July 2, 2005
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

Pledging to be deliberate and thorough, President Bush said he will select a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that "Americans can be proud of." Conservative and liberal groups quickly vowed a fight over the future of a Supreme Court closely split on abortion and other social issues.

O'Connor, 75, unexpectedly announced Friday that she would step down upon Senate confirmation of her successor. Her departure as the first female justice and the decisive swing vote on divisive issues supporting abortion rights, affirmative action and the death penalty gives the court its first vacancy since 1994.

"This is a state of emergency," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "Every member of the Senate will have to choose sides — either they will side with the bullies in the Republican leadership or they will take the side of our fundamental freedoms."

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, countered that the court needs to move away from activists who legislate from the bench. "There could not be a more significant opportunity for President Bush to impact the direction of the high court," he said.

After waiting more than four years for a chance to strengthen conservatives' influence on the court, Bush was presented with the surprise decision of O'Connor to leave after 24 years. White House officials had anticipated that if anyone retired, it would have been Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80 years old and ailing with thyroid cancer.

The White House said it would be at least a week before he decides. More than a half-dozen candidates are under consideration, an administration official said, and Bush will review names during a trip to Europe beginning Tuesday.

The president said he will be "deliberate and thorough" in this process.

"The nation deserves, and I will select, a Supreme Court justice that Americans can be proud of," he said. "The nation also deserves a dignified process of confirmation in the United States Senate, characterized by fair treatment, a fair hearing and a fair vote."

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee that will hold hearings on Bush's candidate, said he doubted there would be a filibuster to delay or block a confirmation vote.

Democrats said that was up to Bush. "Above all, Justice O'Connor has been a voice of reason and moderation on the court," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "It is vital that she be replaced by someone like her."

O'Connor, a breast cancer survivor, kept her retirement a surprise even from her son. It was not until Friday morning that she dispatched her letter, hand-delivered to the president.

Meanwhile, the Rehnquist guessing game continues. "If we haven't heard from him by now, the chances are you won't hear from him for some time," Specter predicted. The last time there were two simultaneous vacancies at the court was 1971; Rehnquist was picked for one of them.

Whatever the chief justice's plans, the short list of contenders, exclusively male, may have to be expanded in view of O'Connor's retirement, said one White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Speculation has included Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and J. Michael Luttig, John Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Michael McConnell, Emilio Garza and James Harvie Wilkinson III, all federal appeals court judges.

Partisans on both sides have been preparing for a vacancy for months. After the news was announced, Senate aides of both parties held strategy meetings during the day.

Republicans were instructed to say Bush's choice deserved an "up-or-down vote," and that no litmus test should be applied, whether on abortion or any other issue.

Bush pledged to consult with Senate leaders. He spoke later by telephone with Specter, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. No names were discussed, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Officials said they expected the committee to hold hearings three to six weeks after Bush submits a nomination, perhaps beginning in August when Congress is customarily in recess.

Three to five days of testimony are likely, during which the panel would hear from the nominee as well as outside interest groups both for and against him or her.

O'Connor's decision capped a pioneer's career. President Reagan broke nearly 200 years of all-male tradition in 1981 when he chose her for the high court.

"As the first woman to be appointed to this court, Sandra Day O'Connor was thrust into the spotlight as no new justice has ever been," Justice Antonin Scalia, a frequent sparring partner of O'Connor in opinions, said in a statement. "She shaped the jurisprudence of this court more than any other associate justice."

Aware by her own account of the historical burden, she evolved into a moderate conservative, but more importantly, the consistent center of a fractured court.

In her first term, she cast the deciding vote and wrote a 5-4 ruling that said a Mississippi women's college must allow a male student to study nursing.

It was the first of many such cases.

O'Connor voted with the majority on three significant 5-4 cases in recent years: the disputed 2000 presidential election that went to Bush, a 2003 decision that upheld an affirmative action program at the University of Michigan law school and a ruling last year that said the war on terrorism did not give the government a blank check to hold terror suspects in legal limbo.

Nowhere was her legal thinking more carefully scrutinized than when it came to abortion, an issue that divides the court as it does the country.

O'Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.

In 1992, she helped forge a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. Then, in 2000, she provided the fifth and decisive vote that struck down a Nebraska law that was aimed at banning a procedure critics call "partial-birth" abortions.

In her opinion, she wrote that to be constitutional, a ban must include "an exception to preserve the life and health of the mother."

Last week, she sided with a 5-4 majority in a ruling that threw out the sentence of a death row inmate and warned state courts that shoddy legal defense representation wouldn't be tolerated.

O'Connor expressed her views tartly at times.

Last week, in a dissent to a 5-4 ruling that let local governments take personal property to build malls and other businesses, she said the majority had unwisely handed more power to the powerful.

"The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," she wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing ... any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

Alone among the current justices, O'Connor ran for office. In 1975, she was elected judge of the Maricopa County, Ariz., Superior Court. She served until 1979, when she was appointed to the state appellate bench. Reagan named her to the Supreme Court two years later, and she won Senate confirmation unanimously.

In a one-sentence statement Friday, O'Connor cited her age and said she "needs to spend time" with her family.

"For an old ranching girl, you turned out pretty good," Bush told her in a call not long after receiving her letter, an aide said.