It is being widely reported this morning that Supreme Court Justice David Souter has decided to resign.

It is expected President Barack Obama will nominate a strongly pro-abortion replacement.

If so, however, that would do little to change the balance of the court, according to some Supreme Court analysts. That’s because while Souter is not identified publicly as being quite as “liberal” as Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, Souter has been a reliably pro-abortion vote on the court even though he was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.

Here is Matthew Franck’s unflattering assessment of Souter’s Supreme Court legacy, posted at National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog:

My fellow Bench Memorandists Ed Whelan and Wendy Long are worried that Justice David Souter could be replaced with someone “even worse” (says Ed), someone who is “a hard-left judicial activist” (says Wendy).

I can think of one or two areas of constitutional law where I have agreed with David Souter, but for the most part he has been a disaster.  On the hot-button issues of abortion, assisted suicide, gay rights, the death penalty, and the place of religion in the public square, Souter has been just as wrong as anyone Obama could name from the worst list Ed and Wendy could come up with.  A more visible “hard-left” justice, with more of a penchant to give speeches, to sound off, to tangle in public with Justices Scalia and Thomas, would fulfill the dreams of liberal law professors to have a hero, but would probably change the course of the Court very little from what its trajectory would be if Souter stayed another 20 years.  In short, I think a Court with Souter staying would be no less likely to do all the bad things on Ed’s list than a Court with Souter replaced by an Obama appointee.