Another SCOTUS retirement?

Tim Mooney

Ph2005070600664I promised myself I would never do this again... I promised myself that I would not believe - or write about - any Supreme Court retirement rumors until I see the actual announcement above the fold in the Washington Post.  Not that I've been burned before or anything...

But the rumors are too hot and I'm far too tempted to resist...

DC is abuzz with speculation that a second weekend in a row will be trashed for hard-working judicial selection advocates by a Friday retirement announcement... this time by sitting Chief Justice Rehnquist.  Now, watchers of The West Wing may fondly remember the 2004 episode where President Bartlett made a Solomonic set of appointments given the same opportunity... a hard core lefty and a hard core righty.  I wager we are not going to be experiencing an instance of life imitating art, however.

That is, unless you are buying the lambasting poor Alberto Gonzales is taking from conservative forces this week.  You'd think that they would have had a problem with his nomination to be Attorney General, but I seem to recall they hadn't developed a righteous amount of indignation yet. Or... is this the biggest rope-a-dope in the history of SCOTUS appointment politics?  Consider this -- Gonzales gets pilloried by the right... the left begins thinking "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and "this is the best we'll get" and then... well, the president gets exactly what he wanted in the first place, with less of a battle from the honorable opposition.  Ali couldn't have planned it better himself.

So, crystal ball time (previous horrifyingly erroneous predictions notwithstanding)... the Chief Justice hangs up his striped robe tomorrow.  Bush nominates newly-perceived "moderate" Gonzales for O'Connor's seat, nominates Antonin Scalia to Chief Justice, and nominates some hard-core righty for the vacant Scalia seat.  Hey... waitasecond... this is starting to sound more like a twisted version of that West Wing episode after all... except for the liberal counterbalance part.

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    Three confirmation hearings? I don't buy it. Instead, I think he'll appoint a new guy to the Chief Justice chair. There's no requirement that the Chief has to be elevated from the court itself.

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    Per Kari's analysis--it's actually a rarer to appoint a chief than to bring a new one in--Rehnquist notwithstanding. And Kari's analysis is accurate, methinks (court-watchers are also aware of how divisive Scalia is on the court; he'd make a poor choice as chief, and would be a bear to get broad agreement on).

    The part I agree with most in your wildly speculative post (my favorite kind--andI'm even worse at predictions than you!) is this: the left begins thinking "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and "this is the best we'll get" and then... well, the president gets exactly what he wanted in the first place, with less of a battle from the honorable opposition.

    I've been watching with growing alarm at the treatment Al "we don't call that torture in Texas" Gonzales has been getting from lefties. Are we really going to consider a guy like him just to keep Roe? Oy.

    There is an argument to be made that two vacancies would be better than one: with two, we wave through an ideologue in exchange for an O'Connor swing (who, naturally, holds a Kennedy-like agnosticism toward abortion). Keep in mind, with the '06 elections coming up and the memory of Terri Schiavo fresh in everyone's mind, the GOP position is considerably weaker than they would have liked less than a year after sweeping the elections. The GOP can't afford to look TOO wild-eyed.

    Hey, I didn't say it was a strong argument. A boy can dream, can't he?

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    Rehnquist was elevated from Associate to Chief in 1986. Before him was Warren Burger who was appointed directly as CJ to replace Earl Warren... prompting neverending confusion between the two "Warrens" for all eternity.

    I agree... Scalia would be an odd choice precisely because he pisses off most of the other justices. Not a consensus builder to be sure. The argument for a Scalia elevation goes something like this - Scalia's elevation is a bone thrown to the right who seem to value to chief's job. Why that is continues to puzzle me. I think the Chief's job is largely ceremonial and administrative. The only true authority the chief has over an associate is the ability to assign who writes the majority opinion if he or she is in the majority. Since that authority is not dispositive of how a case decision swings - just the verbage of the opinion - it's not nearly as big of a deal in my opinion.

    In any event, take a look at this for the argument why a Chief Justice Scalia is not necessarily a bad thing from our perspective...

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    I'm convinced: Scalia for chief! After, of course, a long and capital-draining battle with the Prez.

    Wandering now some distance from the thread, there was a great article about Scalia in the New Yorker a few months back. Here's a reprint. Interesting factoid: Scalia's best friend on the court is Ruth Bader Ginsberg, with whom his family spends each New Year's Eve.

  • nader (unverified)
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    I've been watching with growing alarm at the treatment Al "we don't call that torture in Texas" Gonzales has been getting from lefties. Are we really going to consider a guy like him just to keep Roe? Oy.

    I'm not so sure the lefties who were up-in-arms over the Gonzales AG nomination really gave him a fair shake. Am I concerned about his legal memo justifying the use of torture against detainees? Sure. But I also understand that lawyers do what they do, and that is make the best legal arguments for the position they are given. If Gonzales was asked to write up a memo giving the best argument possible for torturing detainees, then should we condemn him for that?

    I seem to recall one of the other criticisms of Gonzales was that when he was advising then-governor Bush about the death penalty in Texas, he said something to the effect of "some of those on death row are not as guilty as we would like". Now, this sounds to me to be more of an indictment of the Texas legal system than of Gonzales himself.

    I'm not jumping on the Gonzales bandwagon quite yet, but I think that to condemn him as a torture-loving "neo-con" just because he's pals with GW may be a bit unfair.

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    Gonzales' record is more clearly dangerous, in my view. The torture memo is only the start of it (and end in my view, given its seriousness). Here's more. He:

    • authorized the CIA to transfer prisoners to foreign countries for "interrogation;"
    • was an advisor in the presidential order for military commissions to try prisoners;
    • contended that any person may be held indefinitely without outside scrutiny (a position rejected by the current supreme court);
    • failed to let the Senate review memos about Miguel Estrada;
    • gave Bush negligent advice about death-row inmates;
    • advised Governor Bush to ignore the Vienna Convention.

    This is a man who has actively made an assault on civil liberties in the US, supports federal secrecy, and doesn't care much for international law. Of all the times we need a guy like this, now is about the last.

  • steve s (unverified)
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    Is Hillary really the answer?

  • Tenskwatawa (unverified)
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    One plan I read on Alternet.org and agreed with, said ignore the Supreme circus now and put every effort to elect and win the '06 House full of impeachment nihilists. An overwhelming House Majority who would, first, impeach Jughead and Cardiacspaz, (putting the House's choice into the presidency, and re-electable in '08 -- sorry whoever was hoping anti-Hillaryism was any sort of policy, political powerbase or bandwagon), and then just impeachment ream out the Supremes: Scalia the corrupted duck hunter and Thomas the porn parser, go immediately of course -- for cause, and then mow down all the 1, 2, or 3 recent arrivals just because. For sport, to watch Jughead stutter.

    And while they're on a tear, repeal every rule and regulation he signed.

    So, I agree, ignore or softspeak the Rovarian labyrinthian intrigues and leapfrog ahead of him and wait, with the Big Stick in oh-six.

    A plan with revenge in it is a good antidote for depression in the meanwhile and when the time comes, it does wonders for voter turnout.

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