July 21, 2005

He isn't a member of the Federalist Society after all. It's not safe to infer that he agrees with the positions advanced in the briefs he prepared. President Bush's strange facial expressions while introducing him the other night have been explained. He's done pro bono work on behalf of welfare recipients challenging eligibility restrictions. His replacement of O'Connor might shift the Court's jurisprudence on affirmative action, church-state separation, election law and the regulation of late-term abortion. He's apparently never made a ruling on a Daubert issue. Florida plaintiff's lawyer Dean Colson, a fellow Rehnquist clerk, was best man at his wedding. He's unlikely to start spouting off to Senators at hearings. One of his law school classmates recalls him saying "to me a long time ago there was no case he had been on where he couldn't have done the other side."