As we head into the fall election, the fate of the Supreme Court is an issue that should be on most liberals' minds. As has been discussed here, the next president will be absolutely crucial in determining the Court's direction, first and foremost because they will likely soon replace John Paul Stevens, who, at 88 years of age (recently citing his memories of Prohibition-era Chicago in a judicial opinion), is the second-oldest Justice in the Court's history (behind only Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was just short of 91 when he retired).
Beyond him, however, I decided to look at the composition of the Court as a whole; beyond Justice Stevens, what does the next four or eight years hold for President Obama or President McCain, and, more broadly, what do the next 30 years hold for the United States?
As a preface, I'll say that past Stevens, the next President's first term prospects are a bit slim; a full eight years is a better prospect, but, in a greater sense for liberals, there's a depressing lack of opportunity to really influence the Supreme Court's composition, in all likelihood, within an eight-year Obama presidency.
Looking at the results of the recent 5-4 decision over Habeas Corpus, the Court can be thusly divided:
Black Hats
Antonin Scalia - 72 years old
Clarence Thomas -59 '' ''
John Roberts - 53 '' ''
Samuel Alito - 58 '' ''
Average Age = 60.5 '' ''
White Hats
John Paul Stevens - 88 '' ''
Anthony Kennedy - 71 '' ''
David Souter - 68 '' ''
Ruth Bader-Ginsburg - 75 ''
Stephen Breyer - 69 ''
Average Age = 74.2
Now, both these averages are weighted up by the presence of one guy significantly older than the rest of the group; both Scalia and Stevens are 13 years older than the next guy/Ginsburg; without them, the averages are 56.7 and 70.8, respectively. However, that still works out to an average age difference of roughly 14 years between the black hats and the white hats. The three youngest members of the Court are all going to be around for decades to come (Thomas, in particular, barring some unforseen incident, should easily surpass William O. Douglas as the Court's longest-serving member).
It's generally taken as a given that the 88-year-old Stevens will retire (either voluntarily or by dying), and that appointment alone is critical: if he's appointed by President McCain, at best we're looking at another Anthony Kennedy, who is a provisional member of the white hats, and at worst another Alito; replacing Stevens with a 50-something Alito clone would install essentially a permanent 5-member ultraconservative majority for a decade or more.
Discounting that nightmare scenario (and the polls give us good hope in that regard), and say that President Obama appoints a suitably liberal replacement for the white hats' anchor. What then?
With Stevens gone, the next-oldest Justice is Bader-Ginsburg, another white hat, and she's 13 years younger; after her is Scalia, at 16 years younger, then Kennedy, at 17.
Here’s everyone who’s retired from the Court since 1980 (the first having retired to be replaced by Sandra Day O’Connor, herself the most recent retirement):
1981 - Potter Stewart - 66 years old (retirement) - 23 years of service
1986 - Warren Burger - 79 (retirement) - 17
1987 - Lewis Powell - 80 (retirement) - 15
1990 - William J. Brennan - 84 (retirement) - 34
1991 - Thurgood Marshall - 83 (retirement) - 24
1993 - Byron White - 76 (retirement) - 31
1994 - Harry Blackmun - 86 (retirement) - 24
2006 - William Rehnquist - 81 (death) - 33
2006 - Sandra Day O’Connor - 76 (retirement) - 25
Average retirement age = 79
Average years of service = 25
If you remove Stewart (whose retirement is rather freakishly early), you get a slight bump to 80.6. So, the average retirement age is around 80 years old, while the average time spent on the Court is 25 years.
So, first off, it would've been great if O'Connor had shot for average age length.
Bader-Ginsburg is about 5 years from the average retirement age, and about 10 years from the average service length; Scalia, meanwhile, is 8 years from the average retirement age, but only 3 years away from the average service length. Kennedy is 9 and 4 years, respectively.
With a long-view to the future of the Court, 2008 will save the 5-4 majority, but, after that, the process of rolling back the reactionary judiciary is dodgy; in 8 years, President Obama might replace one of the other super-reliable liberals, Ginsburg, with another of the same type, but we liberals only get one crack a the 4-member black hat block in the next thirty years, the replacement of Scalia, and the chances of that coming during an Obama Presidency are cloudy. Whoever wins in 2016 is more likely to get the honours. Equally valuable would be replacing Kennedy with someone more reliably liberal.
Assuming we manage both those in the next decade, we're then basically back to the Clinton years, with Roberts, Thomas, and Alito as the new Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas (Democrats never get to appoint the Chief anymore, do they?).