Court ended, there was a flurry of rumors that Rehnquist, who was undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer, would soon retire. On June 27, 2005, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid suggested that the next appointment to the Court should come from outside the judiciary. Reid suggested the appointment of one of four Republican Senators, none of whom possessed previous judicial experience: Mel Martinez, Mike DeWine, Mike Crapo and Lindsey Graham. The list did not include the name of Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Reid declined to address the omission. Unexpectedly, on July 1, 2005, it was not Rehnquist who announced his retirement, but O'Connor. On July 12, Bush met at the White House with the party leaders and ranking Judiciary Committee members from the two major parties – Republicans Bill Frist and Arlen Specter, and Democrats Reid and Patrick Leahy – to discuss the nomination process. During the meeting, the Democrats offered the President the names of three "moderate" Hispanic federal judges that they could accept: Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit, Edward Prado of the Fifth Circuit, and Ricardo Hinojosa, a district court judge from Texas. Reid later told the press he was disappointed that the President had not chosen to discuss his own choice of possible candidates with the Democrats. In the conservative magazine National Review, the three candidates suggested by the Democrats were quickly dismissed as being offered in bad faith because they were too liberal for a conservative president to seriously consider. Sotomayor was later nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama (a Democrat) and confirmed as an associate justice in 2009. On the same day as the president's bi-partisan leadership meeting, First Lady Laura Bush stated in a Today show interview during an official visit to South Africa a preference for her husband to nominate a woman to O'Connor's seat. Bush was surprised at his wife's public comments about selecting a replacement for O'Connor, but said he would be open to hearing her advice when she returned from her trip. John Roberts nomination On the evening of July 19, 2005, Bush announced his first Supreme Court nominee, choosing John Roberts, a highly regarded former Supreme Court litigator and conservative judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to succeed retiring Associate Justice O'Connor. During the day leading up to the announcement, there had been much