The Nine [135]
O’Connor and Kennedy were the chief beneficiaries of this ideological shift, as they controlled the outcome of more cases and won assignments from Stevens for such opinions as Lawrence, Grutter, and Hamdi. But in his customary quiet way, David Souter was also swept up in the change, which helped pull him out of his post–Bushv. Gore funk.
Souter had minimal financial obligations and a lifestyle that hovered somewhere between modest and ascetic. He had no wife, no children, a venerable family homestead in New Hampshire, and a small apartment in an unfashionable neighborhood in Washington. He worked about seventy hours a week, and his main hobby was jogging. In the annual disclosures that the justices are required to file, Scalia reported being reimbursed in 2003 by universities and bar associations for twenty-one trips, several of them abroad; O’Connor came in second among the justices with nineteen. Souter was last, as usual, with none. He also reported no outside income from speeches or publications and no gifts.
Still, Souter’s New England frugality was one factor that kept him on the Court when he thought about resigning after Bush v. Gore. Years earlier, he had invested in local bank stocks in his home region, and after a series of takeovers, the value of his shares had soared. By 2003, he reported cash and stock assets of between $5.2 million and $25.5 million, nearly tying with Ginsburg for the highest on the Court. But Souter was also acutely aware that federal judges were entitled to retire with full salary after fifteen years on the bench, a benefit that would become available to him in 2005, when he would be sixty-six. A resignation before that point would forfeit his full pension, so he told friends he thought it would be unwise to forgo that bounty. It was characteristic of his quirky personality that he would worry about his pension when he had little need for it—and almost nothing to spend it on—but Souter’s colleagues were used to his eccentricities.
In fact, Souter’s gentle charm made him probably the best liked of the justices among his peers, and he returned their affection, which was one reason he stayed on. He was a special favorite of the women justices, who took an almost maternal interest in him, though he was only six years younger than Ginsburg and nine years younger than O’Connor. Ginsburg often invited him to sample her husband Marty’s gourmet cooking and to attend events where they could share their love of classical music. She also often noted proudly that she and Souter, unlike the rest of their colleagues, never engaged in caustic or bitter commentary in their dissenting opinions.
O’Connor had a more direct agenda with Souter. She wanted to get him married off. According to her biographer Joan Biskupic, O’Connor boasted about her matchmaking skills, claiming she had once been known as the “Yenta of Paradise Valley,” her posh neighborhood in Phoenix. She invited Souter to many of her parties, including one, early in Souter’s tenure, that featured “Fajitas and frivolity…Dress: Country Western or Effete Eastern.” Over the years, practically everyone Souter knew in Washington, including First Lady Barbara Bush, tried to fix him up. None succeeded. One of his fellow justices once prevailed on Souter to take a woman out to dinner, and she reported back that she thought the evening had gone very well—until the end. Souter took her home, told her what a good time he had, then added: “Let’s do this again next year.”
Washington remained anathema to him, not least because of an incident that took place on April 30, 2004. Souter was taking his nightly