Most Supreme Court speculation has revolved around a short list of high-profile candidates, but the White House is still telling reporters that it is considering a few dark-horse candidates. One of those may be U.S. District Judge Christine Arguello, an associate of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who recently told her local newspaper, The Pueblo Chieftain, that Obama's people had contacted her to ask if she "would be willing to go through the intense scrutiny" of a Supreme Court nomination. Arguello said yes.
Arguello, 53, was born to a family of railroad workers in the tiny town of Thatcher, Colorado. She was the first in her family to attend college, graduating from University of Colorado at Boulder and Harvard Law, where she was an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. From 1980 to 1999, she practiced law and taught at the University of Kansas School of Law, subsequently serving as Colorado's Chief Deputy Attorney General under then Attorney General Salazar. After several abortive court nominations, she was confirmed as a Colorado District Court judge last December. At the time, The Rocky Mountain News wrote that "she believes her background will make her more understanding and empathetic to the 'common man' and attorneys who appear in her courtroom."