HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell today nominated former Commonwealth Court Judge James Gardner Colins to fill a two-year vacancy on the state Supreme Court, prompting swift criticism from Senate Republicans who must confirm him.

Rendell praised Colins, a longtime friend and fellow Democrat, as a jurist with "a great legal mind."

"I think he'll make a great addition to the Supreme Court," said Rendell at a news conference. "He's got a mix of intellectual scholarship, great perception and common sense."

A Senate GOP spokesman said Republican leaders have questions about Colins' objectivity in cases involving the Rendell administration.

"We are unable to find a decision that he has penned in the last five years that was against Gov. Rendell," said Drew Crompton, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati (R., Jefferson). "It raises legitimate questions regarding the slant in the opinions he's taken in the last five years."

Colins, 61, of Philadelphia, would fill the vacancy created when chief justice Ralph J. Cappy retired earlier this month. Colins retired in October from the Commonwealth Court, where he served for 24 years, the longest term on that court in state history.

Rendell made three other interim judicial nominations: former interim Supreme Court Justice James Fitzgerald III and Philadelphia lawyer Robert Daniels to fill openings on the Superior Court, and Duquesne law professor Ken Gormley to serve on the Commonwealth Court.