Daring Dragonfly #6

Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement is important for several reasons. First, she was the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A rather impressive achievement for a woman who, after graduating third in her class at Stanford, could only get a job as a legal secretary.

And yeah, she’s been a key swing vote in a lot of important 5-4 cases. But I’m sick of all the hysteria typified by such comments as “Ladies, get your abortions now.” The fact is, Roe isn’t going anywhere. Even Thomas, arguably the most conservative member of the Court, has said that they aren’t going to challenge the core holding of Roe. So let’s lay off the hysteria. The fact is, any of the key opinions of the last five or so years aren’t going anywhere. It’s just too soon. And Justice Kennedy is still around, and he’s been trending fairly liberal the last couple years.

The much more interesting question is, what’s going to happen with the Court. Since Chief Justice Rehnquist announced today that he isn’t going anywhere, there’s going to be huge pressure on President Bush to appoint a conservative. After all, he campaigned on appointing people like Thomas and Scalia. And with the Chief sticking around, there’s no compromise to be made. But at the same time, there’s a huge pressure to replace O’Connor with another woman. And that makes the pool much, much smaller. Priscilla Owens is out, because she just went through a messy confirmation, only getting through as part of the compromise.

The current front runner to replace O’Connor is Alberto Gonzales, although Bush is getting flack from his base because he’s pro-choice, and from the left over the Guantanamo Bay memos. Until the President makes his appointment, it’s going to be very hard to see which direction the Court will go in. But Roe is safe.