Word: fill
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...eventually for F.D.R., the inevitability of death and retirement on the high court offers a historic opportunity for the winner of the 1984 presidential election. He will almost surely fill not one but several vacancies. Assuming that the appointees are relatively young, the next President could set the Supreme Court's course through the end of the century...
Jimmy Carter appointed 265 lower-court judges, including 41 women and 38 blacks, while Reagan has had only 150 such openings to fill (his selections so far include 14 women, two blacks). Courts-of-appeals judges appointed by Democratic Presidents outnumber G.O.P. appointees 70 to 58, though Reagan still has twelve unfilled appointments with which to close the gap. Some appeals courts are completely out of sync with the top court. The Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, for example, had 27 cases reviewed by the Supreme Court and only one affirmed. Moreover, some state supreme courts have begun to interpret...
...Supreme Court was last a major election issue when Richard Nixon campaigned against the activist Warren Court in 1968, vowing to appoint Justices who would "interpret the Constitution strictly." Within three years, Nixon had four openings to fill, including that of Chief Justice (Warren stepped down at age 77 in 1969). Pundits proclaimed a "Nixon Court" under Burger, the new Chief Justice, and waited for a veer to the right...
Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's first appointment to the D.C. Circuit, is the favorite to fill the next opening on the Supreme Court during a Reagan presidency. As Solicitor General in the Nixon Administration, Bork came to public notice for firing Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than do the deed. Bork intended to resign after firing Cox but stayed on when Richardson told him, "If you quit, there will be no Justice Department...
Before the end of his second term, F.D.R. was able to fill five vacancies on the court. By the time he died in 1945 he had appointed eight Supreme Court Justices, more than any other President since George Washington. F.D.R. wanted Justices who would show judicial restraint, who would defer to the authority of the Federal Government. The men he chose did show restraint, but only on economic matters. Two of his appointees, Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, went on to lead a revolution in individual rights that culminated in the activist Warren Court era of the 1960s...