Free Republic

Anthony Kennedy—the new Sandra Day O'Connor. Lost in last week's cacophony about the critical role of Sandra Day O'Connor as sole and exclusive swing voter on the U.S. Supreme Court was any sign of respect for the other sole and exclusive swing voter on the U.S. Supreme Court: Anthony M. Kennedy. Kennedy's majority opinion in today's big physician-assisted-suicide case serves as the perfect reminder of who's going to call the shots in the near future. The 6-3 opinion in Gonzales v. Oregon—a decision upholding Oregon's physician-assisted-suicide law from attack by the Attorney General's Office—sharply outlines the court's Anthony Kennedy-shaped future....

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. is poised to join a tradition of pragmatic justices who have moved the Supreme Court to the right in measured steps. Eighteen hours of questions over four days showed President Bush's nominee to be a judge respectful of legal precedent but hardly starry-eyed. Judge Alito also displayed a strong inclination toward executive authority, a trait not surprising for a lifetime government employee and former Reagan Justice Department lawyer. By the design of Bush administration officials and despite Democratic efforts to smoke him out, almost nothing was learned in Senate confirmation hearings about Judge Alito's views...

Lawmakers and special interest groups started positioning themselves for President Bush's next pick for U.S. Supreme Court justice the same day a fumbled nomination ended in Harriet Miers (search) withdrawing from the confirmation process. Miers, who will remain as White House counsel, made a surprise announcement Thursday morning that she is withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (search), who announced over the summer that she wanted to retire from the bench. O'Connor agreed to stay on while her replacement was vetted through the confirmation process. In her withdrawal letter dated Thursday, Miers...

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement has been delayed again, putting her at the center of upcoming Supreme Court debates on abortion, the death penalty and gay rights. Until Thursday, the White House had been pushing to have Harriet Miers confirmed before the court took up some of the most contentious cases of the year. Miers' withdrawal means O'Connor will hear those cases - and could control the outcome. O'Connor said Thursday of her stay on the high court, "It sounds like it may go on a little longer." She is a moderate who has backed abortion rights and limits on...

WASHINGTON — President Bush returned from Camp David Sunday to attend Red Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington. The mass is held each year on the Sunday before the Supreme Court session begins. Bush and first lady Laura Bush were joined by newly confirmed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and several of the other justices in the centuries-old Roman Catholic prayer session held for justices, judges and government officials of all faiths. At the Red Mass, named after the vestments worn by the priests, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the principal celebrant, delivered a homily wishing wisdom and greater civility...

President Bush's pick for chief justice of the United States was confirmed and sworn in as expected on Thursday, but Bush's next nominee to be a Supreme Court justice is unlikely to get as smooth a ride. Beneath the bluster over John G. Roberts' positions on abortion and civil rights, Democrats found very little to squabble about, owing largely to Roberts' pristine resumé, breadth of legal precedent and scant divulgence of personal views. Most if not all of the 22 Democrats who voted against Roberts' confirmation on Thursday had no quarrel with the judge's qualifications. They said they opposed him...

...[T]he Supreme Court agreed to hear campaign-finance and tax cases whose outcome could hinge on the candidate filling the court's second vacancy.... Campaign-finance cases have revealed a philosophical split on the court, with more conservative justices, such as Antonin Scalia, considering political expenditures the functional equivalent of speech, and thus beyond state restriction. More liberal justices, such as Stephen Breyer, have viewed such regulations as lawful means to fight political corruption and keep moneyed interests from drowning out other voices. One of the political cases challenges a provision of the McCain-Feingold law that prohibits corporations from direct expenditures on electioneering...

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has announced that while she does not like being the only female on the Court, just "any woman will not do" to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Apparently merely being appointed for life with authority to declare what is and is not law in America is not enough anymore; sitting Supreme Court Justices should now be allowed to dictate who will become future Justices, as well. Justice Ginsburg fumed, "I have a list of highly qualified women, but the president has not consulted me." How dare him! I expect the White House will...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor steered clear of directly discussing the big issues facing the nation's highest court while visiting the University of Florida's law school Friday. O'Connor spoke before a crowd of 500 but did not mention the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the nomination of John Roberts to replace him, or her own delayed retirement plans. What she did address was political influence on the judiciary. "I am against judicial reform driven by nakedly partisan, result-oriented reasons," O'Connor told the group. "The experience of developing countries, former communist countries and our own political culture teaches...

Replacing Rehnquist before O'Connor makes matters tougher on the Bush administration and guarantees a showdown with liberal interest groups.A FEW MONTHS AGO, most observers expected Chief Justice William Rehnquist's failing health to trigger President Bush's first Supreme Court nomination. But Rehnquist hung on, to the surprise of many, and it was Sandra Day O'Connor whose resignation brought about the first vacancy on the Court since 1994. If that seems like a long time, it is: never before in American history have so many years elapsed between vacancies on the Supreme Court. President Bush nominated Judge John Roberts to replace O'Connor,...

WITH JOHN ROBERTS sailing toward confirmation last week, President Bush had the O'Connor seat "won." The Court was set to move one click to the right (so to speak). Then Chief Justice William Rehnquist died. The president chose to move Roberts over to fill the Rehnquist slot--thereby re-opening the vacancy created by Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement.One understands the attraction of Roberts as chief. But with this action, in one fell swoop, the president deprived himself and his supporters of the easiest argument for his next nominee: that surely a reelected conservative president is entitled to replace a conservative justice--Rehnquist--with another...

Just after the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was not very successful in garnering support in the Senate for American membership in the League of Nations. Opposition was led by Republican Sen. William Borah of Idaho. Years later Borah was asked why he thought the League was such a bad idea. "I didn't," he answered. "I was against it because it was Wilson's idea." So far the opposition on the left to President Bush's nominee as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts Jr., has mustered no more intellectual firepower than that.

<p>WASHINGTON -- Having learned the lessons of the Bork fiasco, when Teddy Kennedy libeled Robert Bork on the floor of the Senate within minutes of Bork's nomination -- a speech that became the reference point for the entire nomination fight -- this White House put its new man out front first. The television tableau was perfect. President introduces attractive, boyish-looking, hornless judge to the nation, with wife in the wings and two adorable kids in tow. A John Edwards moment.</p>

President George W. Bush will announce his nomination to replace outgoing Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor at 9pm EDT tonight. Unfortunately, many American children aren't taught in public schools the importance of the Supreme Court or the role they've played in shaping (and sometimes perverting) U.S. law since Marbury v. Madison

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryJuly 16, 2005 President's Radio Address      Audio      THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Under the Constitution, I have the responsibility to nominate a successor to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. This past week I met with Democratic and Republican leaders in the United States Senate and sought their views on the process, and their thoughts on the qualities to look for in a potential nominee. Also, my staff has talked with more than 60 members of the United States Senate. Members of the Senate are receiving a full opportunity to provide their opinions and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Senate Democrats floated the names of potential candidates for the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a meeting with President Bush, describing them as the type of nominee who could avoid a fierce confirmation battle. Several officials familiar with the discussion said Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Ed Prado of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, both of whom are Hispanic, were among the names mentioned as Bush met with key lawmakers from both parties to discuss the first high court vacancy in 11 years. The officials spoke on condition...

Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) issued the following statement about the Supreme Court vacancy following Sandra Day O’Connor’s resignation: “I’m baffled by Senators demanding that President Bush reach out to them in appointing a justice to the Supreme Court. Last time I read it, the Constitution says ‘advise and consent’ not ‘complain and filibuster.’ The Salazar-McCain liberal 14 can’t be allowed to control a judicial branch again.” “I hope the President steps up to the plate and delivers on his mandate. More than 62 million Americans didn’t show up at the voting booth to put an ACLU lefty on the bench.”

USCCB Head Writes President Bush On Supreme Court Vacancy WASHINGTON (July 6, 2005)—Spokane Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has written to President Bush about “the qualities that I hope you would contemplate” as Mr. Bush considers the appointment of a successor to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who announced her retirement from the Supreme Court on July 1. In his letter, dated July 1, Bishop Skylstad wrote that “the legacy of a Supreme Court Justice is long and the influence of the Court on the life of the country and the...

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, as we all know, but sometimes vigilantes have to invent bad guys to keep their franchise alive. You could ask some of our Democratic senators or the ladies at the National Organization for Women. The Democrats in the Senate who must confirm a successor to Sandra Day O'Connor have wasted no time in signaling that they're spoiling for a fight, and no sooner had Justice O'Connor announced that she would resign when a successor was confirmed — note that she hasn't retired yet, so technically there isn't yet a vacancy on the Supreme...

When it comes to judicial nominees, especially nominees to the Supreme Court, you might think that the only thing that matters -- the thing that trumps all other considerations -- is whether the nominee is for or against legalized abortions. Many people are too young to realize that there was never a federal ban against abortions before Roe v. Wade created a "Constitutional right" to abortion out of thin air. Before that, the federal government had nothing to say about the subject and the various states had a variety of laws regulating abortions. Political hype has long since drowned out...