NEWS ANALYSIS : Wildlife Ruling Latest Sign of Tilt Toward White House : Supreme Court: Observers note most justices have never held elective office, and are GOP nominees.

WASHINGTON — William H. Rehnquist came to the Supreme Court in 1972 after having served as a Justice Department lawyer who vigorously defended the Richard M. Nixon Administration in battles with Congress. Antonin Scalia had the same job defending the executive branch in the Gerald R. Ford Administration.

Byron R. White came to the court after serving as the No. 2 official in the Justice Department of the John F. Kennedy Administration. And in eight years in the Ronald Reagan Administration, Clarence Thomas regularly did battle with the Democratic Congress, first over his performance at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and then over his qualifications to join the high court.

On Friday, those four justices of the Supreme Court--all alumni of the executive branch--signed on to a legal opinion that all but closes the courthouse door to citizens who want to contest environmental policies of the executive branch, even when Congress encourages such challenges.

In the view of environmental lawyers and scholars who study the high court, the decision shows again its decided tilt in favor of the White House over Congress.

“This is a court that lets Administration agencies decide what the law means, rather than paying attention to the intent of Congress,” said Duke University law professor Walter Dellinger.

Friday’s ruling was reminiscent, he said, of last year’s decision upholding the executive branch’s so-called “gag rule,” which forbade counselors in federally funded family planning clinics from advising pregnant women about abortion. Even though a large majority of the House and Senate disagreed, the court in the case of Rust vs. Sullivan upheld an Administration interpretation of the law that restricts advice about abortion.

The tilt toward the executive branch reflects two distinct trends, said Georgetown University law professor Louis M. Seidman.

First, the court, unlike in earlier eras, does not have members who held elective jobs or played a prominent role in politics before coming to the bench, he said.

For example, in the 1950s and ‘60s, the justices included former U.S. senators such as Hugo Black, Harold Burton and Sherman Minton; former state governors such as Earl Warren and Francis Murphy, and a former city councilman in Potter Stewart.

By contrast, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is the only member of the current court to have served in an elective position. She was elected twice as an Arizona state senator. All the other justices advanced as appointed members of the executive branch or appointed judges.

Second, the court’s deference to the executive branch is attuned to the political lineup in Washington, Seidman suggested.

“It surely has something to do with the fact that the Democrats seem to have a lock on Congress, while the Republicans have had a lock on the White House,” he said. July will mark 25 years since a Democratic appointee was sent to the Supreme Court.

“I think it creates a dangerous concentration of power in the executive branch,” said Durwood J. Zaelke, a lawyer for the Center for International Environmental Law. “This is an increasingly Republican court, and they seemed inclined very much to protect the Republican Administration.”

In the court’s ruling Friday, Scalia wrote that the Constitution forbids allowing judges and environmental activists to second guess the decisions of Administration officials. Congress may have the power to make laws, he said, but it cannot adopt a statute that gives citizens a general right to seek its fair enforcement in the courts.

To do so, Scalia wrote, would be “to permit Congress to transfer from the President to the courts the chief executive’s most important constitutional duty, to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ ”

Wildlife experts brought suit because they said the Reagan Administration had not faithfully executed the law. In the Endangered Species Act of 1973, Congress pledged the United States to the “worldwide protection of endangered . . . and threatened species.”

But in 1983, former Interior Secretary James G. Watt changed federal policy and decreed the act does not apply to American-funded projects outside U.S. borders.

On Friday, the high court, including Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter, who joined most of Scalia’s opinion, threw out the environmentalists’ challenge.

O’Connor joined Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens in dissent. Blackmun condemned Scalia’s opinion for its “unseemly solicitude for the expansion of power of the executive branch” and called it “an invitation to executive lawlessness.”

“As a general matter, the courts owe substantial deference to Congress’ substantive purpose,” he wrote.

By contrast, the court majority has said that it will give “deference” to an administrative agency’s view of the law. As a result, the White House can revise the meaning of a law, even when a majority on Capitol Hill disagrees.

The environmental case turned on whether wildlife experts had “standing” to challenge the Administration’s policies. In earlier rulings, the court had made clear that citizens cannot get a hearing in court unless they face an “actual injury” that can be remedied through a lawsuit.

In the Endangered Species Act, however, Congress specifically authorized citizen suits to make sure the law was vigorously enforced. “Any person may commence a civil suit” against any agency or official “who is alleged to be in violation of any provision” of the act, it said.