Tag Archives: rehnquist

Thoughts on Alito

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Get used to saying “Scalia, Alito” rapidly, as in, “Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas,” who will be voting closely together in lots of cases.

Fortunately, there are still five pretty solid votes on the Court for the area I care most about, gay rights – Stevens, Kennedy (who wrote Lawrence and Romer), Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Now that O’Connor’s presumably gone, I think Kennedy’s going to become the new swing vote. Also interesting and still semi-applicable: this SCOTUSblog article from June about a possible “gang of three” – just replace “Rehnquist” with “Alito” in the following excerpt:

On a Court somewhat more conservative without O’Connor, Kennedy’s influence seems sure to grow. He has a chance to become the new balance wheel, a role that was filled so routinely by O’Connor. (Even if there were to form a solid Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas-Roberts phalanx, they would still need Kennedy to prevail, and he would not be with such a quartet automatically.) Kennedy also has more influence than is sometimes credited to him. He has a store of common sense that saves him from ideological rigidity, and that steers him away from agenda-driven voting. He has an even deeper sense of what history asks of the few who become members of the Court. Those are summonses to the use of sound judgment.

As I’ve said recently, despite my relatively liberal social views, my judicial views have been in flux lately. Alito seems not be an ideologue or an asshole like Scalia, which is good. I prefer him to someone like Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen. (And hey – go, New Jersey, with two out of nine seats!)

The Harriet Miers nomination was bad for the Court as an institution. The Alito nomination is good for the Court, regardless of how good or bad it turns out to be for the country.

Roberts as Chief

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There’s been way too much news this past week. Between Katrina and Rehnquist/Roberts, I can’t read the newspapers and blogs fast enough. And I’m pissed that The Note has been on vacation for two and a half weeks. Mark Halperin and his staff will have a lot of catching up to do when they return tomorrow.

It’s not totally suprising that Bush has moved Roberts’s nomination to the Chief Justice position. He’s practically in love with Roberts, and he wasn’t going to name someone who wasn’t a white male as Chief Justice, but he wasn’t going to nominate a white male for the second vacancy. So O’Connor’s replacement will probably be someone non-white or female or both.

On the other hand, Bush has never acted in line with political predictions.

Interesting fact: since Roberts is only 55 only 50 years old, he could wind up having one of the longest Chief Justiceships in American history, second only to that of John Marshall. [Update: or even the longest!]

The switch of Roberts to the Chief Justice’s seat changes the dynamics of Bush’s two appointments. As SCOTUSblog writes, “The nomination of a doctrinaire conservative to replace the Chief Justice could have been explained as ideologically neutral for the Court, as the new nominee would not move that seat to the right. Moving Judge Roberts to the seat of Chief Justice, by contrast, opens up again the debate over what Democrats will describe as the ‘O’Connor’ seat — that of a moderate conservative.”

There’s going to be pressure (again) to replace O’Connor with a moderate. But hasn’t that ship sailed? What if Roberts actually turns out to be the moderate of the two appointments? Ugh. It’s still possible.

At any rate, here’s hoping that Chief Justice Roberts will be presiding over Bush’s impeachment trial soon.