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September 07, 2005
Legacy
Legacy is a big word. Some are applying it to President Bush’s two appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge John Roberts and a player to be named later. Certainly these are important appointments, but Bush’s legacy? Check back with me in 20 years. Maybe we’ll know by then which direction Roberts took the court and whether the Bush justices turned the court at all.
When Chief Justice William Rehnquist died on Saturday, no one called him Richard Nixon’s legacy, even though Nixon appointed him. You could make a better case that he was Ronald Reagan’s legacy. Reagan’s elevation of Rehnquist to chief justice was a defining moment for the conservative movement.
The odd thing is that when Rehnquist died, nowhere did I read a reference to George W. Bush as Rehnquist’s legacy. There’s a good argument for it. No Rehnquist, no President Bush, at least not in 2000.
This is a legacy forged through irony. Rehnquist and his court majority violated their own judicial philosophy to award the presidency to the candidate of their party.
Florida’s 25 electoral votes were decisive in the 2000 election, but the outcome there was in dispute. After days of piecemeal recounts, political bluster and lawsuits, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount. Bush, who led by 327 votes in the state, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On the basis of their core belief – call it originalist, strict constructionist or states’ rightist – there was no way Rehnquist and the court’s other four conservative justices should have accepted the Bush appeal. But they did.
Here is Linda Greenhouse’s account of these events from her Rehnquist obituary in the New York Times:
“On Dec. 9, the day after the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new recount, the chief justice and Justices Scalia, O’Connor, Kennedy and Thomas voted to issue a stay, freezing the recount that had just begun. They also accepted the Bush appeal and scheduled argument for Dec. 11. Through the night after the argument and the long day that followed, the country waited for the result. At 10 p.m. on Dec. 12, the court issued its ruling. An unsigned opinion by the same five justices held that a lack of uniform standards for counting ballots from county to county meant that the recount would violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. There was no time to fix the problem, the majority held, so there could be no further counting.”
If anyone’s legacy came into focus during the last few days, it was Rehnquist’s. In Bush v. Gore, he abandoned his disdain for the encroachment of federal power on the states. This elected Bush, a man likely to choose judicial nominees to his liking. And now Rehnquist’s president has appointed Rehnquist’s one-time clerk to succeed him as chief justice.
Legacies can be tricky, but who could ask for a better shot at life after death?
Posted by Mike Pride at September 7, 2005 04:06 PM
Comments
Mike,
This is a tired old arguement and we all know what was going on -- sue your way to the White House. The essential point was:
"An unsigned opinion by the same five justices held that a lack of uniform standards for counting ballots from county to county meant that the recount would violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection."
Bush vs. Gore was about cherry picking vs. equal standards.
Posted by: fullert at September 11, 2005 10:00 AM
The only part of this that I agree with is your first sentence. After that, your comments make the same tired whine we have been hearing since the 2000 election. My feeling is that history will judge George W. Bush and William Rehnquist the same way that William Jefferson Clinton will be examined -- on the basis of how they conducted themselves in the discharge of their duties in their respective positions. That is the yardstick that needs to be used, not whether an individual's actions agrees with a particular group's political philosophies.
Posted by: NHYankee at September 15, 2005 09:39 AM