Supreme Court Justice O'Connor retiring

Bush has 'reached out'
Democrats sent a letter to the White House last week asking for Bush to consult with them on making a Supreme Court pick. "To this stage, there hasn't been much. But I'm confident there will be," Reid said.

Frist said the White House has already started. "I think the president and the administration have reached out to solicit names and solicit ideas," Frist said. "I don't want to speak for the administration, but I know that's being done. They are reaching out for suggestions."

Frist said that senators are still negotiating on exactly how a Supreme Court confirmation process would go, since more than half of the current senators were not there for the last confirmation.

Fifty-six senators, including nine members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, were not in the Senate when Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was confirmed in July 1994.

"So, we're spending a lot of time at the senator level and at the staff level looking at the different phases of the nomination process," said Frist, who also wasn't around for the last Supreme Court nomination.

Frist called upon Democrats to not filibuster judicial nominees. "Senators should treat every nominee with dignity and respect and give them the courtesy of an up-or-down vote. And that includes any potential Supreme Court nominee should there be a vacancy," Frist said.

Swing vote legacy
O’Connor leaves with a reputation as a "swing voter" on the bench.

Her appointment in 1981 by President Reagan, quickly confirmed by the Senate, ended 191 years of male exclusivity on the high court.

She wasted little time building a reputation as a hard-working moderate conservative who emerged as a crucial power broker on the nine-member court.

O’Connor often lines up with the court’s conservative bloc, as she did in 2000 when the court voted to stop Florida presidential ballot recounts sought by Al Gore, and effectively called the election for President Bush.

As a “swing voter,” however, O’Connor sometimes votes with more liberal colleagues.

Perhaps the best example of her influence is the court’s evolving stance on abortion. She distanced herself both from her three most conservative colleagues, who say there is no constitutional underpinning for a right to abortion, and from more liberal justices for whom the right is a given.

O’Connor initially 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.

Then in 1992, she helped forge and lead a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. Subsequent appointments secured the abortion right.

Commentators have called O’Connor the nation’s most powerful woman, but O’Connor poo-poohed the thought, once telling the Associated Press: “I don’t think it’s accurate.”

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