Rehnquist has passed away

I expect there will be opposition - given the bloodsport American Politics is. I expect as well the opposition ultimately will be for naught. Given that Almost Everyone expected Rehnquist's retirement, not O'Connor's, it is reasonable to conjecture Roberts was the annointed one for Rehnquist's replacement. Much to the surprise some, the jurist selected as Chief Justice in fact rarely comes from those already members of The Supremes ... most frequently, the appointee is from "Outside", so-to-speak.

On the conjecture side, high on the list as the second nominee would be Judge Edith Clement, of New Orleans' 5th Circuit, though current events generally have little role in the selection of SCOTUS nominees. Still, she is a female, and she is from New Orleans, and her appointment to the 5th Circuit was unopposed. Something to think about there.

Also not to be overlooked is that The Electorate was aware of probable Supreme Court appointments during the 2004-2008 term, and chose not only to return The Incumbent but also saw fit to increase Republican representation in both Houses of Congress, over and above the already-existing majority of that party's members.

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whats a scrotus nominee?

anything to do with lord ellpus's various problems in that area?

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Just one of my Embarrassed

well-known, to-be-expected typos Embarrassed

. You know, of course, I toss those in on purpose, just to entertain folks Laughing

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actually timber not being american was being quite serious

never heard of a scotus nominee

(and gave up latin aged 13)

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I agree with Foxfyre and Timber that Roberts is a very shrewd choice for Chief. I'm hoping that, now that he's picked the PC choice in Roberts, he'll aim for a Rehnquist, Scalia or Thomas type justice. Clement would be good. May as well force the filibuster issue...it needs to be addressed sooner or later and should be fought for a Supreme Court Justice not some run-of-the-mill District Court judge.

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Sorry, steve Supreme Court Of (the) United States - its a common-here-in-The-States acronym.

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Slkshock writes

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I agree with Foxfyre and Timber that Roberts is a very shrewd choice for Chief. I'm hoping that, now that he's picked the PC choice in Roberts, he'll aim for a Rehnquist, Scalia or Thomas type justice. Clement would be good. May as well force the filibuster issue...it needs to be addressed sooner or later and should be fought for a Supreme Court Justice not some run-of-the-mill District Court judge.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but Roberts is the PC choice isn't he? Not controversial in any way except to the far right Religious nut division and the George Soros Move-on-dot-Org radicals on the Left. (Which reminds me that the ads Soros and Move-on have been running against Roberts are about as low as it gets.)

Am I alone here that I am encouraging my elected representatives to use the nuclear option if the Dems try to deny the President his Constitutional right to appoint a competent, qualified person to the Supreme Court?

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foxfyre wrote:

Am I alone here that I am encouraging my elected representatives to use the nuclear option if the Dems try to deny the President his Constitutional right to appoint a competent, qualified person to the Supreme Court?

No, there's a few more of us here, but I'm guessing, we're in the minority here on A2K.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Am I alone here that I am encouraging my elected representatives to use the nuclear option...

if you're not, you should be. let me tell you why;

1) - conservatives may or may not make up +/- 50% of the citizenry. if american government is meant to be by, of and for the people, that needs to mean all of the people.

2) - i saw something a few weeks back, where even scalia felt that pressure from special interests should have no roll in the supreme court. i take that to mean, in the hot button issue of the day, that neither pressure from naral or the christian coalition are welcome or relevant.

some are calling roberts a pc appointment, as if being a neutral judge is a bad thing. all judges are supposed to be impartial. it is essential in the highest court in the land.

additionally, in a brief, previously taped interview, rehnquist opined that essentially, the supreme court had far too many new cases to involve itself in already decided cases.

seems like good advice to me. at some point the final decision is the final decision and needs to be accepted. it's waste of time to continuosly keep recucitating decided issues and complain about activist judges when the decision doesn't go your way. i've heard similar gripes from both sides, so i don't see that as a partisan comment.

and;

3) - hah! i started to write a longer, more intellectual reason. but this one cuts to the chase;

"what goes around, comes around".

and another one from a song i and my old partner wrote a very long time ago;

"regal today, in rags tomorrow".

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Now that Roberts has been nominated to the position of Chief Justice, will there be a new/different strategy in questioning him?

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I suspect the Democrats and Liberals will still have trouble with him (then again they would have trouble with anybody that they did not select, not so odd really since the Republicans and Conservatives operate in a similar vein). Most likely they will keep all their original questions, maybe add a few new ones; but, the entire procedure still involves elevating Roberts onto the Supreme Court. Perhaps a little more pressure in the overall approach.

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Quote:

The real impact of Rehnquist's sudden passing is that instead of replacing Justice O'Connor, a centrist, with Roberts, who is presumed to be more conservative, the president is now replacing Rehnquist, a conservative, with a prospective chief justice who is to some extent an unknown quantity. The result is likely to be that O'Connor continues to wield her decisive tie-breaking vote in high-profile cases.
...
Although O'Connor's continued presence on the high court is a welcome development to Democrats, most fear that it will be short-lived. The president is expected to move quickly to appoint an O'Connor replacement who could shift the court significantly to the right.

csmonitor

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And most conservatives will welcome that turn of events. We've had quite enough with a court that is weighted too heavily on the Left.

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Foxfyre wrote:

And most conservatives will welcome that turn of events. We've had quite enough with a court that is weighted too heavily on the Left.

could you explain what you mean by that ?

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DTOM writes

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could you explain what you mean by that ?

We have four quite liberal SCOTUS justices, two to three moderates, and two bonafide constructionist and even one of those strays from the pad now and then. The mix put the court tilted more left than right , so we have a whole string of instances in which the High Court effectively made new law where no law existed before. In most case this happened, the Court made rulings loved by the Left.

Personally, I prefer a Court of 100% constructionists. If we had competent, qualified justices who interpreted the law as it was intended and judged it on its constitutionality, and resisted inserting their own ideiology into it, it wouldn't matter if they were black, white, green, polka dot, Democrat, Republican, or anything else.

Does it strike anybody else as really off the charts that the first question anybody wants to know about a potential Supreme Court justice is whether he is pro or anti-abortion?

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what one Court granteth, another might take away. I can't think of any topic that is a greater dividing issue among Americans. It's natural that people on both sides of the fence are concerned about how a prospective SC judge would vote on the issue.

Earlier this year the SC ruled that your home can be seized to increase the commercial development within a community. I don't think we need to get any more convervative than that!

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Good Lord! If you consider this court left-leaning, foxie, you yourself must be so right-wing that you're off the charts. Most liberals I've spoken to think that this particular SCOTUS has been rock-bottom conservative. (OK, OK, some of them are off the charts, too. Smile

)

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J_B wrote:

what one Court granteth, another might take away. I can't think of any topic that is a greater dividing issue among Americans. It's natural that people on both sides of the fence are concerned about how a prospective SC judge would vote on the issue.

Earlier this year the SC ruled that your home can be seized to increase the commercial development within a community. I don't think we need to get any more convervative than that!

That argument doesnt hold up under scrutiny.
Thomas,Scalia,and Rehnquist,the 3 most "conservative" justices on the bench,all voted AGAINST that ruling.

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mysteryman wrote:

Thomas,Scalia,and Rehnquist,the 3 most "conservative" justices on the bench,all voted AGAINST that ruling.

... and justice Thomas, arguably the most conservative of them all, wrote a dissent of his own stating that the dissent of the other two wasn't firm enough. (A somewhat similar pattern could be seen in Gonzalez v. Raich, the medical marijuana case.)

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Seizing private property is NOT a conservative idelology either. Conservatives by and large seem to want Congress, State, and Local legislatures to make the laws, the President, Governor, Mayor or whomever to sign them into law, and the Supreme Court to focus on Constitutionality of the law or the intent of the law when disputes arise about it.

When the legislative bodies make a bad law, the people can scream and whine and petition and challenge him/her at the ballot box, and then the law can then be rescinded, changed, or amended.

When SCOTUS makes a bad law, there is zero the legislative bodies can do about it and zero the people can do about it if SCOTUS is not inclined to hear a suit brought before it and disinclined to overrule itself. The process of impeachment is so lengthy, disruptive, and painful, it would be unlikely to be used against a sitting Justice in anything other than the most extreme of cases; and even then how do you prove imcompetence or malfeasance based on a justice's ideological mindset?

It is for that reason that I think the first question we need to ask a prospective Supreme Court Justice is not what his/her personal opinion is re abortion or affirmative action or gas prices, but we should ask him/her what is the role and duty of SCOTUS? If s/he answers that correctly and his/her track record indicates s/he answered truthfully, it won't matter what his/her personal views are on anything else.

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Rehnquist has passed away

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