Bush meets Senate leaders

President Bush met face to face yesterday with top Senate leaders to discuss the vacancy on the Supreme Court, but he refused to say whether he was close to announcing a nominee.

“Closer today than I was yesterday,” the president said with a smile when asked how near he was to making the first nomination to the Supreme Court in 11 years.

Mr. Bush did not get into specifics during an hourlong meeting with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the panel’s ranking Democrat.

“He didn’t give us any names,” Mr. Reid told reporters after the meeting.

But three new names emerged on Capitol Hill shortly after the meeting: Sonia Sotomayor and Edward C. Prado, both appeals court judges, and Ricardo H. Hinojosa, a U.S. District Court judge. Officials familiar with the talks, details of which both sides agreed would not be divulged to the press, told the Associated Press that Mr. Leahy and Mr. Reid suggested them.

Any if the three judges would be the first Hispanic named to the high court, in line with what some court observers say is a goal of Mr. Bush’s, but probably all three are more liberal than many Republicans would like.

While Mr. Leahy later refused to confirm the names, he said they are the kind of candidates that “would have good support from both parties,” the Associated Press reported.

Pressed to seek input from the Senate, Mr. Bush has already consulted heavily with Democrats in the 10 days since Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her intent to resign. So far, the president has spoken with more than half the Democrats in the Senate and with every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the White House said.

All four senators yesterday praised the president’s outreach effort.

“I feel comfortable and good that we’re going to be able to have someone that is a consensus candidate,” Mr. Reid said.

But another Judiciary member, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, took to the Senate floor yesterday to criticize the White House effort.

“For consultation to work, and we all want it to work, the president should suggest some names and get the opinion of those of us in the Senate,” he said. The senator also suggested the president convene a summit at Camp David or “a dinner at the White House” to privately discuss the nomination.

But Mr. Schumer acknowledged that the “nominee is not going to be a liberal or even a moderate, it’s likely to be a conservative.”

This point was endorsed by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a Republican who helped broker a pact with Senate Democrats to move forward on several stalled lower-court judicial nominees.

“During the campaign, President Bush said he will appoint judges who will strictly interpret the Constitution,” the senator said in Dallas. “Thinking anything else is either amnesia or ignorance.”

“Whomever he nominates deserves an up or down vote and no filibuster,” Mr. McCain said. “And an up or down vote is what we will have.”

Among conservatives, the top candidates are federal appellate judges J. Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell, John Roberts Jr., Samuel Alito and J. Harvie Wilkinson III.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales also is on most short lists, as are appeals court judges Emilio Garza, Edith Hollan Jones and Edith Brown Clement.

For its part, the White House said it planned to consult, but was not offering Democrats a veto.

“The president has a constitutional responsibility to nominate someone to the bench and I don’t think any individual should have veto power over the president’s constitutional responsibility,” Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Still, he said “the president was very much in a listening mode. … The president is going to continue to consult. He’s going to continue to listen.”

Meanwhile, first lady Laura Bush said she hoped her husband would pick a woman.

“Sure, I would really like for him to name another woman,” Mrs. Bush said on NBC’s “Today” show, in an interview from Cape Town, South Africa, where she is on a goodwill trip. “But I know that my husband will pick somebody who has a lot of integrity and strength, and — whether it’s a woman or a man, of course, I have no idea.”

Back at the White House, Mr. Bush said he appreciated the unsolicited input and “can’t wait to hear her advice in person when she gets back.”

“Listen, I get her advice all the time. I didn’t realize she’d put this advice in the press,” he said. “I’m definitely considering — we’re definitely considering people from all walks of life.”

Also at yesterday’s meeting were Vice President Dick Cheney, Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and White House Counsel Harriet Miers.

• Charles Hurt contributed to this story.