Bench Memos

Law & the Courts

The Birth of the ‘Roberts Court’

That’s the subtitle of my new Confirmation Tales post, which explores the decision that George W. Bush faced when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died the weekend before the Senate hearing on John Roberts’s nomination to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was slated to begin. My opening paragraph:

Like all history, the history of the Supreme Court sometimes pivots on small things and chance events. If Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had lived just one month longer, there would probably never have been a “Roberts Court.”

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