Replacing Stevens

WASHINGTON-President Obama held a meeting with top senators from both parties at the White House Wednesday to discuss his options for replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. The president said he expects to announce his pick before the end of May, but indicated that he hopes to announce someone sooner.

"Those are going to be some tough shoes to fill," the president said of the 90-year-old justice, the preeminent member of the court's liberal bloc. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who sat on the court in the early part of the 20th century, is the only other justice to have served until age 90.

Obama wants to name someone quickly so the Senate can confirm him or her before it goes into August recess. The new justice also will need time to prepare for the slate of cases coming in the court's next term, which begins in October.

Senate party leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), joined by top senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), put their heads together in a private meeting with the president, as they did when Obama was considering nominating Justice Sonia Sotomayor at about the same time last year.

"I will suggest that he pick someone who approaches every case with an open mind and a commitment to fairness," Leahy said in a statement before the meeting. "Someone like Justice John Paul Stevens."

A reporter asked the president before the meeting if he would nominate someone who "did not support a woman's right to choose." Obama said that issue has never been a "litmus test" for him with Supreme Court nominees.

"I am somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction," he said. "Obviously this has been a hugely contentious issue in our country for a very long time. But I will say that I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights."

The president has already begun interviewing potential nominees. The White House has unofficially floated some names, but some candidates are being given more credence in the press than others. U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who represents the United States in the Supreme Court, appears to be the front-runner for the post. Merrick Garland, an appeals court judge in Washington, D.C., is considered one of the more moderate candidates for the job. Two other appeals court judges are also in the running: Sidney Thomas, from Montana, and Diane Wood, from Chicago. Leah Ward Sears, former chief justice on the Georgia Supreme Court, has also been mentioned. If nominated and confirmed, she would be the first African-American woman to serve on the high court.