Chief Justice Taken to Hospital

By 

Jay Sekulow

|
May 23, 2011

5 min read

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Late yesterday afternoon we learned that Chief Justice William Rehnquist had been hospitalized due to a fever from an infection.  As I am sure all of you know, the Chief Justice has been battling thyroid cancer since last October.  Although the Chief has been ill, he has participated in most of the Supreme Court cases and in March, he came back to participate in the oral arguments.  There, of course, is a great deal of speculation regarding the possibility of a second vacancy being created by the Chief Justice.  Interestingly, last week, when asked by a reporter whether he was going to retire, the Chief Justice stated, Thats for me to know and you to find out.  The Chief also exhibited additional humor at the last day of the Court ceremony, noting that there were more opinions in one particular case than there were Justices.  We are praying for the Supreme Court Chief Justices speedy recovery.

Id like to share with you my experience Tuesday night on CNNs Lou Dobbs Tonight, in the form of transcript excerpts, where Ralph Neas, President of People For the American Way and I had an opportunity to discuss the upcoming nomination for the Supreme Court of the United States. 

 

LOU DOBBS: President Bush today met with Senate leaders about the vacancy on the Supreme Court.  The senators, including Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid, offered suggestions on who the President might nominate to replace Justice O'Connor.  The President didn't offer up any ideas about whom he might be considering.  The battle is already under way over the person who will succeed Sandra Day O'Connor.  The President of the PFAW, Ralph Neas, said it would create what he calls a constitutional catastrophe.  The Chief Counsel for the ACLJ, Jay Sekulow, says liberal calls for a consensus nominee are nonsense, and the President should be able to choose whichever candidate he wants.  We hope he will be with us in a moment.  Ralph, let me turn to you.  You have been quoted as saying that you've been working on this for the past five years, getting ready for this battle.  Are you ready?

 

RALPH NEAS: Lou, I've been working on this since my years with Senator Edward W. Brook in the 1970s.  We are ready.  We do not want a fight.  We hope these consultations are real, that the President wants to work with Republicans and Democrats and come up with a unity candidate, a consensus candidate.  As you know we have called for someone in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor, a mainstream conservative.  She has been the fifth and decisive vote on dozens and dozens of key constitutional issues.

 

DOBBS: Ralph, you also have said that you've raised $5 million getting ready to defend the filibuster.  Are you still ready for war?

 

NEAS: Lou, we did raise $5 million; and we spent $5 million on the effort to save the filibuster and defeat the nuclear option, which, of course, would have ended the filibuster and overturned about 218 years of Senate history.  We are ready, but we don't want a fight.  We hope there's going to be a consensus nominee so we don't have to spend any money at all.  All those 20 or 30 millions of dollars that our friendly adversaries have raised won't have to be spent either.

 

DOBBS:  Jay, Ralph says you can save all that money--that everything is going to be fine.  Just put together a mainstream

 

JAY SEKULOW: consensus candidate.  Now, first of all, this is a nomination of the Supreme Court of the United States.  This isn't a candidate for us in that regard, and they've turned this into a political campaign.  You had Senator Reid today say he wants this consensus candidate.  The President is the one who gets to make the nomination under the Constitution.  The Senate is not a co-nominator here; so what Ralph is articulating is constitutionally wrong.  But this process-- despite Ralph saying they want it to work smoothly--they have politicized it.  It was reported today that Senator Reid is hiring former Senator Mitchell, the co-chairman of the Disney Corporation, which owns ABC News among other things, to run the campaign.  What campaign?  The President is putting forward a nominee.  The Senate should have hearings and vote up or down. They're the ones turning this into a political campaign.

 

DOBBS:  What do you think, Ralph?  Is it time for you to back off?  Because your friend, the very shy and retiring conservative, Jay, says it's really not necessary.

 

NEAS: My good friend Jay knows that the White House just hired, or has Ed Gillespie and Fred Thompson working for them.

 

SEKULOW: But they're the ones making the nomination.  That's normal.  You've been on that side of it.

 

DOBBS: Can I ask you both something--because you both are sitting there, along with your colleagues on the various elements of the political spectrum, exciting the abortion base, left and right, the affirmative action base left and right.  Are you both going to make these litmus test issues, at least tacitly from your point of view of the campaign?

 

SEKULOW: I don't think it should be a litmus test.  The President says he's going to appoint Justices who are not going to legislate from the bench, who are going to interpret the Constitution, and who are conservative in their judicial philosophy.  He has the right to do that as President.

 

NEAS: Jay, the constitutional right is the President's to nominate someone.

 

SEKULOW: Right.

 

NEAS: Of course, the Senate has a co-equal responsibility; they can reject that nominee.

 

SEKULOW: Sure.

 

NEAS: Especially if the President takes judicial philosophy into account, especially if he does what he says, that you and I and he all agree on.  He has promised, your boss, Robertson, that he will appoint someone in the mold of Thomas and Scalia.

 

SEKULOW: Justice Scalia was confirmed 98-0.  98-0.

 

DOBBS: Ralph, Jay, thanks for you both being here.