With a vacancy to fill and a Constitution to follow, President Bush took little time -- just 18 days -- in sending his nomination of John Roberts to the Senate floor.
When Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced earlier this month that she would resign, it started a process that may change the face of the high court.
Kathryn Kolbert, a member of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at Penn and the executive producer of NPR's 'Justice Talking,' believes that the summer could bring with it not only a new justice, but also a new mindset.
Kolbert has appeared before the high court on multiple occasions -- even playing a key role in arguing a case that upheld Roe v. Wade.
"Justice O'Connor was the deciding vote in the most important cases before the court in recent years," Kolbert said.
"The loss of her on the court throws open the potential of that body changing its mind or modifying its image," she added.
Kolbert is looking forward to the Senate confirmation hearings for John Roberts and believes the hearings will focus on narrow issues.
The Senate "is going to explore his commitment to social justice, his views about federalism and his thoughts on enumerated rights, or things that . are not specifically outlined in the Constitution," Kolbert said.
Although the Senate will probe those and other key issues, it will be difficult to predict how Roberts will rule until he sits on the high court itself.
Kolbert said that Roberts' two-year stint as a District of Columbia circuit court judge was not long enough to examine only those cases Roberts decided.
"Judge Roberts only has a two-year record, so we're not going to know a lot," Kolbert said.
Kolbert cited the issues that could be addressed by the Court in the near future as indicators of Roberts' effect on the Supreme Court.
In the upcoming term, "issues like abortion, assisted dying, free speech issues, federalism [and] prayer in schools will all be important," Kolbert said.
With Roberts likely to take over O'Connor's role as the court's deciding vote in many cases, it is unclear what the future holds.
"It takes us from a time when this court has been consistent to one in which we won't know how they will rule in a variety of important decisions," Kolbert said
"At my most optimistic . I think justices change when they join the court. I think the prudent course at the moment is to have the Senate conduct their constitutional duties to explore the philosophy of John Roberts," she said.
