Speculation that California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris could be on President Obama’s short list of possible nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court has reached a fever pitch — but don’t fit her for a robe just yet.

The talk that Harris — simultaneously the first woman and African American to be elected to the statewide post — could fill the vacancy created by this weekend’s unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia is just that, for the moment.

It’s a line of thought that is coming mostly from media outlets and analysts offering commentary ahead of what is likely to be a deliberative process that will start in earnest when President Obama returns to Washington this week after spending several days in California.

Still, it’s not hard to understand why court observers and the legal community would watch Harris, 51, the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica. She is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

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