A vacancy in the Supreme Court has triggered a political battle
between liberals, conservatives and interest groups as President
Bush considers this week his choice to replace outgoing Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor.
O’Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court and a
moderate conservative who often cast the swing vote on many issues
including abortion and the death penalty, announced her retirement
July 1 after 24 years on the bench.
Her departure marks the court’s first vacancy in 11 years
and creates an opportunity for President Bush to possibly shift the
ideological direction of the court through his nomination of a
replacement.
That shift would almost undoubtedly be toward conservatism, as
nearly all speculation regarding O’Connor’s successor
focuses around conservative candidates.
The president is expected to name his nominee after his return
from Europe at the end of this week. That appointment must then be
confirmed by a majority vote of the U.S. Senate.
After nearly a quarter of a century on the court, O’Connor
resigned for personal reasons. Her husband is reported to have
Alzheimer’s.
“She’s 75 years old and she needs to spend time now
with her husband,” said Supreme Court public information
officer Kathy Arberg.
O’Connor was a moderate justice in a court closely divided
between the conservative majority and a more liberal faction.
“She has never wavered from her well-grounded views …
(or) allowed the pressures of popular opinion to sway her
decisions,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.,
in a statement.
During her time on the Supreme Court, O’Connor did not
stick strictly to either the Republican or Democratic ideology.
“She was often the fifth vote to make the majority,”
said UCLA Law Professor Stuart Banner.
The appointment of a more conservative justice could mean the
end of an unaffiliated swing vote and facilitate a conservative
majority on the court, a step that will likely incite opposition
from liberals.
And conservatives are concerned that this opposition will
manifest itself as a filibuster, with Democrats in the Senate
preventing a conservative nominee from being confirmed to a
position in the court.
One candidate widely believed to be under consideration is
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a former White House counsel who
would be the first Hispanic American to sit on the Supreme Court if
appointed and confirmed.
Another is Emilio Garza, appointed as a federal judge by
President Ronald Reagan, who is known for his views that Roe v.
Wade should be overturned and that abortion regulation should be
decided by state legislatures.
Bush said he will consult both Democrats and Republicans before
making a decision.
“I will select a Supreme Court justice that Americans can
be proud of. The nation also deserves a dignified process of
confirmation in the United States Senate, characterized by fair
treatment, a fair hearing and a fair vote,” Bush said.
In 1981, when then-President Reagan had the opportunity to
appoint a new justice, he broke with tradition by naming
O’Connor as the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court,
but it is not only her unique status as the first woman on the
court that made her time on the court significant.
Bush has praised her as “one of the great Americans”
and O’Connor was noted for her respected and amicable public
presence.
O’Connor also stood out because of her role as the swing
vote, influencing decisions on issues such as abortion, affirmative
action, church-state relations and criminal justice.
“She was strongly in favor of enforcing civil rights laws
to prevent discrimination,” said UCLA Law Professor John
Varat. “As a moderate conservative, she tried to limit the
power of the federal government in the interest of preserving state
power.”
She has blocked the efforts of conservative colleagues to
overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal
and upheld and expanded abortion rights.
In 2000 O’Connor voted to strike down a Nebraska statute
making partial-birth abortion a crime.
In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that the statute was
unconstitutional on the grounds that it placed an undue burden on
women’s right to choose an abortion.
An ardent proponent of affirmative action, she endorsed its use
in higher education in the interest of “effective
participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the
civic life of our nation,” O’Connor said.
In a case deciding the future of affirmative action at the
University of Michigan in 2003, O’Connor voted in favor of
the majority, which argued that the practices were constitutional
but that the method used by the University of Michigan Law School
gave too much weight to race in admissions.
In both cases, the ruling went in the direction of
O’Connor’s vote.
She also sought to protect the rights of gays and lesbians, and
fought against sex discrimination, Varat said.
In another case in 1999, O’Connor cast a vote that
recognized student-to-student sexual harassment as violation in a
form of sex discrimination.
O’Connor also was a strong supporter of the separation
between church and state.
Just last week, O’Connor voted with the court’s
majority that the display of framed copies of the Ten Commandments
on the walls of two Kentucky courthouses was unconstitutional
because it was motivated by a religious purpose, securing a 5-4
ruling.
With reports from Bruin wire services.