He’s 80
He’s got throat cancer
He’s too weak to come to court
Any sensible person might think it’d be a good time to retire. He apparently disagrees.
What is it about power that makes people hang onto their positions like barnacles to the hull of a ship?
My personal theory on the situation, based on the fact that the Court stayed intact from 2K to 2k4… they may have voted him in once, but I don’t think certain members like Bush 2 very much, and they don’t like the persons he’d vote in. A certain lack of respect for the law comes to mind. Goodness knows, they’re shooting down certain things left and right.
Well I guess if he’s been doing the same thing for the last 50 years, what else does he really have to define himself.
I don’t think it’s that he’s holding on to power, but rather that it would be a suckass way to retire.
Good freakin’ question, and great analogy. Barnacles on a ship’s hull-- I love it.
I think a lot of it has to do with a sense of self-importance. It sure speaks to the value of a mandatory retirement age, though. Would 75 be all that unreasonable???
Thurgood Marshall was another who hung on long past any reasonable point for ill-health retirement.
But, their appointment is for life, so who are we to carp about their wanting not wanting to check out early?
That’d be the power, Gus. It’s really the same thing as the situation with the Pope. He’s appointed for life, so as long as that system’s in place he’s not under any obligation to quit.
Well, how would you rather shuffle off this mortal coil? As a sick old man whose passing is scarcely noted - or as a Supreme Court justice who spent his last days as one of the most powerful people in Washington? I know which I’d prefer.
I disagree with a lot of Rehnquist’s jurisprudence. But I have to give him credit for being a scholarly, principled jurist who is also a firm and strong leader. There are examples of Supreme Courts in the past where there were major conflicts between justices owing to the incapacity of the Chief to lead (Stone and Vinson, in particular, come to mind).
I think he sees himself as a valuable asset to the country, and is loath to step down if he can recover and continue serving. And, while politically he’s aligned with the President, I don’t believe he trusts Mr. Bush to make a “good” appointment that will lead the Court, instead expecting him to nominate someone who will politicize it. (Yeah, I am thinking Ninoy; wanna make something of it?)
So IMO it’s a small amount his own ego, and a larger share his sense of the importance of his role and the problems with replacing him in the current political climate.
I think the OP has the tail wagging the dog. It’s not that a lot of power creates an inability to relinguish it, it’s that nobody without an overwhelming desire for power is never going to reach that pinacle in the first place. If Rehnquist was the sort of person who could say “enough”, he wouldn’t be the sort of person who would be named as Chief Justice.
Some people are just that way. I know of soldiers and Marines who are returning to active duty with artificial limbs after losing them in the Mideast.
They aren’t doing this for the pay and power, either. They’re doing it because they want to.
Before condemning Rhenquist for hanging on like a barnacle, perhaps you should consider that this is also a medical question.
I have no knowledge of his diagnosis or prognosis, but if his cancer is the sort where he has a good chance of a significant recovery after several months of chemotherapy, there is really no reason for him to retire because of a short interruption in his service.
Sorry for the hijack, but when did rehnquist start sporting thos snazzy gold rings on his judicial robes? As Supreme Court justice, do ya get to alter the official duds? Really, I think judges should update their offical costumes…robes went out ca. 1200 AD?
I think only the chief justice gets the rings on his robe.
I’m inclined to agree with E-Sabbath on this; I don’t think Rehnquist is a fan of Bush and is trying to hang on until 2008, so he won’t appoint an ultra-conservative young judge who will skew the court for the next fifty years. I only hope he can wait it out.
No, the “gold rings” (actually stripes) were placed on the robes by Rehnquist himself. He got the idea after watching Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Lolanthe,” where a magestrate’s costume had similar stripes.
That’s right, kids – the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court conducts his official bizness while playing dress-up. And we laughed at that Arkansas juror who went to court in a Star Trek uniform…
First of all Chief Justice Rehnquist has thyroid cancer, not throat cancer. But that’s not all that important to this question.
I think Rehnquist is staying on the job because he wants too. He is a widower. He probably doesn’t think that he would have anything fulfilling to do after retiring.
???
Rehnquist is a conservative Supreme Ct judge, why wouldn’t he want Bush to nominate his replacement?
A theory I’ve heard is that Rehnquist is sticking it out because he will become the longest serving Chief Justice in another year or two. Not sure why he would care about such a thing, but I’ll throw it out there since I’ve heard it from a few different places. That said, I think BobT’s explanation is the most likely. My grandmother worked into her 80’s, despite serious health problems, simply because she didn’t have anything else to do. I imagine Rehnquist is in the same sort of place.
Has any Justice ever missed a large number of cases due to health reasons? I imagine that he can only sit out for so long before pressure begins to mount for him to step down, especially if we start to see a few 4-4 splits.
I’ve never heard this idea before. But he could be conservative without being that conservative.
From his Wikipedia article:
He doesn’t sound like someone who is going to drag his cancer-ridden body into court everyday for four years just to keep Bush from nominating a conservative judge.
Thyroid Cancer is one hundred percent curable. Radioactive iodine. Hits the thyroid, takes it out.
As far as why not? See, there’s a thing here. Rehnquist is a judge. A man of the law. It is, undoubtedly, his life. And Bush has show fairly large contempt for the law. That’s a reason for Rehnquist not to like him, even if he is conservative. He’s not a politican, he’s a man of the law first, and politics second. Even if they are a bit wedded at his level.
This is my personal opinion of the subject, gathered over the last four years.
I agree it’s not the most likely explanation, even though that’s only a comparison of Rehnquist to those four judges, not to the current Court or Bush.