Granholm listed as Souter replacement

WASHINGTON (AP) - Michigan's Jennifer Granholm continues to downplay reports she might be in line for a U.S. Supreme Court seat, saying the White House wants a judge, not a governor like her.

President Barack Obama said Friday he will replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter with someone who shares the president's respect for "constitutional values" and hopes to have "him or her" seated on the nation's highest court by the start of the next term in October.

Obama thanked Souter for his dedicated service, and quickly looked ahead to the nomination of a replacement.

"As I make this decision," Obama said, "I intend to consult with members of both parties, across the political spectrum. And it is my hope that we can swear in our new Supreme Court justice in time for him or her to be seated by the first Monday in October."

Souter informed Obama of his plans in a brief letter Friday. Obama praised Souter and thanked him for his service.

The 69-year-old justice is leaving after nearly two decades in Washington. His retirement gives Obama his first pick for the Supreme Court.

The vacancy could lead to another woman on the bench to join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, currently the court's only female justice.

In Auburn Hills on Friday, Granholm said the administration is "looking to pick someone who's a judge," a job she's never held.

The 50-year-old Democrat says she'll finish her second four-year term as governor. Term limits bar her from running in 2010. She's been Michigan attorney general and an assistant Detroit federal prosecutor.

At 69, Souter is much younger than either Ginsburg, 76, or Justice John Paul Stevens, 89, the other two liberal justices whose names have been mentioned as possible retirees. Yet those justices have given no indication they intend to retire soon and Ginsburg said she plans to serve into her 80s, despite her recent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Souter, a regular jogger, is thought to be in excellent health.

Interest groups immediately began gearing up.

"We're looking for President Obama to choose an eminently qualified candidate who is committed to the core constitutional values, who is committed to justice for all and not just a few," said Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice.

Besides Granholm, the others President Obama is likely to consider to replace Justice Souter are:

-- Judge Ruben Castillo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

-- Judge Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

-- U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, a former Harvard University law professor.

-- Pam Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School.

-- Harold Koh, a Yale University law professor recently nominated to serve as legal adviser at the State Department.

-- Judge Margaret McKeown of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

-- Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

-- Judge Johnnie Rawlinson of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

-- Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

-- Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School.

-- Cass Sunstein, a Harvard University law professor recently nominated to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

-- Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

-- Judge Diane Wood of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The Obama White House began from almost its first days in office preparing for the possibility of a retirement by thinking about and vetting potential high court nominees. Those efforts only accelerated with Ginsburg's cancer surgery.

The timing may have been unexpected, but Souter has long yearned for a life outside Washington.

He has never made any secret of his dislike for the capital, once telling acquaintances he had "the world's best job in the world's worst city." When the court finishes its work for the summer, he quickly departs for his beloved New Hampshire.

He has been on the court since 1990, when he was an obscure federal appeals court judge until President George H.W. Bush tapped him for the Supreme Court.

Bush White House aide John Sununu, the former conservative governor of New Hampshire, hailed his choice as a "home run." And early in his time in Washington, Souter was called a moderate conservative.

But he soon joined in a ruling reaffirming woman's right to an abortion, a decision from 1992 that remains still perhaps his most noted work on the court.

Souter became a reliable liberal vote on the court and was one of the four dissenters in the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore that sealed the presidential election for George W. Bush.

Yet as Souter biographer Tinsley Yarbrough noted, "he doesn't take extreme positions." Indeed, in June, Souter sided with Exxon Mobil Corp. and broke with his liberal colleagues in slashing the punitive damages the company owed Alaskan victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Souter