It was a bit of a surprise on Wednesday when a new Ninth Circuit nominee — a stealth candidate, if you will — popped up on the White House Web site.
Sandra Segal Ikuta’s name is not one that was bandied about much (at least publicly) as a nominee. But the current deputy secretary and general counsel of the California Resources Agency seems to have some pretty good federal court credibility, if not a judgeship, to her name, along with a Masters in journalism from Columbia. Ikuta clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor before becoming a partner at O’Melveny & Myers specializing in environmental law.
