Bush's pick is a blow to balance.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Edward Fadeley For The Register-Guard

Regional balance on the U.S. Supreme Court would take a real hit with a new District of Columbia judge winning a lifetime position on the court. And the current gender balance also would be dismantled if a woman justice is replaced by a man, as President Bush now proposes.

There is some imbalance on the high court already. Seven of the nine justices were appointed by presidents of a single political party. Six of the nine did not have a professional life in the West. Now one of the three justices who lived her professional life in the West is stepping down. President Bush is nominating for her replacement a confirmed District of Columbia "Beltway Boy" - someone whose adult professional life has been spent in the shadow of government insiders.

This imbalance may well continue for 30 to 40 years if an Eastern-born male whose professional life has been spent immersed in the culture of the District of Columbia ascends to the court.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Chief Justice William Rehnquist are both from the West. When they leave the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy will be the only one who has had a professional life informed and tinctured by the culture of the Western part of the country. This is not a trivial, mundane or temporary issue. The chief justice says he's not leaving right now, but he will be leaving before a nominee now aged 50 years could be expected to leave. The chief's replacement will most likely also be a government insider.

Having two women on the Supreme Court was a great step forward for our country. Reducing that to one would be bad backsliding. The giant step backward represented by replacing a Western woman with an Eastern man is not in the interests of our country. The damage will last a lifetime.

Nominating someone who has spent years in Washington, D.C., will not preserve the cultural or regional balance that currently exists and has been in place for many years. The new nominee evidences both deficiencies. He creates regional and cultural imbalance and trashes the present gender balance as well.

Selection of a Supreme Court justice is a long-term proposition. We elect a president for four years at a time, and one can serve a total of only eight years. But a Supreme Court Justice serves for life. Two of the current justices have served well over 30 years each, and one of them reports he has no intention of resigning.

With this nomination, the country loses the balance of three from the West and replaces it with three appointed by Bush family presidencies, all with professional lives in the East and, strangely enough, all of them are Beltway Boys - most recently from the District of Columbia Circuit appeals court.

One of the principles of our republic since its inception has been regional balance. When there were just 13 states on the East Coast, regional balance among those states was preserved. Early members of that court were appointed from Maryland (Samuel Chase), New Jersey (William Paterson), Connecticut (Oliver Ellsworth), Virginia (Bushrod Washington), and North Carolina (James Iredell). The first chief justice was John Jay of New York, who soon resigned to seek election as that state's governor.

No doubt the new nominee, John Roberts, is as qualified as the other two Bush family nominees, Justices Clarence Thomas and David Souter - but is that enough reason to short having Westerners and women on the high court of our country?

Edward Fadeley of Creswell served as president of the Oregon Senate and is a former member of the Oregon Supreme Court.

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GUEST VIEWPOINT