Presidential election could influence Supreme Court as well

With the public accustomed to the usual campaign politics of candidates running in the executive and legislative branches of government, many are paying attention to the possibility of changes in the judicial branch.\nWith the election of either Texas Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore, the composition and political philosophy of the Supreme Court could change, influencing crucial decisions the Court will make and the way laws passed by Congress are interpreted as well.\nPredictions about how the presidential race will affect the composition of the Court are speculative and hinge on whether justices will retire. The president would fill any vacancies on the bench with the approval of a majority of the Senate.\nExperts say the most likely justices to leave the court are Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 76, or Justice John Paul Stevens, 80. Rehnquist is considered a conservative, while Stevens is considered a liberal. \n"There's no reason necessarily to believe that those two will retire in the next four years," said law professor Daniel Conkle.\nThe last justice to retire was Harry Andrew Blackmun in 1994. He was 86 at the time. But a justice's age does not have a concrete bearing on his or her term on the Court, said Virginia Hettinger, assistant political science professor.\nJustices Sandra Day O'Connor, 70, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 67, have both had health problems, which has also stirred some speculation on how much longer they will remain on the Court.\nThe Court has been handing down close decisions. If anyone retires, the president could have a significant impact -- or none at all, Conkle said.\nIf Gore is elected and Stevens retires, then the impact will be very small, and vice versa. But if Stevens retires, and Bush is elected, the general philosophy of the Court will change, he said. \nAlso, justices could decide to stay on the bench if they do not want the elected President appointing someone in their place with different judicial views, said law professor William Popkin.\n"I think if Gore is elected Rehnquist will stay on," he said.\nHettinger said that if there were a change in the Court, it probably will not be seen until next summer.\nThe cases to be heard for the next term have not yet been decided. But many people have voiced concern about a threat to Roe v. Wade, the famous abortion decision. Conkle said decisions about the separation between church and state are very close now and could be affected.\nOne of the underlying effects of a change in the Court is the issue of federalism, or how much power is given to the federal government and the states, said Popkin, who studies the interpretation of federal statutes. One question could be whether domestic violence legislation should be a federal or state law, for example.\n"The one area the Court is quite clearly and consistently divided on is the issue of congressional power as against state's rights. The issue of federalism, where there is a very clear 5-4 split, (the court is) much more inclined to limit the power of Congress," Conkle said. "(It) relates to issues that could affect people and real things." \nPopkin said that if this is true, hundreds of statute interpretations could be made. Even though it's only speculative, abortion could be affected.\n"If there's no federally protected right to privacy, then it becomes up to the states to determine what they're going to regard private and not," Hettinger said.\nEven if new justices are appointed, Conkle said there is no guarantee he or she will be consistent with the views of the president who appointed him or her.\n"Once a justice is appointed, that justice is entirely independent of the president that appointed him or her," he said. "Justices have even, in some cases, been quite unpredictable"