After the close of Supreme Court business a few days ago, everyone was expecting to hear word of the retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist, 80 years old and suffering from thyroid cancer. However, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has stayed true to form, stealing the spotlight from Rehnquist and announcing her retirement first. (A judge we know speculates that she got word she wouldn't be considered for the Chief's job, and decided there was no use sticking around. Whatever the reason, the move was not entirely surprising.) That means the nation can turn its eyes away from the troublesome questions of neverending war and eroding civil liberties and enjoy the rich political drama of a confirmation trial. Bostonist's hope is that the President will have the good graces to nominate a successor soon so the fun can get underway quickly and save us from any more summer re-runs.
O'Connor, nominated to the Court by President Reagan, was the first female Justice and came to the court with solid conservative credentials. Over time, she carved out a place as, well, not exactly a moderate, but a swing vote on an ever-more-conservative Court. Her trademark has been to champion the middle ground on contentious issues, gaining the grudging acceptance of four other judges. Bostonist has often felt that her opinions, although they may make good policy, seem to be trying so hard to compromise that they become disconnected from the legal principles they're meant to enforce. (Justice Scalia, with whom we seldom agree, was a frequent critic of O'Connor for this very reason.) The big question now, of course, is who will fill O'Connor's seat.
After the papers run restrospectives on S.D.O'C, in which they will say in many paragraphs (and more detail, of course, with innumerable references to her famous abortion decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey), what Bostonist has said in four sentences, they will start running Final Four-esque charts, detailing the possible nominees, hopefully with pictures. We would be kidding ourselves if we thought we could do even half as good a job as the mainstream media on this score, so instead, we will direct you to our favorite, whimsical take on the matter: Article III Groupie (after Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the judicial branch of government) writes a blog that gushes about federal judges the way US magazine gushes about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. In addition to conducting a poll to select the Top Male Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary (Bostonist's nominee, New Hampshire's own David Souter, came in fourth), A3G (as she frequently styles herself) likened the Supreme Court nomination process to the Oscars. The fact that she is conservative (a trait of which we are usually suspicious) only improves the quality and humor of her treatment of the many conservative nominees. (For a more reserved look at the frontrunners, check out Slate's rundown.)
Beyond that, there is not much Bostonist can say about this morning's momentous news, aside from to urge our dear readers to stay tuned and resist the urge to switch back to O.C. re-runs. Unlike Rehnquist, who is as conservative as the day is long, O'Connor has been known to surprise us, as she did in this week with her stinging dissent in the Texas Ten Commandments case (the one where the Court OKed a religious monument on public property). The President is sure to nominate someone whom he deems more reliably conservative to fill S.D.O'C's spot, which could significantly shift the balance of power on the Supreme Court, so Senate Democrats will probably pull out all the stops to fight the nomination. We'd like to tell you there's a Massachusetts or New England angle to all this, but there isn't. The best we can do is to suggest to George W. the name of a certain conservative lawyer from Massachusetts who desperately wants a job in Washington.
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