RBG Is Hardly the First Supreme Court Justice to Mess With Presidential Politics

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/ruth-bader-ginsburg-donald-trump-supreme-court-politics-history-214044

July 2016

As recently as election night, 2000, when NBC declared for Democratic candidate Al Gore, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told the guests at an election party that the Democrat’s election victory was “terrible.” (Of course, her criticism was a little premature, as we now know.) She then went on to participate in making sure nothing so terrible would happen, casting the crucial fifth vote in Bush v. Gore without blinking an eye. O’Connor had a long history of rooting for the Bushes in presidential elections. In 1988, she wrote to longtime political ally Senator Barry Goldwater, in a letter now in his public archives, that she “would be thankful if George B wins. It is vital for the Court and the nation that he does.”
[O'Connor was appointed to the court in 1981 by Ronald Reagan.]

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According to Richard Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman, one of O’Connor’s chief sponsors for her Supreme Court seat, Chief Justice Warren Burger, discussed legal matters with President Nixon all the time, including the subject of a pending 1970 case in which the government was participating. Burger wasn’t blabbing to his political sponsor about anything really important, though—just one of the most politically explosive issues of the day: school busing.
According to Richard Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman, one of O’Connor’s chief sponsors for her Supreme Court seat, Chief Justice Warren Burger, discussed legal matters with President Nixon all the time, including the subject of a pending 1970 case in which the government was participating. Burger wasn’t blabbing to his political sponsor about anything really important, though—just one of the most politically explosive issues of the day: school busing.

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