Unintended Consequences

Was that a big “ooopsie” I heard coming out of the US Senate last week? Suddenly we’ve got a surprise announcement from swing-justice Sandra Day O’Connor that she’s going to hang up the black robes and stop screwing up the Constitution. But, that’s not the sequence that all the wonks had laid out. It was supposed to be Chief Justice Rehnquist providing the first vacancy and that wasn’t supposed to happen until much later in the year. Despite all predictions to the contrary, Rehnquist has been showing up for work (sort of) and hasn’t been either incapacitated or found comatose in the back office yet. So, there was going to be a lot of time to get ducks in a row and prepare to start vilifying candidates for the Court.

Yep, it was supposed to be Wild Bill, and then maybe Ginsberg, who’s health has been in question for a while. And, only then was Justice O’Connor to be considered. That’s why it was kind of easy for the “Gang of Fourteen” renegades in the Senate to act like adults and exhibit some uncommon sense recently. Seven from each party agreed that they wouldn’t filibuster (or actually simply threaten to filibuster without need for all the talking) to prevent confirmation of federal court appointments by the President. Maybe they realized that the Senate was looking more stupid than potentially presidential (which they all believe they are,) when they weren’t filling the benches with qualified but not necessarily ideologically pure judges.

They agreed that they would refrain from filibuster-threats except in “exceptional circumstances”, like maybe an appointment who was a convicted felon, a former Enron executive, a recent UN secretary-general, or a registered sex offender. Real, qualified, experienced lawyers and judges would get real consideration of their ability to serve and then get a confirming vote. How quaint. Now, they’re stuck with the agreement, at least for the time being and the appointment in question is going to be only one of a sequence.

With the agreement in place to stop behaving like divas for at least another sixty days, the senators are going to be faced with the real thing—a Supreme Court nomination. And, then within a few short months, another one. And probably, within a few months of that hearing, a third one. Wow! Can anyone remember a two or three Supreme Court justice appointment year?

Not only will the Senators have to dig up dirt to sleaze up and discredit another candidate, they will have to work overtime to trash a whole team of potential justices. This is going to interesting.

The guessers, who apparently know these things, have been posting lists of potentials in newspapers across the country. Most of them look pretty darn good, although I’m crossing Attorney General Gonzales off of my short list already. We’ll see how this plays out in the weeks to come. First inning should be within a week when the O’Connor replacement starts up in earnest.