AP reports that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer. This almost certainly means that she will have to step down from the court. No matter how early they caught it, pancreatic cancer is the most deadly form of the disease and only 5% of its victims make it past the first year.
 
So what does this mean for the court and for Obama? It means that the first vacancy will likely be Ginsburg rather than Stevens. I thought it was quite likely that the first nominee from Obama would be a woman anyway, but this makes that all but a mortal lock. There’s no way they allow the court to have no female justice at all.

That likely means a short list of Elena Kagan, the former dean of Harvard Law School who has been nominated by Obama to be Solicitor General; Sonia Sotomayor, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals; Kim Wardlaw, a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; Diane Wood, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals; and as a dark horse candidate, Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Kagan would be a very easy confirmation. Though she has no judicial experience, she is the closest thing to a rock star as there is in the legal world. Just last week, the last eight Solicitors General sent a letter to the Senate praising her and advocating her confirmation as Solicitor General. They would likely endorse her just as strongly for a seat on the Supreme Court. She would be my odds on favorite.

The next most likely, in my view, would be Sotomayor. She would be the first Hispanic on the court in addition to being female and she is widely respected. Wood and Wardlaw would likely be backup picks to the first two in case something surfaced that would be problematic. As for Granholm, I think if they have her in mind for a spot on the Supreme Court, they would likely nominate her for a seat on a lower court first to build up her resume.

We certainly hope for the best for Justice Ginsburg, who has already beaten cancer once. But pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal in a very short period of time, so we must also recognize that the odds are slim. She has been a model of collegiality and a strong, disciplined voice for civil rights on the court for a decade and a half.