President To Name Nominee For Court

In seeking out a new nominee, Bush appears to be less focused on finding a woman to replace O'Connor, the nation's first female justice, and has returned to what he has derisively called "the judicial monastery" for his candidates. The names in play as he prepared for his announcement have long histories on the federal appeals court. Alito, Luttig and Batchelder, in fact, were appointed by President George H.W. Bush about 15 years ago.

The fact that Bush aides were circulating those names over the weekend does not guarantee that he will pick one. Republican strategists wrongly assumed that Judge Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit would be named in July, based on what White House aides had said; instead, Bush chose Judge John G. Roberts Jr. Other jurists who have been mentioned as possible candidates include judges Michael W. McConnell of the 10th Circuit and Edith Hollan Jones of the 5th Circuit.

But the White House appeared intent on avoiding a repeat of the Miers fiasco and on testing reactions among conservative activists before making an announcement, rather than pulling a surprise. The feedback it got may have reassured the White House that it can reassemble its conservative coalition despite the family feud over Miers.

"They're really focused on quality," said a strategist close to the White House, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relations with Bush aides. "One of the things that all parts of the spectrum made clear was they wanted quality. So I think what you'll see is someone really well-credentialed."

Another outside adviser said those criteria argued for Alito, whom Bush previously interviewed. "I'm told they hit it off pretty well," the adviser said.

Alito, 55, studied at Princeton and Yale, and has sat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, based in Philadelphia, since 1990. Nicknamed "Scalito" by some who compare him to Scalia, the high court's prime conservative intellectual force, Alito has built a record as an incisive skeptic of liberal constitutional theory.

He voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that required a woman to notify her husband before an abortion -- a law rejected by the Supreme Court -- and wrote a decision upholding a city holiday display that included a creche and menorah as well as secular symbols.

Luttig, 51, a graduate of Washington and Lee and the University of Virginia, has been since 1991 a conservative mainstay of the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond. Like Alito, he is known for his sharp intellect and occasional skirmishes with fellow conservatives over principle. He wrote a ruling striking down part of the Violence Against Women Act that allowed women to sue attackers, sided with the government in terrorist-detention cases and initially upheld a Virginia law restricting what opponents call "partial-birth" abortions before later striking it down, citing Supreme Court precedent.

Batchelder, 61, another graduate of Virginia's law school, has served on the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit since 1992, after six years as a district judge. She voted to uphold Ohio's late-term abortion ban and voted against the University of Michigan's affirmative action program. She also sat on a case involving Wal-Mart even though her husband owned company stock, for which she later admitted error -- an issue that initially caused White House concern about nominating her.

To sell the eventual nominee, the White House will place the confirmation effort in the hands of Steve Schmidt, counselor to Vice President Cheney, with lobbyist Ed Gillespie playing an outside role, officials said. It was not clear if former senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who escorted Miers around Capitol Hill, will reprise the role. But time will be of the essence, with the White House hoping to push the Senate to confirm the nominee by the end of the year despite lawmakers' desire to leave town by Thanksgiving.