Ford Impact on the Courts

There are a lot of obituaries on Gerald Ford around but I found this on SCOTUSBlog to be unique, Gerald Ford's impact on the Court.

Ford appointed Justice John Paul Stevens to the court 31 years ago. "To Ford's credit, the selection of Stevens for the Court was widely regarded at the time as a choice made primarily upon merit, rather than political advantage -- an example that subsequent presidents have not routinely followed."

Ford as the House Republican leader tried and failed to impeach Steven's predecesor, William Douglas. "Ford's effort to remove Douglas from the Court was widely interpreted as a blatant political maneuver to retaliate for the Senate's rejection of two Richard Nixon nominees to the Supreme Court." When Douglas retired 5 years later, Ford sent him a kind letter.

Ford also in 1970 gave a speech on the House floor that defined an impeachable offense as whatever a majority of the House says it is. Basically no objective standard and allowing pure politics to rule, 25 years later it did.