Robert Bork, the judge and legal scholar whose nomination to the US Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan set off a battle for the judiciary that lived on long after the Senate rejected him, has died. He was 85.
Bork died from complications of heart disease at an Arlington, Va., hospital.
His rejection by the Senate in 1987 established new rules for how prospective justices would be selected and vetted.
In nationally televised hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee delved into Bork’s ideology, not just his legal qualifications or competence.
Advocacy groups paid for print and broadcast advertising as part of an unprecedented lobbying campaign against a Supreme Court nominee.
The battle lines formed soon after Reagan announced his selection of Bork, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), the committee chairman, said he would lead the fight against him.
“I don’t have an open mind,” the future vice president said.
“The reason I don’t is that I know this man.”
Bork had criticized civil-rights legislation that barred restaurants, hotels and other public accommodations from discriminating on the basis of race. He declared Roe vs. Wade “an unconstitutional decision,” and he criticized a Supreme Court decision that permitted married couples to buy contraception.
The full Senate’s 58-42 defeat of Bork on Oct. 23 was mostly along party lines, with six Republicans opposing him and two Democrats backing him.
Bork’s first wife, Claire, died in 1980. They had three children, Charles, Ellen and Robert Jr. In 1982, Bork married Mary Ellen Pohl.