Politics

Top Justice Addresses Election

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 1, 2001 / 7:40 PM EST / CBS

Chief Justice William Rehnquist says he hopes the U.S. court system "will seldom, if ever" become embroiled in another presidential election.

Rehnquist's annual report to Congress on the U.S. judiciary did not mention the criticism leveled against the high court. Nor did the chief justice, who was in the majority, attempt to defend the 5-4 ruling that rejected a recount of Florida presidential election votes and handed the election to George W. Bush.

Rather, he expressed hope that the courts would never again have to decide a presidential election.

Rehnquist got to the point immediately, addressing the election in the opening paragraph of his 15th year-end report to Congress since becoming chief justice.

"Despite the seesaw aftermath of the presidential election, we are once again witnessing an orderly transition of power from one presidential administration to another," the chief justice said.

"This presidential election, however, tested our Constitutional system in ways it has never been tested before. The Florida state courts, the lower federal courts and the Supreme Court of the United States became involved in a way that one hopes will seldom, if ever, be necessary in the future."

Some observers have said the court may have hurt its credibility by splitting along ideological lines in such an important case. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said, "The majority has dealt the court a serious blow by taking actions many Americans will consider to be political rather than judicial."

It was a dramatic departure from the usual staid tone of Rehnquist's annual reports. Legal scholars believe the chief justice may still be stinging from public criticism in the wake of the December ruling; Rehnquist's words come just weeks after many legal experts wondered whether the Supreme Court's recount ruling was a political stunt.

The ruling followed the court's familiar lineup: conservatives Rehnquist, Thomas and Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy on one side, and liberals John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer on the other.

Paul Rothstein, a law professor at Georgetown University, said it was "very unusual" for the chief justice to publicly express his hope that an issue not return to the court.

"Obviously some of the publicity about the court being partisan has filtered through to him and I think he felt it necessary to say something in response. It's just a touch defensive. They're chafing a little bit under the criticism," he said when Rehnquist's comments were read to him.

This was not the first time that Rehnquist defended the court against allegations that the recount ruling was political. He did so after Justice Clarence Thomas denied the day after the decision that political views counted in this or any other decision.

Thomas told high school students the court was a nonpartisan, deliberative body that focuses only on the law.

"Don't try to apply the rules of the political world to this institution," Thomas said. "I have yet to hear any discussion in nine years of partisan politics among members of the court."

In the appearance, televised on C-SPAN 2, Thomas said that critics of the court might think justices appointed by certain presidents "maybe hang out together. That doesn't happen. The members of the court don't pair off. There aren't these cliques."

During Thomas' appearance, Rehnquist dropped by the Supreme Court's public information office to thank the staff for their work during the high-pressure election case. Told by reporters that Thomas had just said politics did not enter into the court's overall decision-making, the chief justice responded, "Absolutely, absolutely."