New Solicitor General: Donald Verrilli

[IBCoupe]

Was it a political compromise by the Obama Administration?

...A veteran of ten arguments in the Court, Verrilli has had a key role in several important legal initiatives in the Obama Administration – perhaps most significantly, an attempt to put some limits on the government’s use of the controversial “state secrets” doctrine.

By choosing Verrilli, the President passed over Neal K. Katyal, the Deputy SG, who has been heading the SG’s office on an acting basis since Obama’s first SG – Elena Kagan – was named to the Supreme Court. Katyal has argued a number of major cases for the Administration as Acting SG — most recently, in fact, a “state secrets” case involving a Pentagon warplane contract.

...

In selecting Verrilli over Katyal, one factor that was said to be at work was that Verrilli is older and more experienced.

Katyal, though, might have had difficulty with some Repulican senators over his pre-government role as a legal defender of Guantanamo detainees’ rights — the role he played, in particular, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Supreme Court struck down the former Bush Administration’s plan for military commission trials of suspected terrorists.

[AZhitman]

Yes, and you're going to see more.

He's not as lefty as we all made him out to be - it's his raggedy band of merry men (and women) coat-tailing along who I'm more concerned about....

As he's shedding them, the public's perception will be that he's moved more to the center.

[audtatious]

^^^ That's to be seen yet.