(Broadcast media note: Vanderbilt has a campus broadcast facility with
a dedicated fiber optic line for live or live-to-tape TV interviews and
a radio ISDN line.)
Sandra Day O‘Connor‘s legacy on Supreme Court
Suzanna Sherry, Cal Turner Professor of Law and Leadership at
Vanderbilt Law School, is available to discuss what effect Sandra Day
O‘Connor‘s retirement will have on the Supreme Court, the cases in
which she‘s had the most impact and how she‘s left her mark on the
court.
Sherry has followed O‘Connor‘s decisions since she came on the court in
1981 and has written both a law review article and several encyclopedia
entries about her. Sherry is considered one of the top scholars in the
field of constitutional law and the Supreme Court. She often is asked
to provide federal district and court of appeals judges with a review
of recently completed U.S. Supreme Court terms.
Media can reach Sherry by calling 615-322-2706, a 24/7 number.
Politics of Presidential Appointment to Court
Stefanie Lindquist, associate professor of law and political science,
can discuss the politics surrounding judicial appointments to the U.S.
Supreme Court. Lindquist says Justice O‘Connor‘s role as a swing voter
moderating the impact of conservatives on the court makes her
retirement more pivotal than that of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Her retirement will mobilize the left and place President Bush in a
political box as most of the people he is considering for the Supreme
Court are conservatives, she says.
Stefanie Lindquist has written or co-written numerous articles and made
presentations including “The Impact of Presidential Appointments to the
U.S. Supreme Court”; “Not the Whole Story: The Impact of the Justices‘
Values on Supreme Court Decision Making”; “Weakening the Ties that
Bind: Cohesive and Divisive Voting within Presidential Blocs on the
U.S. Supreme Court”; and “Judicial Review in the Rehnquist Court:
Explaining Justices‘ Responses to Constitutional Challenges.” She is
working on an article about judicial activism in the Supreme Court.
Media can reach Lindquist by calling 615-322-2706, a 24/7 number.
Media contact: Susanne Hicks, (615) 322-2706
susanne.hicks@vanderbilt.edu