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Justice Blackmun, 75, is a dogged worker who agonizes over ethical and moral issues in major cases. He is deceptively bland, a bookish man with an enormous capacity for work. He is at his desk by 7 a.m., eats breakfast with his clerks at 8, and does not leave until 8 at night When Blackmun first came on the court he was known as Burger's "Minnesota Twin," since he grew up with Burger in St Paul and seemed to follow the chiefs lead docilely. But after two years, Blackmun began to go his own, more liberal way, and Burger never forgave him. Court insiders say that the chief now assigns Blackmun boring opinions as punishment. Blackmun told the Cosmos Club audience last month that he was "never so tired" as at the end of last term and that the job of Justice "is a rotten way to earn a living." Blackmun predicted that there are "bound to be" vacancies over the next four years. Many court watchers think his seat will be among them.
Justice Powell, 77, who was expected to stay on the court for no more than ten years, has now served twelve. Shy and gentlemanly, a former partner in an old-line Richmond law firm, he is personally conservative but not an ideologue. He has tried to be a careful and fair balancer of competing concerns. It was Powell who wrote the swing opinion striking down quotas but upholding affirmative action in the Bakke decision.
Justice White, 67, a former pro-football running back who outmuscles his clerks at pickup basketball games in the court's gymnasium, was long known as a careful jurist who heeded precedent and avoided substituting his personal views. He has the intellect and force to be a natural leader, but he keeps his own counsel, rarely opening up to his colleagues or even his clerks. Lately White seems to be moving to the right. He authored a series of conservative decisions last term on procedural rights for criminals, affirmative action and free speech. White voted with the conservative wing three-quarters of the time in close cases and was in the majority in 20 of 26 cases decided by a 5-to-4 vote.
If the fragile center crumbles or the conservatives get a clear majority through appointments, the Brethren may be of a mind to topple some Warren Court landmarks and perhaps narrow some of the earlier rulings of the Burger Court. The key areas to watch:
Abortion. No Supreme Court decision galls the New Right more than Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that gave women a constitutional right to abortion through the first two trimesters of pregnancy. It is one of the precedents most in jeopardy of reversal if Reagan appoints conservatives to the court. Says Constitutional Lawyer Abrams: "The Justices struggled terribly over Roe vs Wade, as they ought to have. I fear a Reagan Court would not struggle at all. They might simply reverse it."
Two Justices now on the court, White and Rehnquist, dissented in Roe Burger voted with the majority, but is now said to be uncomfortable with the court's decision and would like to find some way at least to water down its sweeping impact