http://blog.au.org/2005/05/white_house_see.htmlAlthough none of the sitting Supreme Court justices has announced an intention to leave the bench, Washington is abuzz with speculation. Many are anticipating that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, age 80 and a sufferer from thyroid cancer, may step down at the end of the current session. Justices John Paul Stevens, 85, Sandra Day O'Connor, 75, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 72, also have been treated for cancer, and activists in the Religious Right are eager to pack the court with their own.
"There's a normal process that the White House has definitely been pursuing for at least six months where they are soliciting views and recommendations," Samuel B. Casey, executive director of the Christian Legal Society (CLS), told The Washington Times. "We have submitted our views."
The Christian Legal Society, he said, has "made it known to the White House who we believe are our top three most qualified candidates...." Not surprisingly, the CLS's top candidate is Michael W. McConnell, a notorious foe of church-state separation. (Their other choices were 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones and 3rd Circuit Judge Samuel Alito.)
McConnell alienated supporters of civil liberties when, as a University of Utah College of Law professor, he accused the four justices who uphold separation of church and state John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer of employing "extremist rhetoric." By contrast, the five justices who are often hostile to church-state separation - Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor -- rely on "cool, almost boring prose," according to McConnell.