Political Appointments

When Sonia Sotomayor goes before the Senate next month for her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the questioning is likely to focus on her work as a civil rights advocate in the 1980s as much as on her nearly two decades on the federal bench. That is because she was a board member of a Puerto Rican advocacy group that sued to overturn New York City's civil service exams and to win more police and firefighter jobs for Latinos.

The spoils go to the victors in politics, and usually a candidate's campaign advisors are generously rewarded with top jobs in the government when an election is won. The exception has been President Obama's team of campaign foreign policy advisors, who have fared poorly in the new administration's frantic job competition. The president, who ran as a liberal, has filled out his government with appointees more in the political center.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sidestepped questions on abortion, gun rights and gay rights Wednesday -- including whether a state could forbid aborting a 38-week-old fetus -- leaving both conservative and liberal activists troubled. Sotomayor, relying on her long judicial record, gave detailed explanations of her court decisions but steadfastly refused to engage Republicans who were interested in her views on abortion, the 2nd Amendment and same-sex marriage.

The leading candidate to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations recently has been a lobbyist for several business clients, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and would require a waiver from the Obama administration's recently imposed ethics rules.

Fresh from his appointment of the first Latino to the U.S. Supreme Court, President Obama has named four new federal judges for California, three of them Asian Americans, who have long been underrepresented on the federal bench. Two of the appointments are to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, and two are to the Northern District of California in San Francisco. They will be brought before the Senate for confirmation after its summer recess.

Like most everyone in this small, scruffy city of boat builders and fishermen, Sammy Duffy tends to rave about surgeon general nominee Regina Benjamin and all that she has done for the hard-working people here who labor without the safety net of health insurance.

A debate among Democrats over who should replace Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court began emerging Friday between those eager to return the court to its liberal era of 40 years ago and those who are wary of tacking too far to the left. But President Obama, who will choose the nominee, focused not on volatile ideological questions but on personal character, saying he wanted someone with "empathy" for "people's hopes and struggles."

In late 1979, Cesar Perales, the head of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, fielded an unusual request from Jose Cabranes, a federal judge and a leading figure in Latino legal circles: Would he place Sonia Sotomayor, a recent Yale Law School graduate, on his board? Perales normally tried to stock his board with people who had money or connections that could benefit the fund, the nation's most important Puerto Rican legal advocacy group. Sotomayor had neither.

If there is a Supreme Court candidate with inside connections, it is Elena Kagan, the Harvard Law School dean who was recently named U.S. solicitor general. Kagan, 49, is not widely known for legal writings or for taking a stand on a controversial issue. And she has never argued a case in the federal courts.

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta withdrew Thursday from consideration to be the next surgeon general, with the network and Obama administration officials attributing his decision to professional and family reasons amid a campaign by some liberal interest groups to block his selection. CNN reported that Gupta, a neurosurgeon, decided to withdraw so that he could continue to practice medicine, work as a journalist and spend more time with his family.