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COPYRIGHT 2005 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com
Byline: Debra Rosenberg (With Stuart Taylor Jr., Cliff Sloan, Holly Bailey and Catharine Skipp Graphic by Andrew Romano)
It was meant as an olive branch in a time of escalating hostilities. For months, members of Congress had been railing against federal judges, lambasting their decisions and vying to limit their power. So Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor embarked on a quiet campaign to quell the tensions. Several months ago O'Connor invited a handful of House Republicans to a private lunch at the court. In a small dining room outside her chambers, the group discussed judicial philosophy over sandwiches and a salad sprinkled with walnuts. "It was just the two branches of government reaching out, trying to keep the lines of communication open," says Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio, who's been highly critical of judges like O'Connor who he believes stray from a strict reading of the Constitution. Another critic on the Judiciary Committee, Iowa Rep. Steve King, returned for his second visit. Last year he dined alone with O'Connor after a private tour of the court. Because the justice could not talk about any specific cases--or even controversial issues that might come before her--the conversation had its limits. "We didn't quite get to the meat of our discussion," King admits. "But it opened the dialogue."
The unusual private sessions suggest that concern over the rising tide of anti-judge rhetoric has rocked even the Supreme Court. Though judges have been dragged into the culture wars before, lately the animosity--and a range of new efforts to curb judicial power--have reached fever pitch. Now with...
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