WASHINGTON (ABP) — The 80-year-old chief justice of the United States has undergone surgery for thyroid cancer but is expected to return to work soon, according to a Supreme Court spokesperson.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist underwent a tracheotomy Oct. 23, according to a statement released by spokesperson Kathy Arberg Oct. 25. The statement said the surgery — which creates an artificial breathing passage in the throat — is “in connection with a recent diagnosis of thyroid cancer.”
Arberg's statement also said Rehnquist is expected to return to the bench Nov. 1, when the high court will return from a two-week recess.
The release did not offer further specifics, such as what form of thyroid cancer is afflicting Rehnquist, or whether the tracheotomy was done as part of a surgery to remove the cancer or because the cancer had caused the chief justice difficulty in breathing.
Many types of thyroid cancer are among the most curable forms of cancerous growths, according to several medical experts quoted in press accounts about Rehnquist's condition.
Many court observers have speculated about Rehnquist's retirement for several years. The chief justice turned 80 on October 1. Rehnquist is generally considered one of the court's three most conservative justices. Prior to the thyroid-cancer announcement, most observers expected Rehnquist and two other justices — the generally liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, 84; and the centrist Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 78 — to retire in the next few years.
Because the Supreme Court is closely divided and has decided many important cases by 5-4 votes in recent years, court watchers expect the outcome of the Nov. 2 presidential election to be crucial for the future of the court for decades to come.
President George W. Bush has said he would appoint only “strict constructionists” — who are generally conservative on issues such as gay rights, abortion rights and government's role in endorsing or supporting religion. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, has said he would not nominate justices to the Supreme Court who would revoke rights — such as the right to abortion — that previous courts have interpreted in the Constitution.
However, according to one constitutional scholar, even if Bush loses and Rehnquist's condition forced him to resign prior to the inauguration, Congress would likely defer confirmation of a new justice until the new president took office. George Washington University law professor Ira Lupu said that, while nothing in the Constitution would prevent a “lame-duck” session of Congress from approving a court nominee prior to the inauguration of a new president, “I think it would be not even close to politically possible.”
Lupu continued: “Besides [Senate Democrats] blocking it, there's' a very strong tradition of not letting presidents fill these seats before an election, in the last 3 or 4 months.”
President Richard Nixon first appointed Rehnquist to the court as an associate justice in 1972. When longtime Chief Justice Warren Burger retired in 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan elevated Rehnquist to the head of the court.
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