Other views:
Add to this fact that Judge Brown was a minority conservative judiciary 'leader' for California, no matter who the governor picks, the replacement will be a step or two to the center of Janice Rogers Brown.
If she follows past practice, Brown will remain at the state court to finish work on cases already argued, so her seat won't be vacant until September, when hearings resume after a two-month break.
Her successor will join a court with awaiting hearings on important issues already on the docket. Among them are tobacco company liability for ads directed at teenagers, Indian tribes' claim of immunity from state campaign disclosure laws, the retroactivity of a ballot measure that protects businesses from some consumer lawsuits, and a clash between free speech and sexual harassment laws in a suit by a former employee of the "Friends'' television show. The court may also decide to consider a challenge to California's new domestic partner law.
But the blockbuster case on the horizon is a suit by gay and lesbian couples and the city of San Francisco over the state's ban on same-sex marriage. An appeal of the March 14 ruling by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer, declaring the ban in violation of the state Constitution, is headed for the state's high court sometime next year, unless a ballot measure that would overturn the ruling wins voter approval first.
Schwarzenegger's nominee, if confirmed by the state Commission on Judicial Appointments, would have some impact on the court's ideological makeup. As UC Berkeley Law Professor Stephen Barnett observed, "Since Brown has been at the right wing of the court, almost any appointee would move the court toward the center.''