Former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork dies

Catalina Camia and David Jackson, USA TODAY | USATODAY

Robert Bork, whose unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination made him a hero to conservatives and a touchstone in the culture wars over abortion and civil rights, died Wednesday. He was 85.

Bork's son and namesake said his father died of complications from heart ailments at a hospital in Arlington, Va.

As a legal scholar and jurist, Bork was an advocate of "originalism" -- the principle that judges should interpret the Constitution the way its framers had intended. While that endeared him to conservatives, Bork's writings and statements expressing his ideology were what led to such fierce scrutiny when he was tapped for the high court.

Edwin Meese, a former attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that Bork should be remembered "as one of the great defenders of the Constitution and constitutional fidelity." Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia called Bork "one of the most influential legal scholars of the last 50 years."

In 1987, Bork was serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia when Reagan nominated him to serve on the Supreme Court. Moderate Lewis Powell was retiring.

Even before the confirmation hearings began, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., said he would lead the fight against Bork.

Bork's nomination roiled the Senate, with Democrats opposed to the judge's stance on civil rights, abortion and other issues, and galvanized liberal and conservative advocacy groups. Bork had said during a 1981 Senate hearing that the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion represented "an unconstitutional decision" and a "judicial usurpation of state legislative authority."

Liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts essentially summed up the view of opponents when he said, "In Robert Bork's America, there is no room at the inn for blacks and no place in the Constitution for women."

The Senate rejected Bork's nomination by a vote of 42-58. The 58 "no" votes still stand as the most against a Supreme Court nominee.

Bork's nomination battle led to the term "to bork," which came to mean to attack nominees based on their ideology. Bork told CNN in 2005 that he regarded his name becoming a verb "as one form of immortality."

"He was unfairly treated by the confirmation process," Meese said. "It's unfortunate for the country when politics overcomes exceptional merit."

Bork first rose to prominence in 1973 as solicitor general, when he fired special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox on the orders of President Richard Nixon. At the time, Attorney General Elliot Richardson had refused Nixon's request and resigned. The next in line, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to dismiss Cox and he was fired.

The incident, known as the Saturday Night Massacre, helped fuel the drive to impeach Nixon over the Watergate affair. Nixon resigned in 1974.

Bork taught at Yale Law School and then served on the federal appeals bench from 1982 to 1988. After leaving the appeals court shortly after his failed Supreme Court nomination, Bork became a writer and commentator and protested what he viewed as the Supreme Court's overreach.

In the 2012 election, Bork led GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's judicial advisory committee.

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said on the magazine's website that Bork was a "superb legal scholar, principled public servant, fine judge and important social critic." Kristol called Bork "a great American."

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, one of the Tea Party favorites elected in 2010, hailed Bork as "one of America's greatest jurists and a brilliant legal mind."

"Despite the unfortunate and unnecessary controversy surrounding his Supreme Court nomination, Judge Bork remained an inspirational figure for those seeking to enforce constitutional limits on the federal government," Lee said in a statement.