Word: rehnquist
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Even in Washington, a city full of leaks, there are some secrets you can keep from the President. Last Thursday, when most of the city was focused on the possibility that Chief Justice William Rehnquist was about to resign from the Supreme Court, White House counsel Harriet Miers got a call from Pamela Talkin, head marshal at the Supreme Court, who told her that a sealed letter from the court would be delivered to the White House the next morning. Talkin did not say what would be in it. But Miers, like everyone else, knew that the resignation...
...full of surprises. For months partisans in Washington, and all around the country, have been gearing up for a fight over the next Supreme Court vacancy--just not quite the fight they got. Expectations that Rehnquist, 80, who is battling thyroid cancer, would step down have had constituencies on both left and right poised for battle. They have not had a high-court nomination to contend with since 1994, making this the longest the court has gone without any change in its membership since the 1820s. The less anticipated resignation of O'Connor, 75, abruptly raised the stakes. A contest...
...shock. There had been speculation for weeks that she might step down to spend more time with her husband John, who she has told friends is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Once she announced her decision, activist groups who had been focused on the world-after-Rehnquist regeared for a higher-stakes battle over her crucial seat. Those groups have been readying their cell phones and BlackBerrys for years. In an atmosphere of already heightened political polarization, when the U.S. is divided over an increasingly unpopular war and led by a President whose approval ratings have been notching down...
...ailing Rehnquist should also step down soon, it would embroil the President in a complicated set of choices. Would he push for two staunch conservatives? Or offer one hard-liner and one more moderate nominee as an inducement to Democrats to go easy on his more conservative pick? For Bush's conservative base, there is only one way to go. The court has long remained the branch that has thwarted conservatives' key goals, especially an abortion ban. Recent 5-4 decisions affirming the right of a locality to seize private property or forbidding the display of the Ten Commandments...
...base what they want, this nominee will be far to the right of O'Connor!!" it read. "CLICK HERE to donate $10 and sign up 10 friends for the likely battle!" Says Ralph Neas, the group's president: "For the past decade or so, this hasn't been the Rehnquist court; it's been the O'Connor court. She has been the decisive vote on scores of important constitutional decisions. Replacing such a conservative, mainstream justice with a right-wing ideologue would be constitutional catastrophe...