BUSH'S FAVORITE IS SCALIA........the most backward and archaic of the justices.................
Next president may have chance
to appoint at least 2 justices
By Tom Curry
MSNBC
Oct. 1 — With President Bill Clinton’s successor
likely to appoint at least two justices to the
United States Supreme Court, voters in 2000 are
not only choosing a president, but charting the
course of the high court for the next 20 years.
The actuarial tables are catching up with the
justices: Chief Justice William Rehnquist
celebrated his 76th birthday on Sunday and the
court’s oldest member, Justice John Paul
Stevens, turns 81 next April.
‘In 20 percent of
cases, the
president’s
nominees to the
Supreme Court
have ended up
disappointing
him.’
— HENRY ABRAHAM
Supreme Court scholar
WITH THE Democrats fielding strong Senate
candidates in Delaware, Minnesota, Washington and other
states, they have a good chance to re-gain control of the
Senate in November, making confirmation of a Republican
president’s nominees to the Supreme Court problematic.
Conversely, if Democratic presidential candidate Al
Gore wins the election but faces a Republican-controlled
Senate, he could face contentious battles to win
confirmation of his nominees to the court.
Many Senate Republicans still have bitter memories of
the hard-ball tactics used to scuttle Robert Bork who
President Reagan nominated to the court in 1987. Gore was
one of 58 senators who voted to reject the Bork
nomination.
SUPREME COURT JUSTICES
Justice
Date of Birth
Appointed by
Sworn in
William H. Rehnquist
10/1/24
Nixon
1/7/72
John Paul Stevens
4/20/20
Ford
12/17/75
Sandra Day O'Connor
3/26/30
Reagan
9/25/81
Antonin Scalia
3/11/36
Reagan
8/17/82
Anthony Kennedy
7/23/36
Reagan
2/18/88
David Souter
9/17/39
Bush
10/9/90
Clarence Thomas
6/23/48
Bush
10/23/91
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
3/15/33
Clinton
8/19/93
Stephen Breyer
8/15/38
Clinton
8/3/94
Source: Congressional Quarterly
Gore has repeatedly raised the issue of who will
appoint the next several justices in his speeches. “The
Supreme Court is at stake (and) many of our personal
liberties are at stake,” Gore said last spring.
Gore points out that his Republican rival George W.
Bush has identified conservative Justice Antonin Scalia as a
“favorite” justice.
‘LITMUS’ TEST FOR NOMINEES
Bush has promised to appoint to the court only judges
who would strictly interpret the Constitution and not attempt
to legislate from the bench.
Bush also insists that although he opposes abortion, he
would not impose an anti-abortion “litmus test” on his
nominees. Gore has vowed to only appoint justices who
would protect the right of a woman to choose to have an
abortion, a right Gore has called “sacred.”
Last March, Gore took the unprecedented step for a
vice president of criticizing three Supreme Court justices by
name, assailing Rehnquist, Scalia and Justice Clarence
Thomas for joining the court’s ruling that Congress did not
give the Food And Drug Administration any authority to
regulate tobacco.
The court's oldest member,
John Paul Stevens, turns 81
next April.
Gore said the three had blocked
the FDA from taking steps to
“protect our children.”
If new conservative judges fill
vacancies on the court, will the court
reverse Roe. v. Wade, the 1973
decision that legalized abortion
nationwide? Abortion rights activists
certainly think so.
“The next president will chart the future of Roe v.
Wade ,” said Kate Michelman, president of the National
Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League as
NARAL launched a series of TV ads attacking Bush last
spring. “A conservative, anti-choice president could shift the
balance of the judiciary and tear down the protections of
Roe entirely.”
In a high-profile abortion case last June, the court, in a
5 to 4 decision, struck down a Nebraska law banning the
procedure known as partial birth abortion.
NO GUARANTEES
Any president’s power to shape the court is limited.
Nominees must be confirmed by the Senate, which has
voted to reject 20 percent of all nominees to the high court
since 1789.
And once on the bench, a justice will not necessarily
hand down decisions in tune with the president’s own
philosophy.
When reporters asked President Dwight Eisenhower
on his last day in office whether he’d made any grievous
mistakes, he replied, “Yes, sir, and they’re both sitting on
the damn Supreme Court,” a reference to William Brennan
and Earl Warren, who turned out to be among the most
liberal, activist judges in the court’s history.
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“In 20 percent of cases, the president’s nominees to
the Supreme Court have ended up disappointing him,” said
former University of Virginia Prof. Henry Abraham, author
of “Justices, Presidents and Senators,” the definitive work
on Supreme Court nominations.
Abraham said that Justice David Souter, nominated by
Bush in 1990, “was really disappointing to the
administration. Bush selected Souter with the assumption
that he would be a moderate conservative, and for the first
two years he was, but then he changed direction. Now in
almost all cases he joins the liberal wing — Justices
Stevens, Ginsburg and [Stephen] Breyer.”
Poor health and age notwithstanding, sometimes
Supreme Court justices do hang on for a few years so that a
new and more politically congenial president can name their
successor.
An ailing Chief Justice Edward Douglass White waited
until 1921, after Republican Warren Harding became
president, to retire. (White died a few months later, at age
75.)
On the other hand, mortality sometimes doesn’t wait
—even for a member of the Supreme Court.
As a Democratic senator said to President Franklin
Roosevelt in 1936, as Roosevelt impatiently awaited a
chance to replace elderly justices with ones who shared his
views, “Father Time, with his scythe, is on your side.” |
