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83 U. Chi. L. Rev. Online 1 (2016-2017)

handle is hein.journals/uchidial83 and id is 1 raw text is: INTRODUCTION Presidential Politics and the 113th Justice Amy Howet They appear every four years: articles, op-eds, and blog posts warning readers that control of the Supreme Court (and, by im- plication, the fate of the Republic) hinges on the upcoming presi- dential election. The justices are getting older, the authors cau- tion, and the next president could have the opportunity to appoint one, two, three, or even four new justices to the Court.I To be fair, these Cassandra-esque warnings did, at least to some extent, prove correct in the past. During his two terms in office, President George W. Bush nominated, and the Senate con- firmed, two new justices: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. The same is true for President Barack Obama, who nominated Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. But the ideological makeup of the Court remained more or less the same, because each justice who left the Court was replaced by a new justice with a similar, if not identical, approach to the law.2 Going into the 2016 presidential elections, it seemed as if this might actually be the year in which winning the race for the White House might also lead to victory in the battle for the Su- preme Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg-who has spurned re- peated calls for her to resign to allow Obama to appoint her suc- cessor-turned eighty-three this year. Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy would both be octogenarians by the time t Editor and reporter, SCOTUSblog. Thanks are due to Lisa McElroy for inviting me to participate in this symposium, and to the staff of The University of Chicago Law Review for their careful and excellent editing. All errors are, of course, mine. I See, for example, Geoffrey R. Stone, The Supreme Court and the 2012 Election (HuffPost Politics, Aug 13, 2012), archived at http://perma.cc/7KE8-Z67Y; Steven G. Calabresi and John 0. McGinnis, McCain and the Supreme Court (Wall St J, Feb 4, 2008), online at http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120209536777639949 (visited June 11, 2016) (Perma archive unavailable); Bill Mears, Election Could Tip Balance of Supreme Court (CNN.com, Oct 21, 2004), archived at http://perma.cc/7FHY-WV3L. 2 To be sure, Alito has proven to be a more conservative justice than Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he replaced, and the substitution of Alito for O'Connor shifted the Court slightly to the right. But the Court likely would have shifted much more to the left if O'Connor had retired and President Al Gore had nominated her successor. 1

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