brainrow

This is bad news:

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court, announced today that she is resigning, setting off what is expected to be a tumultuous fight over confirming her successor.

Justice O’Connor, 75, is widely viewed as the critical swing vote on abortion, affirmative action and other hot-button issues that have divided the court, and her departure is sure to ignite a passionate ideological battle throughout the summer.

There were rumors that O’Connor joined the execrable 5-4 decision in Bush v. Gore, making George W. Bush president by stopping the counting of actual ballots cast by actual voters, because she wanted to retire, and wanted a Republican president to name her successor.

I don’t know whether those rumors were true. Certainly, she didn’t retire during Bush’s first term. Maybe she felt guilty, seeing that everyone saw right through Bush v. Gore. Maybe she was appalled by the lunatic fringe ideologues Bush was appointing to federal courts.

O’Connor was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and started out as a reliable conservative vote on the Court. With the elevation of William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and the addition of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to the Court, O’Connor has seemed less ideological, often casting the swing vote in hotly divided cases and providing the voice of sanity and reason. Her departure will be a great loss to sanity and reason, because George W. Bush will choose her replacement.

Another Scalia, another Thomas, another Rehnquist would not bode well for the Court or the country.

One friend likes to remind me that Dwight D. Eisenhower named Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, and was deeply disappointed when Warren turned out to be his own man. Maybe Bush’s nominee will disappoint Bush by being better than planned?

Sadly, I don’t think so. The Republicans have gotten really good at the art of the ideological litmus test. Scalia and Thomas are two examples. They’re the two justices George W. Bush admires most. Bush’s nominee will help shape the Court, the law, and the nation for twenty to thirty years to come. I see dark days ahead.