room with Todd Heywood of MichMess and we'll update as soon as we get it.
I was in the room listening to the speech at the time. Conyers was invited to give a short introductory speech at the Michigan Policy Summit, and most of it was pretty standard boilerplate about holding people responsible for the financial crisis. After the speech one gentleman got up to ask Conyers a question and asked what Conyers was doing to influence President Obama. Conyers said that just yesterday he was in the White House, and President Obama asked him for his opinion on SCOTUS. As reported above, Conyers said he originally supported Granholm, but withdrew that support when she supported a US Attorney candidate guilty of, in Conyers' words, "dereliction of duty."
For the record, Conyers now says categorically that he would like to see a Hispanic woman nominated.
UPDATED: Several commenters have suggested that Conyers' opinion is irrelevant. From Todd Heywood's interview:
Asked if his withdrawal of support for Granholm killed the governor’s chances for an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, Conyers, who had initially suggested Granholm as a Supreme Court pick, response was: "Yes." Conyers said he withdrew his support for Granholm in a meeting with Obama at the White House Friday. Late last week, word leaked out of the White House that Granholm had made Obama’s short list for potential replacements for Associate Justice David Souter, who recently announced his retirement.