Chief Justice Isn’t Retiring

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has been battling thyroid cancer and persistent rumors that he is about to retire, announced Thursday night that he intended to stay on the Supreme Court as long as his health permitted.

“I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement,” the 80-year-old chief justice said in a statement released by his family. “I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits.”

Rehnquist’s statement was issued the same day that he was discharged from a Virginia hospital, where he had been taken Tuesday night with a fever.

His decision means that President Bush will have only one seat to fill on the Supreme Court this summer.

Until July 1, the president and his aides expected that Rehnquist’s would be the seat they would have to fill.

They thought Rehnquist’s illness would force his retirement, and they intended to move quickly to replace the conservative chief justice with a reliably conservative federal appeals court judge. The leading candidates were all men.

But when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, the White House was forced to switch gears. The president and his legal advisors broadened their search to consider several women on the federal bench. They also spoke of taking several weeks to make a decision.

Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, 49, vaulted back to the top of the list because his nomination, like O’Connor’s in 1981, would be a breakthrough. President Reagan made history by naming the first woman to the Supreme Court, and Bush would like to do the same by appointing the first Latino.

But conservative activists have made it clear they are not enthusiastic about Gonzales, whom they perceive as a moderate on two issues at the core of their agenda -- abortion and affirmative action.

The White House delay in naming O’Connor’s replacement may have also stemmed from the persistent speculation among conservative activists that the chief justice was planning to retire.

Columnist Robert Novak went so far as to say on CNN last Friday that Rehnquist’s retirement would be announced about 5 p.m. that same day, after Bush returned from the Group of Eight meetings in Scotland. Rehnquist was at work in the Supreme Court building, and court officials said they saw no hint that he planned to quit.

Nonetheless, legal activists, congressional staffers and most Washington newsrooms were convinced that the speculation was correct.

Now that Rehnquist has shown that the speculation was wrong, Bush is faced with a clearer choice -- as well as a dilemma.

On the one hand, he knows he can fill only the seat held by O’Connor. He need not juggle two seats that would have been vacant had Rehnquist followed O’Connor into retirement. Many in Washington had expected Bush to appease moderates with O’Connor’s replacement and to offer a more staunchly conservative nominee for Rehnquist’s seat.

But it will be harder for Bush to satisfy all the elements of his Republican coalition with a single candidate. Although conservatives want him to choose a strongly conservative judge to replace O’Connor, moderates and independents have told pollsters they do not want to see the court move sharply to the right.

Specific information about Rehnquist’s health has been hard to come by since the court’s brief announcement in late October that he had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had undergone surgery to insert a hole in his windpipe. The tracheotomy allowed him to breathe more easily while he underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

Rehnquist did not return to the bench until mid-March, although he participated in Bush’s inauguration in January. He has looked frail in recent weeks and has continued to have discomfort with the hole in his windpipe.

Despite Rehnquist’s illness, his colleagues said this year that he was fully prepared to discuss and debate the cases that were voted on in the court’s private conference each week. Rehnquist led off the discussions, and he was known for running the meetings efficiently. His written opinions were clear and concise.

Since the court’s term ended last month, Rehnquist has been working daily in his chambers, and on Monday he took charge of a request for an emergency appeal in a death penalty case.

After a Virginia man was convicted of murder, a county clerk threw out the evidence in the case, including DNA samples, even though the prisoner maintained his innocence.

His lawyers, who included former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, urged the Supreme Court to halt the execution and consider the legal question involving the discarded DNA evidence.

Rehnquist oversees emergency appeals from the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and late Monday afternoon, the high court issued a one-line order that stopped the execution. The court will consider the prisoner’s full appeal in October.

The next day, Rehnquist developed a fever and was taken by ambulance that night to Virginia Hospital Center for tests and observation. Several doctors were quoted as saying it was common for patients with a tracheotomy to develop infections and fevers.

He checked out of the hospital and returned home Thursday, but his brief hospital stay intensified the speculation that he was gravely ill and planned to retire soon.

Rehnquist had said nothing in recent weeks to further the talk that he was about to retire. Neither had he sought to quell the speculation by discussing the state of his health or disclosing his plans for the year ahead.

Lacking real news regarding the chief justice’s plans, more than a dozen reporters and TV camera crew members have been outside Rehnquist’s Arlington, Va., home each morning before he leaves for work.

During the day, camera crews have been lined up on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court.

Reporters at the court have asked for a statement that would clarify Rehnquist’s plans. On Thursday, about 9 p.m., Rehnquist’s family issued his statement to Associated Press; shortly afterward, it was confirmed by Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush had not been made aware of Rehnquist’s intentions before his statement but welcomed the announcement that he would remain.

“The chief justice is doing an outstanding job, and we are pleased he will continue his great service to the nation,” McClellan said.

Rehnquist’s statement also reflects a view that the chief justice has stated often in the past -- that he planned to continue in the job so long as he was capable of doing it well.

Political activists had assumed that Rehnquist, the nation’s 16th chief justice, would retire in 2003, the year before the last presidential election.

Because Rehnquist is a Republican, they had assumed he would want to retire in a year when he could be certain a Republican in the White House would replace him.

But Rehnquist said he saw no reason to step down. He liked the intellectual challenge of the court’s work. His wife, Nan, died in 1991, and he said he had no interest in retiring to a life of less work and more leisure.

He is not the oldest member of the court. Justice John Paul Stevens is vigorous and active at 85.

Rehnquist was appointed by President Nixon and joined the court in January 1972. He has served longer than all but five justices in the court’s history. Chief Justice John Marshall and Justices Stephen Field and John Marshall Harlan in the 19th century and Justices William H. Douglas and Hugo Black in the 20th century served for 34 years or more.

Rehnquist moved up to chief justice in 1986, and he has served longer in that post than anyone in nearly a century.

The last chief justice to serve 20 years was a former railroad lawyer, Melville Fuller, who led the court from 1890 to 1910.