JPod’s emailer is certainly correct about the various functions a Chief Justice performs, but in the grand scheme of things how important are these functions really? NRO’s editorial on Rehnquist’s passing includes this line: “If Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had been chief justice over the last 30 years and Rehnquist an associate justice, it is hard to believe that the Court’s jurisprudence would look markedly different.” That sounds right to me. I’d rather have conservatives spend their energies on getting Scalia allies on the Court than on making him Chief–and I’d certainly like to avoid a scenario where conservatives are so exicted about a Scalia Court that they overlook deficiencies in whoever would replace him as an associate justice.