SAN FRANCISCO - It's not hard to understand why California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown is often mentioned as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In many ways, her line of thinking mirrors both the Bush administration and recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent. A Christian black woman from the segregated South, Brown supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability, routinely upholds the death penalty and opposes affirmative action.

… The first black woman to sit on California's highest court, Brown, 54, is one of the most conservative of the seven justices and a prolific opinion writer, authoring more opinions and dissents last term than any other justice.

She caught the attention of conservatives and the Bush administration with her majority opinion in 2000 striking down a San Jose ordinance that required government contractors to solicit bids from companies owned by women and minorities. Brown's lengthy opinion traced the legal history of race in America, portraying it as ebbing and flowing on whether government should treat all races equally.

Her conclusion, based in part on the California voters' decision to outlaw race- and gender-based hiring practices by approving Proposition 209: all people should be treated equally, regardless of race. Instead of affirmative action, she said, "equality of individual opportunity" is what the constitution demands.

Chief Justice Ronald M. George, in a concurring opinion, attacked Brown's portrayal of affirmative action as "entitlement based on group representation," calling it a "serious distortion of history." George wrote that affirmative action could be viewed as aiding the underrepresented in an effort to create equality.