In 1993, shortly after U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Byron White announced his resignation, President Clinton was stymied when his top choice, New York's then-Gov.
On May 6, 1993, the Washington Post named Shores as a possible choice for Clinton, particularly since she had served on the Supreme Court of Alabama for four years in the 1970s with then-U.S. Sen. Howell Heflin, who by 1993 was a member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
At a dinner a few weeks earlier, Heflin said that White House Counselor Bernard Nussbaum had "asked me about Janie," the paper reported.
Toobin notes that Shores was "utterly unknown in Washington legal circles and no one – not Clinton or anyone on his staff – had any idea where she stood on constitutional issues or much of anything else."
Toobin notes that Clinton ultimately relented, and later wound up appointing Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the High Court.
"It was a great honor to be considered even though I didn't get it," Shores told the Birmingham News in an article that ran on March 29, 1995.
In 2004, Shores served as one of seven members of a special State Supreme Court that considered the appeal of the ouster of Moore as chief justice.