Supreme Fight to the Finish
Big bucks, bad blood--a court battle like no other
Wendy Long and her colleagues at the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network were ready to pounce the moment Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced that she was resigning. "We expected a nominee," she says, "very shortly after a resignation."
But in ways big and small, this summer's evolving Supreme Court drama is refusing to follow the script. For one thing, it looks as if President Bush has decided to wait a few weeks before naming someone to fill the O'Connor vacancy. And the fight between the White House and Christian conservatives over one possible candidate, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has gotten downright uncomfortable. A close friend of the president (who has made no secret of his desire to name a Hispanic justice), Gonzales has been openly attacked by members of the Christian right, who say he is simply not conservative enough on issues like abortion. The criticism has clearly rankled the president--who sharply criticized those bad-mouthing Gonzales last week. Meanwhile, rumors continued to fly that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who has been battling thyroid cancer, might be ready to call it quits. That would give Bush two openings on the nation's high court and the chance to name a new chief justice while satisfying multiple constituencies. At week's end, only a couple of things were clear: The president seemed likely to move the Supreme Court to the right, and the whole struggle, in the words of a former presidential adviser, was "becoming a big jigsaw puzzle."
Or one heck of a battle. Liberal interest groups, stunned by O'Connor's decision, began to regroup for a battle that now could be waged over two nominees. Conservatives mused about how two vacancies could be used to move the court quickly and firmly to the right while possibly satisfying the religious right and, to make peace with the White House, accommodating Bush's desire to name the court's first Hispanic justice.
"Pushback." Making peace might not be so easy, though. Visibly irritated last week, Bush chastised groups for attacking his "good friend," Gonzales, signaling he wasn't about to be rolled, even by conservative Christians who turned out for him in droves in November. "There's a pushback" by the White House, says John Green, an expert in evangelical politics at the University of Akron, suggesting that part of Bush's scolding was a strategy "to separate the president from Christian conservative groups."
A Gonzales appointment would contribute to Bush's legacy while reflecting the growing influence of the nation's burgeoning Hispanic population. At least 40 percent of Hispanics who voted in the 2004 presidential election marked their ballot for Bush, the first Republican in six elections to capture more than 30 percent of the Hispanic vote. "This is a big part of the president's legacy," says Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez.
Bush, who wants a new justice in place by the October start of the court's new term, took files of potential nominees with him to last week's Group of Eight summit in Scotland and is expected to name his choice in August. Administration sources say he is dealing with more than a half-dozen serious contenders; the fact that O'Connor has resigned before Rehnquist, they said, has scrambled the calculus. "I wouldn't just look for a white male, right-wing lawyer," says a senior Republican who advises the White House on strategy.
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