Tom Goldstein, Washington lawyer and highly-regarded Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) observer, writes in his blog (SCOTUSblog) that Justice John Paul Stevens definitely will retire after this term of the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg definitely will not retire (I've been thinking they would both retire during the current Obama term, but Goldstein seems awfully sure of himself and he also seems to think he knows who will replace Stevens:

Solicitor General Elena Kagan (former dean of Harvard Law). His reasoning all sounds smart, although it may suffer from the Audacity of Certainty. But if you read all the way through his reasoning, and his list of the possible nominees Obama won't nominate, the last on that list is our own U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, whom Goldstein considers the most serious alternative to Kagan who is not usually on the short-list that circulates in Washington.

Me, I'm thinking there's no way Obama would nominate a Dem sen from a state with a Repub guv who would be empowered to appoint the interim successor. Goldstein eventually gets around to saying pretty much the same thing. But not before he showers praise on Klobuchar (of which I'll paste in the full two paragraphs just below) and mentions how the Senate tends to confirm their own members in such circumstances. Actually, although it used to happen more commonly, there is no recent confirmation of this trend. Trivia question (and you are a major trivia genius if you get this one): who was the last Supreme Court justice to be nominated from the Senate?

Before you collect the answer to that one, here's what Goldstein said about Klobuchar:

"The most serious remaining candidate to General Kagan might actually be someone who has not really been discussed in the published so-called “short lists”:  Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.  She is fantastically well spoken.  She has a clear and unshrinking willingness to articulate a progressive vision.  On the other hand, she (like Governor Granholm [whom Goldstein had discussed above]) is an experienced prosecutor.  And senators are notoriously hesitant to oppose their own, particularly members who are well respected (as she appears to be).  The idea that any Democratic senator or the female Republican senators from Maine would seriously oppose her (much less support a filibuster) is absurd.

If Senator Klobuchar is interested in the job (and her speeches on judicial issues suggest she would be), then a different political calculus comes into play: the balance in the Senate.  The Democrats have already lost their filibuster-proof majority.  But there are now conversations about whether in 2010 they might lose their absolute majority.  That is not a realistic possibility, but when the President’s domestic agenda is at stake, each seat is vital, as I said at the outset.  If the President appoints Senator Klobuchar, then Minnesota’s Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty gets to name her replacement in the short term and her seat is unnecessarily put into play.  (The replacement would serve until November, unless Senator Klobuchar were confirmed after August 2, in which case under Minnesota law the interim appointee would serve another year, until November 2011.)  If this were January 2009 and the wind were at the Democrats’ backs, it would be a very serious possibility, but this is 2010 and it is not."

Now for the answer to the nearly impossible trivia question. In the 1920s, 30s and 40s it was downright common for presidents to name senators and former senators to the Supreme Court. But it hasn't happened in 60 years.

In 1949, Pres. Truman nominated the now-mostly-forgotten Sherman Minton to the SCOTUS, on which he served until 1956. He was not a senator when nominated, but he had served one term from Indiana, 1935-41.

In 1945, for the first appointment he made to the Supremes, Truman (who had been a senator) named Harold Burton, who served on the court until 1958. He was a U.S. Senator from Ohio when Truman nominated him.

If you said either Justice Minton or Justice Burton, hats off to you. When I posed the question, before looking up the answer, I thought the correct response would be Justice Hugo Black (no relation to your humble ink-stained wretch). Black was a sitting senator from Alabama when named to the Supreme Court by FDR. Black stayed on the high court until 1971, the year before he died. Since Black was the last justice with Senate experience to leave the court, I am proud to offer you half-credit (especially since, by doing so, I get to give myself half-credit).