My friend Ignoto offers up a compelling reason why the Supreme Court nominee should be Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm: she's Scandinavian, with both Swedish and Norwegian ancestors. That would make her (at least?) the third Scandinavian on the Court, all in the living memory of at least some of us. Chief Justice Earl Warren also claimed Swedish/Norwegian ancestry. Chief Justice William Rehnquist appears to have been Swedish on his father's side; his mother's ethnicity seems to be "Wisconsin," which might be the same thing.
We briefly batted around the idea that Chief Justice Warren Burger was also Scandinavian. Apparently no; Wiki puts him down as "Swiss German." But Burger does appear to have nurtured a soft spot for Swedish society, in particular, it seems, its ability to survive without the Fifth Amendment (not clear what he thought about all that socialism).
But Granholm might lose out on diversity grounds: per Wiki she (unlike her Lutheran/secularist forebears) is a Catholic. That would give us a court of seven Catholics and two Jews, effectively demolishing the much-coveted Protestant seat.
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