LAT: Activists Mobilize Over Shaping Supreme Court (after Rehnquist news)

[DeepModem Mom]

THE NATION
Activists Mobilize Over Shaping Supreme Court
Conservatives and liberals respond to news of Rehnquist's cancer treatment by urging their party members to the polls.

By Richard Simon and David G. Savage, Times Staff Writers


WASHINGTON — Following the news of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's hospitalization for thyroid cancer, conservative and liberal activists scrambled Tuesday to rally support for President Bush or his Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry, by reminding partisans that the presidential election could shape the future of the Supreme Court.

The National Rifle Assn. stepped up radio advertising in a number of battleground states, warning that the high court "could be the last line of defense for your right to keep and bear arms."

Abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America highlighted the court in get-out-the-vote mailings to 350,000 of its supporters, and the group's president headed to three key states to talk to voters about the "added urgency" of possible court vacancies, a spokesman said. The group sought to remind undecided female voters that Kerry has pledged to protect the right to abortion, whereas Bush opposes abortion rights....

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It seemed clear that conservatives had more to lose from a Rehnquist retirement because the chief justice is one of theirs, but which side might benefit at the polls was a matter of dispute.

"This should energize conservatives more than liberals," said John Feehery, a spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). A Bush defeat combined with a Rehnquist retirement could result in conservatives losing a Supreme Court seat for a decade or more.

But (Don Kettl, a University of Pennsylvania political science professor) said Rehnquist's health problems were likely to stir up liberal and Democratic voters "who probably worry most about how a Bush victory could, in short order, transform the court."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rehnquist27oct27,0,6463156.story?coll=la-home-nation

[Catfight]

1. I guess the million women march this year still doesn't get attention.

Women will vote and it won't be for the boy who wants to be king.