U.S. Supreme Court could be an issue in the election
Published: Saturday, June 23, 2012, 8:26 PM Updated: Saturday, June 23, 2012, 8:42 PM
With a pending decision looming on the health care reform law, the U.S. Supreme Court has rarely commanded so much attention.
The high court could rule on the health care law as soon as Monday. The justices could decide if the law will survive in its entirety, be overturned completely or if some aspects will endure while others are tossed.
Lost in the overarching maze of superficial presidential campaign pandering and counter allegations is the massive significance the next president could have on reshaping the highest court in the land.
Analysts of the U.S. Supreme Court expect as many as three justices will retire during the next president’s watch. It would leave an unusually large void on the court for a single president to fill.
Justices who could retire include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 79; Antonin Scalia, who is 76; and Anthony Kennedy, who will be 76 next month.
Their successors will be the core of the court for at least another generation and could well rule on cases affecting the most controversial issues of the day.
Cases on gay marriage, abortion rights and the parameters of any future health care law could land before the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming decades and set a precedence for generations to come.
If he wins re-election, President Barack Obama could have the most significant influence on the tone of the court in more than 50 years.
Obama already has appointed two justices in his first term: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
If Obama wins in November, it’s conceivable that he could appoint as many as five justices in his presidency.
Assuming the president wins a second term, and Ginsburg, Scalia, and Kennedy all retire, Obama could potentially fill more than half the nine seats on the high court.
It’s also worth noting that another justice, Stephen G. Breyer, will turn 74 in August.
The last president to appoint five justices to the court was Dwight D. Eisenhower, culminating with the appointment of Justice Potter Stewart in 1958.
If Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wins the White House, he could conceivably appoint more people to the exalted bench than any president in more than 20 years.
A moderate Republican, Romney has embraced the conservative rhetoric of some of his party’s more extreme elements.
Though Richard Nixon appointed four justices and Ronald Reagan appointed three, all subsequent presidents have appointed no more than two justices.
The largest reshaping of the court of the past century took place under Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed eight justices during his 12 years at the nation’s helm. That’s more than any other president except George Washington, who appointed 10.
Roosevelt’s appointments served as the nation’s rudder through the Great Depression and World War II. But they were far from the rubber stamp contemporary appointees are expected to be for their respective presidents and their party’s ideological bent.
The court ruled that six of Roosevelt’s eight depression-busting New Deal programs were unconstitutional.
Among them, the court unanimously struck down Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, a centerpiece of his radical but hugely popular Depression recovery plan.
Perhaps Roosevelt’s luck with a court he essentially stocked will provide some solace to Obama if all or some of his Affordable Care Act is struck down by the court this week, as many observers expect.
But if Obama retains the presidency and appoints justices to the court that reflect a more liberal bent, the court could make left-of-center rulings that don’t reflect the nation’s incrementally conservative take on some of the most contentious issues of the day.
While large numbers of younger Americans believe gay citizens should be able to marry, support for abortion rights appears to be dipping.
A Gallup poll in May found that 41 percent of Americans identify themselves as “pro-choice.” It marks a record low for the poll, which began asking the question in 1995. The May poll found that 50 percent of Americans describe themselves as “pro-life.”
The poll’s authors note that it’s too soon to tell if this is a lasting shift or temporary trend, but abortion remains a divisive issue among Americans.
Though abortion is just one controversial issue that could land before justices appointed by the next president, it exemplifies the possibility of a disconnect between an Obama-heavy court and the citizenry.
While a more liberal court would serve as something of a check and balance to increasingly conservative elected officials, left-leaning rulings could prove extremely unpopular to the voters who put those right-leaning officials in office.
Given the high temperature of the early presidential campaign season, it’s surprising that neither Obama nor Romney have elevated the court’s future to a prime topic in their regular stump speech.
As November approaches, expect the bench to become a more popular presidential campaign topic, as both candidates court voters.
WATCH LIST
Four Supreme Court justices are in their 70s, and each of the four has served at least 18 years on the bench. The average term for a Supreme Court justice is 16 years.
President Barack Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney might have an unusual opportunity to stack the court.
Antonin Scalia
Age: 76
Joined the court: 1986
Anthony M. Kennedy
Age: 75
Joined the court: 1988
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Age: 79
Joined the court: 1993
Stephen G. Breyer
Age: 73
Joined the court: 1994
Source: U.S. Supreme Court
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/06/us_supreme_court_could_be_an_i.html
istrict of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, in federal enclaves. The decision did not address the question of whether the Second Amendment extends beyond federal enclaves to the states,[1] which was addressed later by McDonald v. Chicago (2010). It was the first Supreme Court case in United States history to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms.[2]
