Not even Supreme Court Justices are immune to cancer. The Supreme Court announced that Cheif Justice William H. Rehnquist has thyroid cancer. Rehnquist is 80 years old and while it is said that thyroid cancer is very treatable, he's 80 years old.
Rehnquist has been on the Supreme Court since Nixon appointed him in 1972 and has been the Chief Justice since 1986 when Reagan promoted him. He is unabashedly conservative. He's tried to overturn Roe v Wade several times, voted against affirmative action and has fought to keep the death penalty as an option. He was the deciding vote in the 2000 vote to stop the counting of votes in Florida thereby giving the election to W.
If he is not well enough to preside during a potential fiasco like during the 2000 election, the court would, most likely, be split 4-4. What happens then? The ruling of the next lowest court is upheld. If that were the case in Florida, when the Supreme Court of Florida ordered the votes to be counted, Al Gore would have been President.
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