Questioning Mrs. O’Connor

Usually, in this trade, there is somebody at the other end of the telephone who can give you the answer to any question save possibly what the Aztecs were trying to say on their calendar stone. The morning paper even reveals that Shy Di’s uncle, or somebody serving the dynastic concerns of Great Britain, acknowledged that a discreet examination established that she could bear a successor to the throne. As the people in Silicon Valley are fond of saying, “It’s all a problem of software In hardNare, there are no more problems,” Well, I’m still in search of a definite body of knowledge on the question: What exactly can you legitimately ask someone who has been named to the Supreme Court? There are apparenily no hard rules. Such as there are depend for their effect on plausibility. For instance: • Sen. Jones: Mrs. O’Connor, if the Human Life bill is passed into law and its constitutionality is challenged before the court. how would you vote? Mrs. O’Connor: Senator. I don’t think it proper to say how I would vote on a pending matter. For one thing, I would want to study the briefs. hear the oral argum ents and perhaps even ask a question of my own. J : Does that mean that you can 1, make up your mind on the question whether the Congress of the United States has the constitutional right, to cll•dare at what point a biological organism becomes entith •d to the protPciion of the 14th …