Supreme Court Confirmation
stcynic | July 19, 2005President Bush will announce his nominee to replace Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court tonight at 9 pm. AP is speculating that it will be Edith Clement of the 5th Circuit:
Bush's spokesman would not identify the president's choice. But there was intense speculation Tuesday that it would be Judge Edith Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
In anticipation of a selection, officials said the White House had contacted selected Republican senators they hoped would serve as advocates for the nominee in media interviews in the initial time following an announcement. Democrats…
stcynic | July 18, 2005The Washington Post is reporting that President Bush has narrowed his list of candidates and will announce a nominee to replace Justice O'Connor in the next few days. And that's not all:
As Bush interviews his finalist or finalists, the White House has kept secret his paring-down process. Some advisers said they increasingly believe the president may pick a woman to replace O'Connor, the nation's first female justice, just as first lady Laura Bush publicly urged him to do last week. "There's a lot more focus on a woman," one GOP strategist said.
Bush also has considered several African…
stcynic | July 15, 2005Chief Justice Rehnquist issued a statement yesterday that he was not going to announce his retirement and that he intended to continue on the court as long as his health permits:
Squelching rumors of his retirement, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said Thursday he will continue heading the Supreme Court despite his battle with thyroid cancer. "I'm not about to announce my retirement," he said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press.
"I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement," said Rehnquist, 80. "I will continue to perform my duties as…
stcynic | July 6, 2005The New York Times reports that over the last few days, the White House has been making calls to religious right groups asking them to tone down their rhetoric on Alberto Gonzales' potential nomination to the court:
The White House and the Senate Republican leadership are pushing back against pressure from some of their conservative allies about the coming Supreme Court nomination, urging them to stop attacking Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales as a potential nominee and to tone down their talk of a culture war.
In a series of conference calls on Tuesday and over the last several days,…
stcynic | July 6, 2005Reason magazine asked a group of libertarian legal scholars who they admire on the federal courts, who they think should be nominated to replace O'Connor and a couple other questions. Here's the stunning part to me - they actually list Larry Klayman as a libertarian legal expert! Larry Klayman? A libertarian? The man who says you can't withdraw life support from a patient even if you know what their wishes are ahead of time? Sorry, no. Klayman is neither a libertarian nor a legal expert. He is a carnival barker on the legal midway, seeking little but his own self-aggrandizement.
stcynic | July 1, 2005Another blogger named Doug who comments frequently at In the Agora has summed up perfectly what to expect over the next few months:
The left will cherry-pick all of the worst bits from the nominee's background such that I won't really be able to trust their assessment of whether this guy (or gal) is a loon or merely a person of sound jurisprudence with some poorly turned phrases in his or her opinions. By the same token, the right would loudly proclaim that a pro-life ham sandwich was the second coming of Blackstone, Marshall, Hand, and Holmes all rolled into one if it was nominated by…
stcynic | July 1, 2005Orin Kerr makes a couple of interesting points in his post on Volokh about O'Connor's retirement:
9. O'Connor's retirement may shift the Court a lot less than people think. In the big ideological cases of the last Term, Justice Kennedy was the swing vote as often as (or maybe even more often than) Justice O'Connor. Let's assume for now that O'Connor is replaced by a consistently more conservative Justice; even if that's true, the left-of-center Justices presumably still have 4 very reliable votes and a good shot at picking up a 5th vote with Kennedy. Plus, new Justices are hard to predict,…
stcynic | July 1, 2005Radley Balko reports:
Here's a wildcard for you: I have it on reasonably good authority that an unlikely retirement might be on the way, too. A Supreme Court insider told me several weeks ago that Souter may well retire. He apparently told friends and family that he has always planned to step down upon turning 65, and that he'd rather return to New Hampshire year-round than continue to spend time in D.C. He's 65 now.
Yowzah. This could get really, really ugly.
stcynic | July 1, 2005Looks like Bill Kristol was right. Justice O'Connor is retiring from the court, which just ramps up the intensity on this summer's confirmation fight even higher than it would be if Rehnquist retired. Why? Because Rehnquist is solidly conservative, while O'Connor is the key swing vote on the court on a number of issues. Replace Rehnquist with another conservative and not much changes; replace O'Connor with a conservative, and a hell of a lot potentially changes. She's been the key 5th vote on all the hot button issues, from abortion to church and state to the death penalty. This is going to…