Reply #7: Chief Justice would oversee the congress in impeachment trial... [View All]

[cascadiance]

Bush will want to try and get his own nominee in there to protect himself if impeachment happens. Although Scalia or Thomas would likely not be any worse for him. Perhaps we can figure a way to force his hand to put O'Connor in as chief justice, though I think he'd resist that heavily, with her not likely to try and overturn Roe v. Wade, and therefore not his choice to be chief justice.

On the other hand, now with an 8 person court and Stevens being the default chief justice on existing business (like hearing and deciding upon Sibel Edmonds' case), perhaps he'd prefer to get O'Connor in as chief justice over Stevens if Dems play hardball and fillibuster everything else until he lets that happen. Then I could see the Dems allowing Roberts if O'Connor is given chief justice slot through to maybe say 2007 (which would allow time for her to oversee an impeachment trial if it were to happen). But at that point, if there is a Democratic Congress, O'Connor's replacement would have to be more mainstream or else get rejected (without the nuclear option threat).

Of course Rethugs still could try and go nuclear now to overcome any fillibustering the Dems would try to do to keep Bush's nominees from going through, but that could be depicted as violating the deal they cut earlier, and help the Dems in 2006 that much more retake congress.