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Bush has boosted Roberts from nominee to sit on the Court to nominee for Chief Justice. As a notional moderate with conservative tendencies (a representation I don't entirely believe), he's the natural replacement for Rehnquist in many ways.
This also means that, assuming Roberts gets through, Sandra Day O'Connor can't be tempted to stay on by the carrot of a stint as Chief Justice, although she might be persuaded to stay on for a while to provide continuity. That's probably best-case for liberals, in terms of the composition of the Court and the ongoing focus on Bush's failures in New Orleans.
Speaking of New Orleans, now might be a great time for a non-white appointment. Smart money is on Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales is a handy sop to a huge chunk of the population who might be starting to wonder if the Reps give a shit about them, and who are well-represented in many southern states. He was a controversial appointment within the party because, although friendly to torture and capital punishment, he was not suitably hostile to abortion or affirmative action. However, with Roberts probably sound on all of these issues, that's less of a problem. Gonzales is an old friend of Bush from his gubernatorial days, and is about due a fillip after his sterling work on making torture not only practicable but legally practicable. Another judge - Wilkinson - should theoretically be owed a favour for his sterling support of the idea that the Geneva Convention need not apply on the whim of the President (Hamdi vs Rumsfeld), but the Supreme Courrt was so horrified by this judgement that even the right-wing Antonin Scalia took time out in rejecting it to call him an idiot.
Gonzales would also be a much easier sell than a proper right-wing hardliner like Luttig or Garza. These would wrench the Court far to the right, but the Democrats would be able to rally more effectively against them. Luttig has on occasion upheld rule-of-law decisions probably against his own principles - for example, he upheld a decision refusing to allow a state to offer pro-life license plates, on the grounds that the failure to offer balancing pro-choice license plates was a breach of the first amendment - but a Luttig/Roberts double would probably spell the end of environmental regulation in the USA. Garza has at times expressed doubts about the way Texas executes people, but generally votes in support of decisions to execute. Rather famously, he dissented from a ruling on the grounds that a 15-year old girl is old enough to bear children and thus probably old enough for seduction by her teacher not to be an abuse of power. He's an advocate of state power, essentially, but that has the side-effect that he stands against areas where you might want regulation (like logging, most obviously).
On alas' tip, Edith Clements was put forward as the supposed replacement for Day O'Connor, and might make the cut - it's hard to get a handle on her. I have a feeling she might have been a decoy from the start, but I just don't know very much about her. Anyone? |
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