U.S. Supreme Court
Greenhouse Speculates on O’Connor Retirement Regret, Justices’ Leftward Drift
Posted Jul 18, 2008, 11:16 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Could Justice Sandra Day O’Connor win reappointment to the U.S. Supreme Court? Why do some conservative justices drift to the left while others stay the same?
Those are among the reader questions put to retiring New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse this week.
Her answers, posted in the New York Times: The 78-year-old O’Connor could be renominated, but it’s unlikely. And one study finds an interesting correlation between lack of experience in the federal government and a leftward drift by some justices.
Greenhouse notes that O’Connor decided to retire from the Supreme Court in 2005 so she could care for her husband, who has Alzheimer's disease. O’Connor believed she could take care of him at home, but he quickly deteriorated and had to be placed in a special facility. Greenhouse thinks O’Connor might have stayed on the court if she had known how soon her husband would need special care. She sometimes sits in a special VIP row at the Supreme Court to hear cases that interest her.
Greenhouse notes that O’Connor didn’t have federal executive branch experience. Neither did Justices Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, and David H. Souter.
A study by Michael Dorf of Columbia Law School found that justices without such experience tend to become more liberal in their views. Greenhouse wonders if the study is on to something.
“Being named to the Supreme Court is a life-changing experience,” she writes. “Moving to Washington in mid-life to undertake a major career change is, of course, another. It has to be rather profoundly disorienting, shaking someone loose from preconceptions and opening the way for new ways of looking at the world.”
Related Stories
- There were not related articles.
Related Topics
Commenting has expired on this post.
Comments
Posted by John - 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 days, 4 hours, 5 minutes ago
There are a lot of dead men and women buried in Arlington who wished she would have retired before she entered the politically motivated Gore v. Bush decision. I lost all respect for the majority members of this decision. State voting should be left to the States, not the Supreme Court. Talk about judicial activism