Stevens considers retirement decision

Stevens, the court’s oldest justice at 89, told the magazine he has his “options open.’’ Although he has hired only one law clerk for the nine-month term that will start in October, Stevens said three former clerks had agreed to work for him again should he decide to stay.

He said he will certainly step down before President Obama’s term expires in January 2013. Stevens told the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin that he has “great admiration’’ for the president.

The court’s current term is scheduled to end in late June. Justices typically announce their retirement near the end of a term so that a successor can be seated by October.

Stevens was appointed to the court in 1975 by President Ford. He supports gay and abortion rights and limits on government support for religion. He is the only justice to say the death penalty was unconstitutional.

He has shown few signs of slowing down, playing tennis regularly and writing a 90-page dissent when the court in January struck down restrictions on corporate campaign spending. -- BLOOMBERG NEWS

To wit:

■ In Pennsylvania, Senator Arlen Specter faces voters for the first time since switching from Republican to Democrat in the spring of 2009. He’s opposed in the primary by Representative Joe Sestak, who has enough money to combat Specter’s always well-funded campaigns. To be seen is whether Specter’s strong support from the entirety of the state and national Democratic Party — including the White House — will work in his favor or, in the anti-establishment mood that appears to be at work nationally, whether it will be a net neutral or even a negative.

House strategists will have their hands full, too, particularly with the special election to replace the late Democratic Representative John Murtha in the state’s southwestern 12th district. Former Murtha district director Mark Critz will face off against businessman Tim Burns, a Republican, in the only district in the country that was carried by Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, in the 2004 presidential race and by Senator John McCain, a Republican, four years later.

■ In Arkansas, liberals nationwide have invested their hopes (and money) in Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, who is challenging incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln for the Democratic nomination. Halter has attacked Lincoln for her moderation — particularly on health care — and his campaign has been financially fueled by a seven-figure infusion from four liberal interest groups. Organized labor has also pledged to spend millions of dollars to defeat Lincoln, whose poll numbers over the past year have plummeted for both the primary and general election. Liberals have revolted against their own before. Will Arkansas 2010 be a rerun of the defeat of Senator Joe Lieberman, now an independent, at the hands of Ned Lamont, a wealthy businessman, in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary?

■ In Kentucky, the national focus is on the Republican Senate primary, where businessman Rand Paul, the son of Texas congressman and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul, is running against Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s secretary of state. At the start of the race to replace retiring Senator Jim Bunning, Paul was seen as a sideshow, a small bump on Grayson’s road to the nomination. No longer. Paul, using the online fund-raising network pioneered by his father, is at financial parity with Grayson, and polling suggests the two are running neck and neck. Overshadowed — although it shouldn’t be — by the Paul-Grayson fight is the Democratic Senate primary, where Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo is battling state Attorney General Jack Conway. Conway leads in the money chase but Mongiardo has the edge in polling. -- WASHINGTON POST