LONDON: In theory, the existence of a Democrat majority in the US Senate should be playing a crucial part in the makeup of the US Supreme Court. No longer will President Bush be able to ensure that his nominations to the court are confirmed, as they have to be, by a compliant Senate judiciary committee.

From now on, that committee can stop him from having his way. But the president’s midterm setback has come too late.

In the last 14 months, he managed to get Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito on the bench, thus giving the conservative wing of the judiciary a 5-4 majority.

He won't, it's true, in his remaining two years be able to turn that into 6-3, but it's not likely either that the more liberal-minded on the court will regain the majority.

It all depends, of course, on what order the current judges die or retire in (they don't have to do the latter).

Justice Stevens is 86, but that doesn't help, because even if his replacement shares his values, the balance of the court won't be affected.

The next oldest, at 73, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is also from the liberal wing.

To be crude about it, what the Democrats need is for a conservative judge to quit the scene, to be replaced by someone who will swing the court back to pre-Bush days.

It may happen; however, it is more likely that the Bush-influenced Supreme Court will last years into the next administration, even if that's a Democrat one.

Remember, though, that judges who get to the Supreme Court don't always behave as their previous reputations predicted -- Stevens himself was once a judicial conservaive, appointed by the Republican President Gerald Ford.

—Dawn/The Guardian News Service