How Many Supreme Court Justices Do You Think Kerry Will Get To Nominate? [View All]

[DrFunkenstein]

WASHINGTON - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist turns 80 this year and acknowledges he's thinking about retirement. But he won't say when that might come.

"At age 79 you can't help but think about retirement," he told NBC's "Today" show in an interview airing Wednesday. "Your life expectancy isn't what it once was. And you've got to think about the possibility of retirement."

Rehnquist is not the oldest member of the court. Justice John Paul Stevens turns 84 next month, and despite his age is a spry bridge player and golfer. Rehnquist, known more for his poker and tennis, celebrates his 80th birthday in October.

It's been almost a decade since the last vacancy on the Supreme Court. A retirement is considered unlikely this year, because of the politics that would be involved in a Senate confirmation during a presidential campaign.

Most of the retirement speculation in recent years has focused on Rehnquist, who has had chronic back pain and other health troubles, as well as Stevens and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Possible replacements, in a Bush administration, include White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, appeals court judges Emilio Garza and James Harvie Wilkinson III, and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, whose nomination to a federal appeals court is stalled in the Senate.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=558&ncid=701&e=2&u=/ap/20040309/ap_on_go_su_co/rehnquist_retirement