A Stitch in Haste

"I am opposed to the ERA because it will accomplish nothing except to give a lot of bad female politicians a tool to work with."
--Ayn Rand

I blogged the following back when Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her intended retirement:

It will be interesting to see what role, if any, the four female Republican Senators, none of whom tend to be ultra-conservative, play in this...

Well, this was not exactly what I had in mind:

Four female senators called Thursday for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to stay on the court and try for chief justice if the ailing William Rehnquist steps down.

In a letter to O'Connor, Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Barbara Boxer of California asked the nation's first female justice to consider staying on the high court if Chief Justice Rehnquist relinquishes the top spot.
...
"We urge you to reconsider your resignation and return to the Supreme Court to serve as chief justice, should there be a vacancy," the senators said in the Thursday letter.

This is just plain stupid, and shame on the four senators for their petty gender-based politics.

Some hasty stitches:

--Why are people so unwilling to take O'Connor at her word that her motivation in retiring is her ailing husband? I dare any of these four grandstanding politicians to state, publicly and for the record, that if their husbands became extremely ill, then they would not only unconditionally continue serving in the Senate but would also eagerly accept additional leadership responsibilities, such as a key committee chair. If that makes no sense in the Senate, then it makes no sense in the Supreme Court.

--The politics of a Rehnquist vacancy haven't fundamentally changed in my opinion. I stand by my prediction right after the election with respect to Clarence Thomas: President Bush will not elevate an Associate Justice to Chief Justice in the current political climate, since that would require two confirmation battles to fill a single seat. That makes no sense.

--Now is as good a time as any to remind ourselves exactly what it means to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States:

By statute, the Chief Justice presides over the Judicial Conference (28 U.S.C. § 331), selects the director and deputy director of the Administrative Office (28 U.S.C. § 601), chairs the Board of the Federal Judicial Center (28 U.S.C. § 621(a)(1)), designates judges to serve on the Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation (28 U.S.C. § 1407 (d)) and on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (50 U.S.C. § 1803 (a)), and assigns district and circuit judges to serve temporarily in circuits other than their own (28 U.S.C. §§ 291–292). These statutory duties give rise to other responsibilities: The Chief Justice serves as the federal judiciary’s ultimate advocate and spokesperson with respect to legislation affecting administration of the federal courts—a duty that has become routine since William Howard Taft served as Chief Justice (1921–1930). The Chief Justice also appoints the some 200 members of the extensive committee system of the Judicial Conference.

Who would in good conscience and with a straight face ask Justice O'Connor to suffer such bureaucratic burdens under her current circumstances?

--Oh, and by the way, there is no Rehnquist vacancy yet!

I say again: shame on these four petty, grandstanding, hack politicians for playing the gender card.

UPDATE: Here's an New York Times op-ed, which I neither endorse nor reject, discussing the administrative responsibilities of the Chief Justice.