Chief Justice
 

Why is Chief Justice a bid deal? My understanding is that the only additional power the chief justice has is routine administrative stuff for the court. This actually seems like it would reduce a justice's time available to write opinions, etc.

Would it be smart for Bush to try and throw the Dems a bone if and when Rhenquist retires and nominate someone more moderate like Kennedy or O'Connor to chief justice as part of a deal where a more conservative apppointee would pass the senate without much of a fight?

It would make Bush seem like more of a compromiser without really giving anything to the Democrats. Is there any problem to this logic that I'm missing?

Re: Chief Justice
 

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Why is Chief Justice a bid deal? My understanding is that the only additional power the chief justice has is routine administrative stuff for the court. This actually seems like it would reduce a justice's time available to write opinions, etc.

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Not quite. The Chief also gets to decide who writes the opinion when he is in the majority. This can be useful, and close observers have suspected that Rhenquist has a couple of times voted against his preference in order to assign himself an opinion.

That having been said, you are basically right -- Chief is more symbolic/administrative than anything else. That's why I would love to see Scalia get the nomination.