Posted on 09/05/2005 12:15:18 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. President George W. Bush's decision Monday to quickly resubmit the nomination of Judge John Roberts Jr. to be Chief Justice of the United States was a plan the White House had already considered should the cancer-stricken Chief Justice William Rehnquist retire or die.
"This had been something in the back of the President's mind in case such a scenario came into being, if the Chief Justice had retired," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "The president when he met with (Roberts) knew he was a natural-born leader....The president viewed him as someone who had the leadership qualities needed to be able to lead the court."
That scenario played out over the long Labor Day weekend when Rehnquist's health took a sudden downturn. He died Saturday night at his home, creating a rare second opening at the Supreme Court. Bush said he will renominate Roberts, submitted in July to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 36 hours after Rehnquist's death. The president then immediately left for another tour of the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. Bush must now pick someone else to take O'Connor's place, and that decision could take days or weeks.
The Senate temporarily postponed Roberts nomination hearings, set to begin Tuesday, as lawmakers paused both to mourn Rehnquist's death and reorganize for hearings that are now for the top job at the Supreme Court.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the renomination of Roberts as chief justice increases the stakes of the Roberts hearings.
"Now that the president has said he will nominate Judge Roberts as Chief Justice, the stakes are higher and the Senate's Advice and Consent responsibility is even more important," Reid said. "If confirmed to this lifetime job, John Roberts would become the leader of the third branch of the federal government and the most prominent judge in the nation. The Senate must be vigilant in considering this nomination."
Roberts was already on track to be confirmed by the Senate, with some experts predicting he would get 75 or more votes despite opposition from numerous liberal interest groups.
Legal analysts also said Bush's decision to resubmit Roberts for the top high court job will likely result in a seamless transition of leadership at the Supreme Court. However, it's possible the Supreme Court will operate with only eight members while O'Connor's replacement is confirmed, should she decide to go ahead and retire.
"The speed with which the president acted this morning suggests that Roberts was at the top of the White House's list all along for the mistakenly anticipated resignation of the Chief Justice this summer," said Tom Goldstein of the Washington law firm Goldstein & Howe. "Recent developments - in which there has been some inevitable opposition but no serious threat to the confirmation has emerged - likely only solidified the president's views of the matter."
Mark Levy, a Washington attorney with Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, said Roberts " would have less trouble and arouse less controversy than others that could be named."
Rehnquist died three days before the scheduled start of the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for Roberts. Those hearings are certainly to be at least temporarily delayed. But the White House and Senate Republican leaders still want Roberts confirmed by the Senate before the Supreme Court convenes Oct. 3 for its next term.
"I still expect Judge Roberts to be confirmed before the Supreme Court starts its new term on Oct. 3," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said, adding "the president has made an excellent choice; Mr. Roberts is one of the most well qualified candidates to come before the Senate."
Although O'Connor said when she announced her retirement she would stay on until a successor was confirmed, legal analysts have noted there is little practical benefit to her doing so. In an interview with The New York Times on Monday, O'Connor said such a development would be a "surprising development" and that she hasn't decided what she will do if the process of replacing her is delayed.
If O'Connor goes ahead and retires before a successor is confirmed, the high court will likely open its term with eight of nine members. Roberts would face a steep learning curve at the opening of the court's nine-month term, but would be in a position other justices joining the court have faced.
The Supreme Court has already filled half of its docket for the next term and will begin hearing appeals in October. Any cases that deadlock 4-4 because O'Connor's slot hasn't been filled can be reargued later.
Possible replacements include U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and federal appellate judges Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen, Michael McConnell, J. Harvie Wilkinson, Samuel Alito, Janice Rogers Brown or Edith Jones.
Rehnquist, 80, had been fighting thyroid cancer since being diagnosed with the disease in the autumn of 2004. He was absent from the court for five months but participated in most of the opinions the court released last term. He presided over the court's public proceedings after returning from cancer treatments last March.
Rehnquist is the first Supreme Court justice to die on the bench since Justice Robert Jackson, for whom Rehnquist clerked, died in 1954. The last chief justice to die on the bench was Fred Vinson in 1953. In all, nine of the 16 chief justices in U.S. history chose to serve until their deaths. The last time two vacancies occurred at the same time was in 1971.
The current Supreme Court was unchanged for 11 years until O'Connor announced her retirement, the longest period of stability since the early 1800s.
Rehnquist's family will hold a private funeral for him on Wednesday. His body will lie in state at the Supreme Court on Tuesday and part of Wednesday and he will be buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.
-By Mark H. Anderson, Dow Jones Newswires, 202 862-9254;
sorry but i believe this is a bad idea. not only does it give the liberals something else to whine about pertaining to the scotus selection, i'm unsure exactly how conservative he is. i would much rather see one of the sitting conservative justices nominated
PRISCILLA OWEN (born: 1954), for Associate Justice! She is a very pricipled woman. She is a member of St. Barnabas Episcopal Mission in Austin, Texas where she teaches Sunday School and serves as the head of the altar guild.
I think Dubya's hoping that by nominating Roberts for Chief Justice, some of the namby pamby libs on the court will retire. Maybe their noses will be out of joint and they'll leave. We can hope can't we?
"Now that the president has said he will nominate Judge Roberts as Chief Justice, the stakes are higher and the Senate's Advice and Consent responsibility is even more important," Reid said. "If confirmed to this lifetime job, John Roberts would become the leader of the third branch of the federal government and the most prominent judge in the nation. The Senate must be vigilant in considering this nomination."
We all know what that means--the 'Rats will try harder to find an excuse to obstruct the nomination. Still, nothing the left has thrown at him has stuck yet. I think that Roberts will still be confirmed, with 60 to 70 votes. Now, the nomination to succeed Sandra Day O'Conner will have higher stakes sill.
This is going to hurt the arguments some were making that the President was looking for the easier choice due to the hurricane.
No, as many of us had reason to believe, the President figured Roberts because he hoped he could be a 'consensus' builder. I LOVE Thomas, I like Scalia, but I have to admit neither is likely to be able to successfully reach out to kennedy and *maybe* bring them back on the Constitutional reservation.
Well, uh DUH!!
This is the only article I've seen recently that mentioned Janice Rogers Brown as a possibility...nice to see!
Unfortunately, that is exactly why she would never get approved. RINO's would wimp out.
I feel the exact same way, albeit for different reasons. I really don't care if the Dummycrats get one more excuse to whine. I think that if all the Republicans stopped being and doing for the entire next year, they would still be able to while about at least 1 new thing a day. That is what it means to be a liberal.
I also would like to see one of the sitting conservative justices nominated. Most of all, I would like that race carpet yanked right out from under their sanctimonious behinds. The way to do it is - Clarence Thomas. Of course, they would whine about that too. If you took away whining, you would take away the essence of what constitutes Democrap. What other raison d'etre could there be? So let them whine. Honestly, we wouldn't recognize them if they didn't.
Thomas as Chief Justice, Dr. Rice for the Presidency in '08. Let them stick that in their whiny pipe and smoke it.
I am with you. I'm so pissed off at Bush I can't see straight. Not only is Roberts a unknown but he's young and will be there forever if he goes the way of an O'Connor or Sutter. I voted for Bush to change the courts and get rid these horrible extra constitutional decisions like Roe and Lawrence...if Roberts turns out to be a dud I'm leaving the party forever.
Definitely!
And then where will you go? To the Dimocrats?!
Dubya is his father's globalist.
"We all know what that means--the 'Rats will try harder to find an excuse to obstruct the nomination. Still, nothing the left has thrown at him has stuck yet. I think that Roberts will still be confirmed, with 60 to 70 votes. Now, the nomination to succeed Sandra Day O'Conner will have higher stakes sill. "
Now you appoint either Owen or Brown since the RATS had their panties in a bunch that we didn't replace O'Connor with a woman.
At some point they will need to enlarge the Court to accommodate all the groups that aren't represented yet...Asian Americans, Alaskan Natives, Slovak-Americans, Basques, Mormons, Sikhs, philatelists, vegans...
I don't agree on that point. They're too controversial and haven't had time to serve in the positions they were cnfirmed in.
The ideal candidate is Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. She's an intelligent, youthful (42), and experienced judge with strong conservative views and no paper trail on controversial issues. What more could you ask for in a SCOTUS nominee?
"I don't agree on that point. They're too controversial and haven't had time to serve in the positions they were cnfirmed in. "
Not the point. Sykes would be good. However you would take months gathering information for the hearing. How can the media knock someone that is fresh in the minds of America and was just confirmed? Inexperience? What circuit court was Ginsburg on?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.