It certainly doesn’t hurt to be a member of the Harvard Law Class of ’91 these days. That, after all, is President Barack Obama’s graduating class.
Let’s back up a bit. The job of D.C.’s Judicial Nomination Commission is to suggest candidates for open judicial vacancies in the city. The president typically chooses from the commission’s list.
This spring, when the commission recommended three candidates to fill the Superior Court vacancy created by the retirement of Rafael Diaz. Ultimately, the commission settled on Jeffrey Gutman, Sharon Larkin and Elizabeth Shapiro.
Earlier this month, however, Obama nominated Stuart Nash, an associate deputy attorney general and the director of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Forces, to fill Diaz’s seat.
Despite not being tapped by the commission this time around, Nash does have one thing going for him. He’s a 1991 Harvard Law grad.
But Judge Emmet Sullivan, the commission’s chair, said that nothing untoward is going on. Obama is “under no obligation” to choose a nominee from their recommendations, said Sullivan, adding any nominee must be a viable candidate on a previous list, a requirement Nash meets. He was nominated for a different vacant seat by President George W. Bush, but he withdrew his name before the Senate could confirm him. The Senate has yet to act on Nash this time around.
