William H. Rehnquist, 1924-2005

[libertango]

US Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is dead.

It's strange, the shadowing of Rehnquist and O'Connor through their lives. They both went to Stanford Law School, and graduated in the same class. Now they leave the Court the same year.

Anyway... Draw your own inferences about how this will now give Bush a 2nd Supreme Court nomination. Hard to tell how quickly he'll act on it -- one strategy would be to do it very quickly, to get the Court fully staffed at the beginning of the October term (October 3rd, slightly more than 4 weeks from today). I'm not sure to what degree the Senate Judiciary Committee will sit still for that, though.

Also hard to say is whether Bush will go for Alberto Gonzales. Some have said Bush would really like to be the President who appoints the first Latino Justice, but then there's the Frank Rich school, who say Gonzales may be too enmeshed in the Plame Affair to get through the Senate safely.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

There's also the worry that Gonzales might not be conservative enough. He's gotten a certain amount of criticism about Roberts because Roberts, while conservative, isn't "bold" enough, and there's worry in the conservative community that Gonzales might end up being another Souter.

I could wish.

[who-is-she.livejournal.com]

Pat Robertson had his prayer answered. I saw this referenced on "the Daily Show".

http://www.cbn.com/special/supremecourt/prayerpledge.asp

"Pray that additional vacancies on the Supreme Court will occur"

People were praying for judges to get sick and/or die, I guess. Or have some other life cisis that would cause them to leave their life's work.
?

They don't usually retire for reasons other than that,... do they?

It's a weird world here lately.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

He needs to pray harder then, since the "liberal" justices aren't the one's leaving.

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Scotusblog says the evidence is that O'Connor isn't stepping down yet (her letter of resignation stipulated she would serve until her replacement was confirmed).

The recent handing out of circuit oversight has her, still, overseeing the 3rd circuit, while Rehnquist's ninth got handed out to the three junior justices.

TK