Things are getting a little tight in Iowa, so it may not be the right time for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to roll out her presidential cabinet.

But should she ultimately get the nomination and then win the presidency, odds are that she might ask the New York City power couple of Joel I. Klein and Nicole K. Seligman to join her team.

And she could also keep things all in the family and sign on Stephanie Seligman, Nicole’s sister, to work at the White House or just about anywhere else.

Robert A. Levy doesn’t own a gun, but he is at the heart of a Second Amendment case that the Supreme Court agreed to hear last week.

Levy, a millionaire and lawyer with lots of Washington connections, used his money to finance a challenge to the District of Columbia statute that prohibits the ownership of handguns.

The 31-year-old statute also places restricts on the possession of other firearms, including a requirement that the guns in homes be unloaded.

While Supreme Court law clerks can now count on big signing bonuses after their year with the court, they can also count on good and powerful jobs in the government.

And as they rise to power in these jobs, they most likely find themselves working along side other former court law courts, fellow members of an elite club.

Connections count, and the Supreme Court connection counts a lot.

As baseball managers know, life isn’t always fair.

You put the team together, you make the key decisions, and the people who work for you make the big bucks.
The analogy isn’t exact, but something like that is happening at the U.S. Supreme Court, which opened its 2007-08 term on Monday.

The nine justices make the decisions. And for this they get paid fairly well, $212,000 for Chief Justice John Roberts, $203,000 for the eight associate justices.