Call it coincidence, but in the same week that a big chunk of marble fell from the front facade of the Supreme Court, a heavyweight panel of thinkers convened in Washington to contemplate what would happen if all nine justices of the Supreme Court were to be killed at once.
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American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein, who has been the Paul Revere on such "continuity of government" issues since Sept. 11, acknowledged during the discussion on Nov. 30 that when he first started mulling nightmare scenarios, the Supreme Court was not high on his list of concerns.
Ornstein was more worried about a fuel-laden jet plowing into the Capitol during the State of the Union address or, just as scary, a well-placed briefcase nuclear device going off during a presidential inaugural, wiping out the incoming and outgoing presidents as well as most of the line of succession. But the more he thought about the issue, Ornstein said, the more important the Supreme Court became. For one thing, unlike with the other two branches, there is no provision for quick replacement of Supreme Court justices. Members of Congress are somewhat fungible; the stock can be replenished by governors and elections away from a devastated Washington, D.C. As for the presidency, there is a clear line of succession. But there is no such thing as a backup Supreme Court justice. It's the nine robed ones or no one.
More important, Ornstein realized that several of the doomsday scenarios that could be imagined might pose horrific legal and constitutional issues that would need to be resolved quickly by a credible Supreme Court in the wake of an attack.
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