Colorado judge is latest SCOTUS name to surface

U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello says she has been approached by people involved with President Obama’s Supreme Court search about whether she’d be willing to be considered as a nominee.

Arguello, a district judge in Colorado, was a law professor at the University of Kansas and served as Deputy Attorney General of Colorado while Ken Salazar, now the Secretary of the Interior, was Attorney General.

Arguello told the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper that she was approached by people “who are in direct contact with the White House” about whether she “would be willing to go through the intense scrutiny” that comes with a Supreme Court nomination.

“I said ‘yes,'” Arguello says. “I wouldn’t have gone this far if I didn’t think I could serve my country in this way.”

Like other potential nominees, Arguello has a compelling personal story. Her father was a railroad worker, and her family sometimes lived in a boxcar to make ends meet.

She received a bacehlor’s degree from the University of Colorado and graduated from Harvard Law. President Clinton nominated her for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2000, but she didn’t come up for a vote before his presidency ended. At the urging of former Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and then-Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), President Bush nominated her for a district judgeship in July of 2008, and she was confirmed a few months later.

(h/t: Colorado Independent)