Re: Judge Rehnquist

[EC]

Last year Rehnquist released a statement, you may remember, to me it was speaking directly to **, and his taking over the judicial branch. Then this week he says he will stay in the court as long as he can, although years ago he wanted to retire but was waiting for a conservative administration. I think he sees real danger in ** and refuses to give him the Supreme Court.

I've been trying to find a copy of his statement last year and can't find it. Anyone have it?

[whistle]

1. So, was Judge Rehnquist a chronic smoker and is that why he...

...developed thyroid cancer almost overnight?

[gratuitous]

2. I really liked him in the Beverly Hills Cop movies

And in Head Office.

Oh, waitasecond.

Nevermind.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. You're think of Chief Justice Reinhold

[Frances]

3. I think Rehnquist is a mean old man

who likes the limelight. I think he thought that Bush would use his retirement to nominate one moderate and one ultra conservative. The focus then would be on the new nominees and Rehnquist would lose the spotlight he so loves.

[longship]

5. I think you hit the nail right on the head.

These SCOTUS judges are completely aware of their importance. That's why so many of them become more liberal when they get on the bench. They see the importance of their task, to protect the Constitution, and they take that task very seriously. Of course, I am dealing in generalities here.

Rehnquist is undoubtedly aware of the neocon danger. He is very conservative but does not want the country to tread much further down the road to one-party rule without checks and balances. So, when news leaked out of his impending retirement, the response probably let him think that the neocons would use the opportunity to change forever the shape of the court. What a legacy for a dying man!?

Now, he gets to have a chance at the legacy of "the man who saved SCOTUS." Kudos to him. When he announced that he would not be retiring, I envision him saying to himself, "Fuck you, Dubya."

[EC]

7. Exactly... n/t

[Lexingtonian]

6. yeah, there was some statement

about too much interference with the courts by Right wing activists and politicians. But it wasn't a rejection of the Right, just a telling them to back off and not infringe on the Court's power.

I suspect he's acting as he is because he doesn't see the Bush people putting anyone in who is conservative in the way he likes. I think he sees the major Right/conservative verdicts he engineered over his tenure (his 'legacy') getting overturned one by one, and he simply can't bear to retire and sit by while Supreme Court overturns more of them while he still lives.

So far he has lost, at a minimum, two death penalty upholding verdicts (Penry and Stanford, 1989) and the verdict upholding laws against gay sex (Hardwick, 1986). There are lawsuits out there to overturn his great initial atrocity upholding laws barring punished criminals from voting, Richardson v Ramirez, 1974. He led a war to limit and subvert application of the 14th Amendment, on the extension of which all the great liberal verdicts (Brown v Board, Griswold v Connecticut, Loving v Virginia, Roe v Wade) of our political era have relied.

But doing what he and his side did to the 14th Amendment in Bush v Gore, that utter pinnacle of historical irony and abuse of the 14th, was a bridge too far and finally far enough out of step with The People that the Court had to turn. He denies this, of course, but he can't give up the fight. And that's why he hangs on.