Bush Nominates John G. Roberts for Supreme Court

QueEx · Jul 20, 2005

<center>Bush Nominates John G. Roberts, Jr.
for Supreme Court</center>

<center>

SCOTUS_BUSH.sff_WHRE204_20050719214732.jpg

President Bush introduces federal appeals court Judge John G. Roberts Jr.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005, as his first nominee for the Supreme Court Roberts is
a conservative whose nomination could trigger a tumultuous battle over the
direction of the nation's highest court. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)</center>

Jul 19, 10:17 PM (ET)

By DEB RIECHMANN

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush named federal appeals judge John G. Roberts Jr. on Tuesday to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy in a decade, delighting Republicans and unsettling Democrats by picking a young jurist of impeccably conservative credentials.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, the 50-year-old Roberts would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, long a swing vote on a divided court on abortion, affirmative action, states' rights and other volatile issues.

In a prime-time, nationally televised announcement at the White House, Bush said Roberts would "strictly apply the Constitution in laws, not legislate from the bench."

In brief remarks of his own, Roberts said he has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court in a career as a private attorney and government lawyer. "I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don't think it was just from the nerves," he said.

"I look forward to the next step in the process before the United States Senate," he added.

That was a reference to Senate confirmation hearings, expected in late August or early September - and a vote on a timetable that would allow him to take his place on the court by the time a new term begins in October.

Reaction from Republican senators was strongly supportive. "He is a brilliant constitutional lawyer with unquestioned integrity," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee issued a statement called for confirmation proceedings that "treat Judge Roberts with dignity and respect." Echoing a refrain from this spring's a bitter struggle over Bush's conservative appeals court nominees, he called for a yes-or-no vote before the court's term begins Oct 3.

Democratic response was measured, but initially at least, offered no hint of a filibuster.

"The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Referring to planned hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Reid said, "I will not prejudge this nomination. I look forward to learning more about Judge Roberts."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Democrats would want to probe Roberts' views to see whether he holds "mainstream values."

Abortion - arguably the most politically charged issue to confront Congress and the courts - swiftly emerged as a point of contention.

The abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America announced its opposition to Roberts when word of his appointment leaked before Bush's formal announcement.

In a written statement, the organization cited a brief Roberts had filed with the Supreme Court while serving as deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration. In the decision, Roberts said "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled," referring to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established a woman's right to abortion.

The National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion, countered with a statement of its own. "Liberal pressure groups will insist that Senate Democrats filibuster against Judge Roberts, unless he pledges in advance to vote against allowing elected legislators to place meaningful limits on abortion," said the group's legislative director, Douglas Johnson. "Millions of Americans will be watching to see if the Democratic senators bow to these demands."

QueEx · Jul 20, 2005

Who is John G. Roberts, Jr. ???

Perhaps, in the days to come, we might find out.

QyeEx

Greed · Jul 20, 2005

only 50 huh? so that means 30 years of him pissing people off.

90 votes 45 days from now. democrats wont fight.

QueEx · Jul 20, 2005

People need to get an understanding of what he thinks and what his judicial philosophy is before bricks fly. But you're right, he could possibly be around in 2030 -- more reason to scrutinize him.

QueEx

QueEx · Jul 20, 2005

Greed said:
.....

By the way, I threw a "French" brick at you in a post theother day .... but you remained in lurkermode.

QueEx

QueEx · Jul 21, 2005

Here is an opinion John G. Roberts wrote during his two years on
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In a zero tolerance case, the court upheld the arrest and booking
of a 12-year-old girl for eating a French fry on the Washington,
D.C., subway system, where consuming food is prohibited by law.
Her lawyers challenged the legality of her arrest. In October 2004,
Roberts wrote the majority opinion rejecting her contentions.


.

<center>The French Fry Case

Hedgepeth vs.

Washington Metro Authority</center>

No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation. A 12-year-old girl was arrested, searched and handcuffed. Her shoelaces were removed, and she was transported in the windowless rear compartment of a police vehicle to a juvenile processing center, where she was booked, fingerprinted and detained until released to her mother some three hours later — all for eating a single French fry in a Metrorail station.

The child was frightened, embarrassed and crying throughout the ordeal. The district court described the policies that led to her arrest as "foolish," and indeed the policies were changed after those responsible endured the sort of publicity reserved for adults who make young girls cry.

The question before us, however, is not whether these policies were a bad idea, but whether they violated the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. Like the district court, we conclude that they did not, and accordingly we affirm….

Committing an offense under District of Columbia law, such as eating in a Metrorail station, constitutes a "delinquent act." … The undercover operation [to catch offenders] was in effect on Oct. 23, 2000, when 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth and a classmate entered the Tenleytown/AU station on their way home from school.

Ansche had stopped at a fast-food restaurant on the way and ordered a bag of French fries — to go. While waiting for her companion to purchase a fare-card, Ansche removed and ate a French fry from the take-out bag she was holding. After proceeding through the fare-gate, Ansche was stopped by a plainclothes Metro Transit Police officer, who identified himself and informed her that he was arresting her for eating in the Metrorail station….

Although Ansche is correct that the Supreme Court cases applying rational basis review to classifications based on age all involved classifications burdening the elderly … she has presented us with no persuasive reasons to conclude that classifications burdening children should be treated differently. Heightened scrutiny is reserved for classifications based on factors that "are so seldom relevant to the achievement of any legitimate state interest that laws grounded in such considerations are deemed to reflect prejudice and antipathy." …

Youth is not such a factor — young age is quite often relevant to valid state concerns, as the Constitution itself attests…. Youth is not "so seldom relevant" to legitimate state concerns that we should assume that any law singling out the young is probably the result of anti-youth animus. Youth is more often relevant than old age, which we know does not trigger heightened scrutiny.

Nor are the characteristics that define the young markedly more obvious or distinguishing than those that define the old. In fact, the characteristics are simply opposite sides of the same coin — age. Youth is also far less "immutable" than old age: minors mature to majority and literally outgrow their prior status; the old can but grow more so….

The law of this land does not recognize a fundamental right to freedom of movement when there is probable cause for arrest…. That is true even with respect to minor offenses…. Ansche argues that these cases under the 4th Amendment do not resolve the equal protection claim, and that is surely correct: simply because a practice passes muster under the 4th Amendment (arrest based on probable cause) does not mean that unequal treatment with respect to that practice is consistent with equal protection….

Issuing a citation to a child is complicated by the fact that there is often no ready way to ensure that the child is providing truthful or accurate identifying information. A child often will not be carrying a form of identification, and there is nothing to stop one from giving an officer a false name — an entirely fanciful one or, better yet, the name of the miscreant who pushed them on the playground that morning. In this situation parents would be none the wiser concerning the behavior of their children.

The correction of straying youth is an undisputed state interest and one different from enforcing the law against adults. Because parents and guardians play an essential role in that rehabilitative process, it is reasonable for the district to seek to ensure their participation, and the method chosen — detention until the parent is notified and retrieves the child — certainly does that, in a way issuing a citation might not.

The district court had and we too may have thoughts on the wisdom of this policy choice — it is far from clear that the gains in certainty of notification are worth the youthful trauma and tears — but it is not our place to second-guess such legislative judgments.

QueEx · Jul 21, 2005

And, here's another opinion written by John G. Roberts.

The Rancho Viejo development company, which proposed
building a housing project in San Diego County, challenged
use of the Endangered Species Act to protect the arroyo
toad as an unconstitutional exercise of federal authority
under the commerce clause. A federal trial judge's decision
to dismiss the suit was upheld by a three-judge appeals
panel, and in October 2004, the request to have the case
reheard by the full court was turned down.

Roberts dissented on the denial of rehearing en banc, arguing
that there was no interstate commerce rationale for protecting
a species that lives only in California.

.

<center>The Toad Case

Rancho Viejo, LLC, Appellant

vs. Gale A. Norton, Secretary of the Interior, et al., Appellees</center>

The panel's opinion in effect asks whether the challenged regulation substantially affects interstate commerce, rather than whether the activity being regulated does so. Thus, the panel sustains the application of the act in this case because Rancho Viejo's commercial development constitutes interstate commerce and the regulation impinges on that development, not because the incidental taking of arroyo toads can be said to be interstate commerce….

Such an approach seems inconsistent with the Supreme Court's holdings in United States vs. Lopez … and United States vs. Morrison…. The court in those cases upheld facial commerce clause challenges to legislation prohibiting the possession of firearms in school zones and violence against women. Given United States vs. Salerno … such a facial challenge can succeed only if there are no circumstances in which the act at issue can be applied without violating the commerce clause. Under the panel's approach in this case, however, if the defendant in Lopez possessed the firearm because he was part of an interstate ring and had brought it to the school to sell it, or the defendant in Morrison assaulted his victims to promote interstate extortion, then clearly the challenged regulations in those cases would have substantially affected interstate commerce, and the facial commerce clause challenges would have failed.

That is precisely what the 5th Circuit concluded recently in rejecting the approach the panel took in this case…. As the 5th Circuit explained, "looking primarily beyond the regulated activity … would 'effectually obliterate' the limiting purpose of the commerce clause," and, under such an approach, "the facial challenges in Lopez and Morrison would have failed." …

The panel's approach in this case leads to the result that regulating the taking of a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California constitutes regulating "commerce … among the several states." … To be fair, the panel faithfully applied National Assn. of Home Builders vs. Babbitt …. En banc review is appropriate because the approach of the panel in this case and NAHB now conflicts with the opinion of a sister circuit — a fact confirmed by that circuit's quotation from the NAHB dissent…. Such review would also afford the opportunity to consider alternative grounds for sustaining application of the act that may be more consistent with Supreme Court precedent.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...1jul21,0,5687037.story?coll=la-home-headlines

muckraker10021 · Jul 24, 2005

<img src="http://www.thenation.com/images/thenation_print.gif">

The Stakes in Roberts's Nomination



by BRUCE SHAPIRO

July 20, 2005

Judge John Roberts is a white male who has spent his entire adult life in Washington. Those facts themselves mean nothing, but they do beg a question: What could be so compelling about Judge Roberts as a Supreme Court candidate that the White House was willing to forswear all claims on ethnic diversity and all geographical political advantage, not to mention the express desire of Laura Bush and countless other women to see a nominee of their gender?

To understand Judge Roberts's unique appeal, forget for a moment "conservative," "textualist," "original intent" and the other shorthand with which get-ahead Republican law school grads watermark their résumés. Look instead at a single case decided by Judge Roberts and two other members of the DC Court of Appeals less than a week ago. As it happened, the day before that ruling was released, President Bush interviewed Judge Roberts at the White House. Judge Roberts, it is widely reported, aced his interview; but his appeals court decision due for publication just twenty-four hours later--about the rights of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay--was, in effect, the essay question.

Here is the question: Do the obligations of the Geneva Conventions apply to prisoners seized in Afghanistan? And can the President convene military trials, unreviewable by any courts and Congress? The case involves Salim Ahmed Hamdan, allegedly a driver for Osama bin Laden, captured on the post-9/11 battlefield and held in Camp Delta. Last year a federal judge shut down Hamdan's trial and up to a dozen other military tribunals. As convened by the Pentagon, those drumhead tribunals, wrote the lower court, amounted to a violation of the Geneva Treaty and an unconstitutional seizure of power by the President.

Whatever Judge Roberts's performance in his interview with the President, whatever his sterling report card as litigator and jurist, we can be sure there was only one acceptable answer to the Guantánamo essay question, and the judge gave it. He voted, along with his two appeals court colleagues, all three of them Reagan or Bush appointees, against Geneva Convention protections for Guantánamo captives, in scathing language ordering the military tribunals forward, empowering the President, and the President alone, to determine those prisoners' fate.

More than anything else, to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court, the Bush White House sought an advocate for ever-expanding executive branch powers. With a raft of antiterrorism and Patriot Act cases in the judicial pipeline, seeking relief from federal laws and international standards on interrogation, torture and the treatment of prisoners, the Bush Administration badly needs a friend like Roberts on the Supreme Court--a friend who shares its view that the President's authority in the "war on terror" is above judicial review, and counts more than acts of Congress or international treaties. In other words, if you like the Patriot Act and Guantánamo, you'll love John Roberts.

Roberts started his career as a protégé of Justice Rehnquist. The Chief Justice's distinctly activist vision--of conservative means of expanding the authority of presidents while stripping back federal regulations on business and civil rights--shaped Roberts's views. Then Roberts spent years embedded in the executive branch, arguing cases in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Reagan and first Bush Administrations' efforts to promote school prayer, restrict abortion and punish flag desecrators.

Perhaps most telling is Roberts's brief track record on the federal bench on individual rights, a threshold issue not just for the left but conservative libertarians. A few years back, Washington, DC, police arrested a child for eating a single french fry on the Metro, during a zero-tolerance crackdown on subway-rule violators: arrrested her, handcuffed her, fingerprinted her, threw her in the back of a squad car and held that 12-year-old in lockup for three hours. The child's mother sensibly pointed out in a lawsuit that an adult committing the same offense would have been issued a ticket, not treated like a dangerous felon. Judge Roberts rejected the mother's plea for sanity: Arresting a 12-year-old like a suspect on Cops for eating on the subway, Roberts wrote, advanced "the legitimate goal of promoting parental awareness and involvement with children who commit delinquent acts." Even in red states, parents may not spare much enthusiasm for a judge who would lock up their 12-year-old for public consumption of McDonald's fries.

The french-fry case suggests that behind Judge Roberts's famous amiablity--which has won him influential friends in both parties--lies a far more doctrinaire personality. Whiffs of that ideological rigidity leak out of his careful opinions and briefs. Hostility to environmental regulation? Yes, at least in his ruling in a California land-development case in which he sought to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Hostility to reproductive rights? As a deputy to solicitor general Ken Starr in the Reagan years, he curried favor with the antiabortion right by adding an irrelevant footnote to his briefs in a family-planning-funding case, arguing that Roe v. Wade was "wrongly decided and should be overturned." In his appeals-court confirmation hearings, Roberts said this footnote simply reflected Administration policy, adding that he regards Roe as settled law; but his willingness to go beyond the call of duty and politicize his briefs suggests, at a minimum, enthusiasm for revisiting the issue.

President Bush may not have had a "litmus test" on Roe v. Wade, but there was one very clear litmus test: membership in the insular GOP judicial patronage network. Of the names floated as Supreme Court finalists in the past week, most were members of the Federalist Society, a GOP employment agency masquerading as conservative counterweight to the ABA. Judge Roberts--whose Supreme Court aspirations have long been widely known in Washington--is a prince of the right-wing legal family.

The President has also, after a long search, managed to find a Supreme Court candidate who in many ways looks remarkably like himself: born in the Northeast (in Roberts's case, Buffalo), heir to old-line power (his father was a US Steel executive), moved to a red state (Indiana), Ivy League-educated (Harvard, Harvard Law). From the day of his graduation from law school, Judge Roberts has held no job except those secured through conservative Republican patronage. With the selection of Judge Roberts, President Bush hopes that the Rehnquist Revolution will continue long after the ailing Chief Justice retires. The stakes in Roberts's nomination could not be higher.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050801&s=shapiro2



<hr noshade color="#0000FF" size="14"></hr>



Nominee John G. Roberts (R-Corporate Shill)



By David Sirota

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/david-sirota/is-that-a-pool-cue-in-cor_3498.html">A few weeks ago</a> I said the real way to tell how President Bush was going to select a Supreme Court nominee would be to see who the biggest corporate shill on the list of contenders was. And as John G. Roberts nomination shows, I was right. At the beginning of the month, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was getting very involved in the Supreme Court fight. Specifically, "the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-lobby2jul02,1,5466342,full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage">Chamber forwarded to the White House</a> its review of federal judges from each circuit, with ratings of each judge based on rulings that concern business." In other words, Big Business sent their marching orders over to President Bush. Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Times today reports that <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-legal22jul22,1,4141505.story?coll=la-headlines-politics">Roberts is Corporate America's golden boy</a>,handpicked by - you guessed it - the Chamber of Commerce. "He was the go-to lawyer for the business community. They are very comfortable with him," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who signed a letter in 2002 supporting Roberts' nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "He definitely is a friend of the chamber. Of all the candidates, he is the one they knew best."

As I said before, the media makes this stuff out to be all "liberal" vs.
"conservative" when in fact the real paradigm is Corporate America vs.
Everyone Else. This just proves it.

http://www.davidsirota.com/

QueEx · Jul 28, 2005

QueEx said:

Who is John G. Roberts, Jr. ???

Perhaps, in the days to come, we might find out.

QyeEx

.

<center>Roberts Documents Released</center>

CBS News
July 27, 2005

(AP) Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as a young government lawyer pushed for a limited Supreme Court role on hot-button issues in the 1980s such as death penalty appeals, newly released documents show.

Senate Democrats quickly pressed for the release of more material that would shed light on the high court nominee's views.

Roberts was 26 when he served in the Justice Department as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith during the Reagan administration. The 1981-82 files released Tuesday by the National Archives paint a picture of a politically savvy attorney who showed some impatience with "judicial activism."

ON PRISONER ISSUES
One issue Roberts focused on was appeals by prisoners, who in the 1980s had several avenues of challenging their sentences in both state and federal courts. Since then, courts generally have limited prisoners' options, with justices this past term clashing over how closely they should scrutinize death penalty sentences by state courts.

The availability of federal court appeals, "particularly for state prisoners, goes far to making a mockery of the entire criminal justice system," Roberts wrote in a Nov. 12, 1981, memorandum, decrying the endless appeals that "obscures the rare serious claim."

ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
Roberts also counseled former President Ronald Reagan's administration against some affirmative action policies, issuing a strong criticism of a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report urging broader use of racial preferences.

He noted that a city police department had recruited minority cadets only to see them fail or drop out. "There is no recognition of the obvious reason for failure: The affirmative action program required the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates," Roberts wrote.

Death penalty, affirmative action and abortion are all divisive issues on which Sandra Day O'Connor, the retiring justice whom Roberts has been nominated to replace, has been the swing vote. In recent terms, she has voted to uphold the use of race in college admissions and expressed concern about attorney competency in death penalty cases, so Roberts' views offer some insight in how key decisions could change.

As Roberts, 50, continued to make courtesy calls on senators Tuesday, Senate Republicans and the White House worked to try to assure a confirmation vote before the court begins a new term.

"Our duty is to have a justice seated by the first Monday in October, which is October 3rd," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Specter said he would convene hearings as early as Aug. 29 if necessary to meet that timetable. A later date perhaps Sept. 6 also was possible, he said, depending on what type of assurances Democrats were willing to make.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he wanted to cooperate with the Republican party.

"But moving forward on a schedule will also require the White House's cooperation with senators in answering their questions about this nomination," Leahy added.

Leahy and other Democrats on the panel wrote to President George W. Bush that they were disappointed that the White House has declared some documents off limits.

The White House is invoking attorney-client privilege in withholding legal writings by Roberts when he was principal deputy solicitor general under former President George H.W. Bush.

"From what we know now, John Roberts had a hand in some of the most aggressive assaults on civil rights protections during the Reagan administration," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement. "The White House should make all relevant documents available so that the Senate can make an informed decision."

The disagreement over access to decades-old government records flared as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested that, if confirmed, Roberts would not be bound by an earlier statement that the landmark 1973 ruling that established a woman's right to an abortion was settled law.

Gonzales told The Associated Press in an interview that "a Supreme Court justice is not obliged to follow precedent if you believe it's wrong."

Committee aides began sifting through the first of thousands of documents to be made available, dating from Roberts' tenure as a special assistant in the Justice Department, and in the White House counsel's office in 1983-86.

ADVISING O'CONNOR FOR CONFIRMATION
As a historical footnote, one memo was hard to beat a one-page paper in which the young Roberts reported that beginning "my first day on the job" he had been helping O'Connor prep for her own confirmation hearings to the high court.

"The approach was to avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the court, but demonstrating in the response a firm command of the subject area and awareness of the relevant precedents and arguments," Roberts wrote in the Sept. 17, 1981, memo.

ON LIMITING THE COURTS ABILITY TO HEAR SOCIAL CASES
Other memos from 1982 showed Roberts advising Smith to support Republican-led efforts in Congress to limit the federal judiciary's power to decide social issues such as abortion and school prayer.

In a document dated Feb. 16, 1982, Roberts offered further suggestions to Smith, who was girding for an appearance before conservatives unhappy with judicial nominations early in the Reagan administration.

Addressing criticism that judicial nominations weren't "ideologically committed to the president's policies," Roberts suggested something other than a "yes they are" answer.

"Rather, we should shift the debate and briefly touch on our judicial restraint themes," he wrote. "It really should not matter what the personal ideology of our appointees may be, so long as they recognize that their ideology should have no role in the decisional process."

It is a point that the Bush administration is making now that regardless of Roberts' personal views, he will rule based on the Constitution and court precedent.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/27/supremecourt/main712129.shtml

QueEx · Aug 8, 2005

<center>Conservatives Remain Steady in Support of Roberts</center>
<center>Work on Gay Rights Case Fails To Change Stance on Nomination</center>

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005; Page A02

The most ardent supporters of John G. Roberts Jr. have had a few moments of heartburn in the month since President Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court, but conservative advocacy groups say that nothing they have learned during the public dissection of his record has dampened their fundamental support.

In a sign that the backing remains solid on the right despite the revelation last week that he helped gay rights activists win a landmark Supreme Court case in 1996, organizers said Roberts's cause will be repeatedly and energetically embraced by speakers at "Justice Sunday II," a Family Research Council production that will be broadcast live to churches around the country next weekend from Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville. Speakers include House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Charles Colson, the former Nixon administration official who heads Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Christian activists had been forced into a snap reassessment when the Los Angeles Times revealed on Thursday that Roberts had taken a limited pro bono role as a coach for gay rights groups involved in the 1996 case, Romer v. Evans , when he was working at the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson.

The case was one of three that James Dobson, founder and chairman of the conservative Focus on the Family, singled out when he said on his nationally syndicated radio show two years ago that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, is "the most dangerous man in America."

In their public statements, religious conservatives held their tongues. Tom Minnery, vice president of public policy at Focus on the Family, said the group views the revelation about Roberts's work for gay rights groups as "disappointing news."

"But we understand his role within his law firm, and it doesn't alter our view of him," Minnery said. "We believe he'll be a Supreme Court justice who will interpret the Constitution as it was written, not as he'd like it to be."

Some Republican strategists said they have calculated that support for Roberts among Republican senators is locked down and that Roberts's supporters want to try to attract Democrats by packaging him as more centrist and less doctrinaire than had originally been assumed.

The White House said Roberts worked on the 1996 case for less than 10 hours and that he always agreed when someone at his law firm asked for help on a pro bono case in his area of expertise, appellate and Supreme Court arguments.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, constantly monitors the mood of a broad spectrum of economic and social conservatives. He said they remain "generally happy" with Roberts.

"Everyone who knows him says he's fine, says he's good," Norquist said. "I don't know anyone in the movement who isn't pleased." As for the 1996 Colorado case, Norquist said, "Anyone who reacts poorly to that is telling you more about themselves than about Roberts."

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said in an interview that he had "anticipated some bumps along the way" as conservatives learned more about Roberts. Echoing President Ronald Reagan's stance toward the Soviet Union, he said his group's position will be to "trust and verify."

"We trust that the president understands that his legacy in large part will be based on the Supreme Court and the nominations he makes," Perkins said. "And we trust the statements that John Roberts has made about his judicial philosophy and the opinions he has written. We will verify that through the confirmation hearings."

Perkins even headlined an e-mail to the group's supporters "Trust Yet Verify." He wrote that his initial reaction to the news about Roberts's pro bono work was that this was a case of "aiding and abetting," but said he is now urging "caution in jumping to that conclusion."

The suggestion by Perkins that conservatives, as well as liberals, want a thorough grilling for Roberts at his nationally televised confirmation hearings -- scheduled to begin Sept. 6 -- reflects the residual fear on the right that Roberts is opaque enough that he could prove to be a rerun of Justice David H. Souter. When nominated by President George H.W. Bush, Souter was little known and was assumed to be conservative, but he became part of the court's liberal bloc.

Sean Rushton, executive director of the Bush-backing Committee for Justice, called the imbroglio over the Romer case "a red herring meant to divide the right."

Many conservatives questioned the motives of the source of the stories about Roberts and the gay rights case -- Walter Smith, who headed the pro bono program at Hogan from 1993 to 1997. Smith is now executive director of the nonprofit D.C. Appleseed Center, which runs projects on issues including drinking water, voting rights and AIDS. He said the group is nonpartisan although he generally votes Democratic.

"I consider John Roberts a friend, and I like him," Smith said. "I did it because when reporters called me, I felt an obligation, almost, to the public to give information on this very important issue. I thought John was entitled to have credit for all the things that he had done."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...5080700708.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Greed · Aug 10, 2005

Conservative Group Pulls Roberts Support

Conservative Group Pulls Roberts Support
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 8 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - A conservative group in Virginia said Tuesday it was withdrawing its support for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' confirmation because of his work helping overturn a Colorado referendum on gays.

The group, Public Advocate of the United States, is one of the first conservative organizations to announce anything but support for the judge

Eugene Delgaudio, the president of the group, said in an interview that he hopes his stance will prod others.

"I know that others feel the same way. I know they believe as I do. They're just not going to act," the 50-year-old Northern Virginia man said. "But once I've done it, then they can't claim that no one's opposing Roberts."

"We can't take our limited resources and put it toward a candidate who is not a strict constructionist when we were told he is," Delgaudio said.

The stance by his group, which describes itself as a pro-family organization, puts it in opposition to conservative groups that have endorsed Roberts. A number of liberal groups already oppose President Bush's high court nominee.

Roberts met Tuesday with one senator who is undecided on his nomination, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, who said the nominee "would not look favorably" on Congress acting to intervene in an end-of-life case like Terri Schiavo.

Wyden said Roberts told him during their hourlong meeting that Congress can prescribe standards, "but when Congress starts to act like a court and prescribe particular remedies in particular cases, Congress has overstepped its bounds," Wyden said.

Congress pushed through unprecedented emergency legislation aimed at prolonging Schiavo's life by allowing the case to be reviewed by federal courts. The courts rejected that effort.

Delgaudio said his group had planned to send out more than 1 million pieces of direct mail for Roberts, as well as work telephones, poll and conduct petition drives.

But now, "canceling our mail campaign is the least we can do," he said. He said he would poll his group to see if members want him to be neutral, spend money to oppose Roberts or reinstate support.

This is not the first time Delgaudio has gone up against the Bush administration. He criticized Vice President Dick Cheney last year after the vice president, when asked about gay marriage, said, "Freedom means freedom for everyone."

Delgaudio said then: "'Freedom' is not embracing perversion."

The Colorado gay rights case involved Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1992 that would have barred laws, ordinances or regulations protecting gays from discrimination by landlords, employers or public agencies such as school districts.

Gay rights groups sued, and the U.S. Supreme Court declared the measure unconstitutional in a 6-3 ruling in 1996.

Roberts' role in the case included helping develop a strategy and firing tough questions during a mock court session at Jean Dubofsky, a former Colorado Supreme Court justice who argued the case on behalf of the gay rights plaintiffs.

Arguments that Roberts' work on the case does not equal support for gay rights doesn't wash with Delgaudio.

"Nobody's forced to help your opponents," he said. "I can't believe that a senior attorney would voluntarily help somebody he doesn't agree with. I don't believe it. It's not credible."

Other conservative groups, including the Traditional Values Coalition and Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, are still supporting Roberts.

"We support President Bush and his choice for the Supreme Court, John Roberts," said the Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition.

Other groups also are taking public stands on Roberts' candidacy.

NARAL Pro Choice America plans to start running television ads opposing Roberts on Wednesday, and other abortion rights groups including the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Federation and the Feminist Majority all have announced their opposition to Roberts.

The conservative Progress for America is launching a counteroffensive against NARAL's ads, spending $300,000 for one week's worth of ads on broadcast television in Maine and Rhode Island and on national cable television networks. The ads criticize NARAL's ads, calling them "a desperate and false attack — recklessly distorting Judge Roberts' record."

The National Association of Manufacturers, led by Republican John Engler, is expected to announce an endorsement of Roberts on Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050809...n1I2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

CAPTAIN · Aug 11, 2005

Re: Conservative Group Pulls Roberts Support

"Nobody's forced to help your opponents," he said. "I can't believe that a senior attorney would voluntarily help somebody he doesn't agree with. I don't believe it. It's not credible." I SEE I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE SUSPICIOUS OF THIS GUY.

Greed · Aug 11, 2005

NARAL Pro-Choice America TV ad, "Speaking Out"

Announcer: Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women's health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

(On screen: Footage of bombed clinic)

(Tex on screen: New Woman/All Women Health Clinic; January 28, 1998)

Emily Lyons: When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life.

Announcer: Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.

(On screen: Footage of Roberts; image of April 11, 1991 brief from Bray v. Alexandria)

(Text on screen: Roberts filed court brief supporting clinic protestors)

Emily Lyons: I'm determined to stop this violence so I'm speaking out.

Announcer: Call your Senators. Tell them to oppose John Roberts. America can't afford a Justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans.

Greed · Aug 11, 2005

NARAL Falsely Accuses Supreme Court Nominee Roberts
Attack ad says he supported an abortion-clinic bomber and excused violence. In fact, Roberts called clinic bombers “criminals” who should be prosecuted fully.

August 9, 2005
Modified: August 9, 2005

Summary

An abortion-rights group is running an attack ad accusing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of filing legal papers “supporting . . . a convicted clinic bomber” and of having an ideology that “leads him to excuse violence against other Americans” It shows images of a bombed clinic in Birmingham , Alabama .

The ad is false.

And the ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber and many other defendants in a civil case, but the case didn't deal with bombing at all. Roberts argued that abortion clinics who brought the suit had no right use an 1871 federal anti-discrimination statute against anti-abortion protesters who tried to blockade clinics. Eventually a 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court agreed, too. Roberts argued that blockades were already illegal under state law.

The images used in the ad are especially misleading. The pictures are of a clinic bombing that happened nearly seven years after Roberts signed the legal brief in question.

Analysis

NARAL Pro-Choice America released a new ad focusing on John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's vacant Supreme Court position, called "Speaking Out," on August 8. NARAL said it plans to buy half a million dollars worth of airtime in coming weeks on national cable networks, as well as well as on networks in Maine and Rhode Island.

The ad shows images of a bombed clinic before a woman identified as Emily Lyons appears on screen, saying "I nearly lost my life." An announcer says, "Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber".The announcer then urges viewers to "call your Senators" and "tell them to oppose John Roberts" because we "can't afford a Justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

A False Implication

In words and images, the ad conveys the idea that Roberts took a legal position excusing bombing of abortion clinics, which is false. To the contrary, during the Reagan administration when he was Associate Counsel to the President, Roberts drafted a memo saying abortion-clinic bombers "should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." In the 1986 memo, Roberts called abortion bombers "criminals" and "misguided individuals," indicating that they would get no special treatment regarding requests for presidential pardons. Reagan in fact gave no pardons to abortion-clinic bombers.

The 1986 draft is on file at the Reagan library. The White House furnished a copy to FactCheck.org. (See "supporting documents" at right.)

Seven Years Earlier

The ad fails to mention that the "court briefs" it mentions are actually from nearly seven years before the abortion clinic bombing talked about in the ad. The woman in the ad, Emily Lyons, was injured by a bomb blast at the New Woman/All Women Health Clinic in Birmingham on January 28, 1998 that also killed an off-duty police officer. The bomber was Eric Rudolph, who was captured in May 2003 after a five-year manhunt. Rudolph pleaded guilty and in July 2005 was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole.

The brief that Roberts signed, and on which the NARAL ad is based, is from another matter entirely. It is dated April 11, 1991. Furthermore, it is from a civil lawsuit brought by abortion clinics against protesters who were blockading the clinics. Bombing was not an issue.

Supporting Anti-abortion Groups?

The ad contends that Roberts "filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber." Indeed, Roberts' name appears on the "friend of the court" brief in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic that the ad shows. But what Roberts was supporting wasn't violence or bombing or even the behavior that was the subject of the lawsuit - blockades of clinics. In fact, Roberts went out of his way to say that the blockaders were trespassing, which is a violation of state law. What Roberts argued was that a federal anti-discrimination law couldn't be used against abortion blockaders because they weren't discriminating against women – they were blockading men, too.

Roberts was serving as Deputy Solicitor General in the administration of George H.W. Bush. He was one of six Justice Department officials who submitted the brief on behalf of the United States government.

The case began as a lawsuit against protestors who hold "antiabortion demonstrations in which participants trespass on, and obstruct general access to" abortion clinics by blocking the entrances and exits. Lawyers for abortion clinics took the position that the protesters conspired to violate the civil rights of women. There was no disagreement that the protestors had committed a state crime by protesting on the private property of clinics. Upon appeal, the question was whether the protestors also violated federal law by intentionally denying women equal protection under the law and prevented them from exercising their constitutional right to interstate travel.

In Roberts' brief, and in oral arguments he made in person before the Supreme Court, the government argued that a particular part of U.S. law (Section 1985(3) of Title 42, which derived from the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) applied only to conspiracies to deprive people of civil rights due to racial discrimination, not gender discrimination. They also argued that the protestors did "not aim their anti-abortion activities exclusively at women" but "at anyone, whether male or female, who assists or is involved in the abortion process – doctors, nurses, counselors, boyfriends, husbands and family members, staffs, and others." The court, in a 6-3 decision, ultimately agreed with much of the government's argument, saying that "the characteristic that formed the basis of the targeting" for protest "was not womanhood, but the seeking of abortion," which is entirely voluntary. The court also found that the protestors did not engage in a conspiracy to deprive women of their civil rights.

To be sure, anti-abortion protestors saw the court's decision as a victory. It made them subject only to state actions for simple trespassing on the clinic's private property rather than for federal claims involving civil rights violations, at least as long as the protests stayed non-violent and didn't raise charges of assault or inciting to riot. But the ruling and the argument that led to hardly excuses violence, as the NARAL ad falsely claims. Nowhere in Roberts' court brief or oral arguments does he defend or excuse acts of violence.

Guilt by Association

The ad uses the classic tactic of guilt by association, linking Roberts with "violent fringe groups" and a "convicted . . . bomber" because he made the same legal arguments as they did in the case. But, contrary to the ad's message, Roberts didn't argue in favor of them or their actions.

The "fringe group" in question is Operation Rescue, a zealously antiabortion group that had a history of staging confrontational protests around the country, and which the lawsuit was aimed at stopping. Originally led by Randall Terry, Operation Rescue protesters would stand in front of local abortion clinics, sometimes screaming "Mommy, mommy," waving crucifixes, and pleading with pregnant women to turn away. They sometimes pressed against car doors to keep pregnant women from getting out. Hundreds would go limp to make it more difficult for police to clear them away. More than 40,000 people were arrested in these demonstrations over four years.

Although these methods in some ways mirrored the non-violent tactics used earlier by civil-rights activists, some saw Operation Rescue's actions as relying on the threat of violence, at least. In his dissent, Justice Stevens, describes the protests as instances where “the duly constituted authorities are rendered ineffective, and mob violence prevails.” Justice O’Connor, in her own dissent, spoke of "the threat of mob violence" raised by the blockaders.

The ad also links Roberts to a "convicted clinic bomber." That refers to Michael Bray, one of those named in the lawsuit. (His wife's name came first alphabetically, which is why the case is called Bray vs. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic in the first place). Bray himself had been convicted years earlier, in 1985, of conspiracy and possessing unregistered explosive devices in connection to a series of 10 bombings at abortion clinics in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington D.C. He eventually served just under 4 years in prison. In 1993 he wrote a book titled A Time to Kill , which argues that killing abortion providers is morally justified.

Whatever one thinks of Bray, Terry, or Operation Rescue, it is misleading to say that Roberts supported them. He was not their attorney; the protestors had their own attorney, Jay Alan Sekulow, for that. Roberts argued the government's position.

NARAL would have every right to say that Roberts argued for a legal result with which they disagreed. They could also say accurately that many persons, including three Supreme Court justices, also disagreed and saw a threat of "mob violence" going unchecked because of that position. But it is false to suggest that Roberts supported the actions of "violent" groups or clinic bombers because he argued that a law aimed at the Ku Klux Klan could not be used against those who blockade abortion clinics.

Footnote: Soon after the Supreme Court ruled in the case, Congress passed a new law specifically aimed at the blockaders. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances (FACE) act, signed by President Clinton, makes it a federal crime to use force, "threat of force," or "physical obstruction" to injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone "obtaining or providing reproductive health services." That act in part gave rise to state legislatures and court systems creating so-called "buffer zones" that force protestors to stay a certain distance away from health clinics, which the Supreme Court has allowed to stand.

http://factcheck.org/article340.html#

QueEx · Aug 19, 2005

QueEx said:

Who is John G. Roberts, Jr. ???

Perhaps, in the days to come, we might find out.

QueEx

<center>Roberts Disparaged States' Sex-Bias Fight</center>

Aug 18, 7:16 PM (ET)
Associated Press
By DAVID ESPO

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday, and wondered whether "encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

A young White House lawyer at the time, Roberts also criticized a crime-fighting proposal by Sen. Arlen Specter as "the epitome of the 'throw money at the problem'" approach.

Specter, R-Pa., then a first-term senator, is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee and will preside at Roberts' confirmation hearings, scheduled to begin Sept. 6.

The documents, released simultaneously in Washington and at the Reagan Library in California, show Roberts held a robust view of presidential powers under the Constitution. "I am institutionally disposed against adopting a limited reading of a statute conferring power on the president," he wrote in 1985.

The materials made public completed the disclosure of more than 50,000 pages that cover Roberts' tenure as a lawyer in the White House counsel's office from 1982-86.

Nearly 2,000 more pages from the same period have been withheld on national security or privacy grounds.

Additionally, over the persistent protests of Senate Democrats, the White House has refused to make available any of the records covering Roberts' later tenure as principal deputy solicitor general during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

Taken as a whole, the material released Thursday did little or nothing to alter the well-established image of Roberts as a young lawyer whose views on abortion, affirmative action, school prayer and more were in harmony with the conservative president he served.

Democrats say they will question Roberts closely on those subjects and others at his hearings. And despite the apparently long odds against them, civil rights and women's groups are beginning to mount an attempt to defeat his nomination.

Emily's List drew attention during the day to a recent speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in which Boxer raised the possibility of a filibuster if Roberts doesn't elaborate on his views on abortion and privacy rights at his hearings.

"I have the ultimate step," Boxer said. "I can use all the parliamentary rules I have as a senator to stand up and fight for you."

The documents released Thursday recalled the battles of the Reagan era, and underscored the breadth of the issues that crossed the desk of a young man in the White House.

He advised senior officials not to try and circumvent the will of Congress when it established a nationwide 55 mph speed limit, for example.

At one point, Roberts drafted a graceful letter to the actor James Stewart for Reagan's signature. "I would normally be delighted to serve on any group chaired by you," it began, then went on to explain why White House lawyers didn't want the president to join a school advisory council.

On a more weighty issue, he struggled to define the line that Reagan and other officials should not cross in encouraging private help to the forces opposing the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

On Jan. 21, 1986, he wrote there was no legal problem with Reagan holding a White House briefing for two groups trying to raise funds. Then, a month later, Roberts warned against getting too close to such groups, toning down letters of commendation drafted for Reagan's signature.

In a memo drafted Jan. 17, 1983, Roberts reviewed a report that summarized state efforts to combat discrimination against women. "Many of the reported proposals and efforts are themselves highly objectionable," he wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding.

As an example, he said a California program "points to passage of a law requiring the order of layoffs to reflect affirmative action programs and not merely seniority" - a position at odds with administration policy.

He referred to a "staggeringly pernicious law codifying the anti-capitalist notion of 'comparable worth,' (as opposed to market value) pay scales."

Advocates of comparable worth argued that women were victims of discrimination because they were paid less than men working in other jobs that the state had decided were worth the same.

In yet a third case, Roberts said a Florida section "cites a (presumably unconstitutional) proposal to charge women less tuition at state schools, because they have less earning potential."

His remark about homemakers and lawyers seemed almost a throwaway line in a one-page memo about the Clairol Rising Star Awards and Scholarship Program. The program was designed to honor women who made changes in their lives after age 30 and had made contributions in their new fields.

An administration official nominated an aide who had been a teacher but then became a lawyer. Roberts signed off on the nomination, then wrote: "Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good, but I suppose that is for the judges to decide."

More than a decade later, Roberts married an attorney.

Specter's office declined comment on Roberts' criticism of the senator's long-ago anti-crime proposal. It called for spending $8 billion over five to 10 years, according to Roberts' memo.

---

Associated Press writers Michael R. Blood and Jeff Wilson contributed to this report from Simi Valley, Calif., and Jesse J. Holland and Hope Yen contributed from Washington.

Greed · Aug 28, 2005

Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher
By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - When Abraham Lincoln nominated Samuel Freeman Miller to serve on the Supreme Court, an eager Senate approved the Iowa lawyer within half an hour.

When Ulysses Grant tapped former War Secretary Edwin Stanton to fill a vacancy on the high court, the Senate confirmed him one day later.

Pointed questioning of nominees — and their frequent dodging and weaving in response — is a relatively new phenomenon in the confirmation of Supreme Court justices.

Harlan Fisk Stone in 1925 became the first nominee to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was not until the mid-1950s that the notion of a nominee facing a line of questioners became more typical.

Even in 1986, when Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist was nominated for chief justice, he thought he should not have to appear before the Senate. After all, he reasoned, former Sen. Sherman Minton, whom President Truman nominated for the court in 1949, had refused to appear before the Senate and had been confirmed anyway.

By then, however, it was no dice.

Rehnquist's elevation to chief justice sparked two weeks of stormy testimony and debate. There was the kind of persistent probing on issues such as civil liberties and the rights of women and minorities that now is standard fare for Supreme Court nominees.

John Roberts, whose confirmation hearings will unfold after Labor Day, knows the drill well. He helped guide Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he hopes to replace on the court, through her own confirmation hearings in the summer of 1981.

His advice, set out in a memo he wrote a few months later, was: "Avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the court" while demonstrating "a firm command of the subject area and awareness of the relevant precedents and arguments."

In the lead-up to Roberts' hearings, conservatives and liberals are scrutinizing transcripts of hearings past as they jockey for position and try to buttress arguments about what questions are — and are not — fair game.

The 1993 questioning of Ruth Bader Ginsburg provides grist for both sides.

Conservatives, hoping to make it easier for Roberts to duck controversial questions, point to Ginsburg's frequent demurrals on questions related to specific issues including gay rights, gun control, free speech and school vouchers.

Liberals spotlight the questions she did answer, including ones on abortion and the right to privacy.

Ginsburg at times invoked a ski-slope analogy as she deflected questions. She said she was at the top of the slope and had resisted "descending that slope, because once you ask me about this case, then you will ask me about another case that is over and done, and another case."

Roberts himself invoked her words when he was up for confirmation to the federal appeals bench in 2003 and wanted to avoid answering certain questions.

John Anthony Maltese, a University of Georgia political scientist who has written a book about Supreme Court nominees, said it was after the court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 striking down school segregation that senators, particularly southern Democrats, became more interested in questioning nominees about specific issues.

Thurgood Marshall, nominated by President Johnson in 1967 to be the first black justice, ran into particular resistance from Democrats from the Deep South. They attacked "his well-known liberal philosophy and what some regarded as defective legal knowledge," Henry Abraham wrote in his history of Supreme Court appointments, "Justices, Presidents and Senators."

"Thus, Senator Thurmond of South Carolina at one point read more than 60 complicated questions, studded with quotes from and about political figures of the 1860s to the nominee during lengthy hearings before the Judiciary Committee," Abraham wrote.

In the 1980s, President Reagan's determination to nominate judges and justices of a particularly conservative bent contributed to the Democrats' interest in more closely questioning nominees, Maltese said.

"They said, 'If the president can nominate based on ideology, then why can't we reject on the basis of ideology, and why can't we ask questions about the ideology of nominees,'" Maltese said.

That, Maltese said, led to more detailed questioning of nominees such as Robert Bork, whose 1987 confirmation hearings turned into a donnybrook that ran to more than 6,000 pages of testimony. Ironically, it was Bork's willingness to forthrightly answer senators' questions about his judicial philosophy that helped to do him in.

"There was one person who kind of stood up and was willing to test the standard and it didn't work out well for him," said University of Connecticut political scientist David Yalof, author of a book on Supreme Court nominees. "And thus the lesson was learned for all future nominees, and I suspect for John Roberts as well."

After Bork's nomination was defeated and a second nominee withdrew, Reagan nominated appellate judge Anthony Kennedy. He gave no clues about how he might rule on issues such as abortion, affirmative action and school prayer during three days of fairly gentle hearings before the Senate committee.

"I have concluded that Anthony Kennedy was being ultra-careful in his testimony, with the entrails of Robert Bork still on the floor and dangling from the chandeliers," said New Hampshire Republican Gordon Humphrey, who served in the Senate from 1979-1990. "I conclude Judge Kennedy didn't want his guts ripped out by senators on this committee."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050827...QZI2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

anyone else listening to these hearings? disgusting display of a backbone impaired party.

i'm upping it from 90 votes to 95. betraying their base again.

QueEx · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

Greed said:
anyone else listening to these hearings? disgusting display of a backbone impaired party.

i'm upping it from 90 votes to 95. betraying their base again.

Nothing like good ole reverse-republican strategy. Your republicans nominated him; you moan about how bad the nominee will be for Black people; then accuse democrats for fucking Black people by confirming him. The tired ole strategy: Black people should be republicans because democrats continue to let them down.

Its a good strategy, except it requires Black people to ignore the fucking they're going to get, without the grease.

QueEx

vitrifier · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

LOL.

No Que, it's the system when republicans fuck us, the system is fucking us and we need to change the system. Dems directly betray us, but Republicans work the system which fucks us because the Democrats let it, not because the Republicans did anything in the first place.

Get with the program Que!

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

i would respond but you must have me mixed up with someone else. never siad any of that.

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

vitrifier said:
LOL.

No Que, it's the system when republicans fuck us, the system is fucking us and we need to change the system. Dems directly betray us, but Republicans work the system which fucks us because the Democrats let it, not because the Republicans did anything in the first place.

Get with the program Que!

whats it like to be forever destined to be fucked over by the system because you think its the people who are fucking you? YOU make the distinction between white people. i never told you to trust any.

one day, black people will identify the problem and want change.

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

QueEx said:
Nothing like good ole reverse-republican strategy. Your republicans nominated him; you moan about how bad the nominee will be for Black people; then accuse democrats for fucking Black people by confirming him. The tired ole strategy: Black people should be republicans because democrats continue to let them down.

Its a good strategy, except it requires Black people to ignore the fucking they're going to get, without the grease.

QueEx

you got me mixed up with someone else. i never said he'll fuck over black if confirmed. i said the dems are spineless.

their base wants something specific out of their democrat senators. will their base be satisified? nope, and not just because he will eventually get confirmed, but instead because of the effort they got out of the senators who are supposed to be representing their interest.

if i'm not mistaken the dems didnt even show up for this morning of questioning.

are they finished after the 1st day?

vitrifier · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

How is that different from your position. You're destined to get fucked over by the people in power, because you think that there is a flaw in the system, not those who are in control of it.

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

that implies that some people in power are helping black people get ahead.

you buy into that and i dont.

vitrifier · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

No, it only implies that people in power could help black people get ahead, depending on their intentions.

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

exactly what i said. you buy into that.

vitrifier · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

I like how you consistently tell me what I believe and buy into, and then miss the point.

here, I'll hightlight the operative word for you, since you missed the point.

No, it only implies that people in power could help black people get ahead, depending on their intentions.

There might or might not be anyone in power right now that is doing anything for black people. There is no implication of that in this sentence.

Here's a challenge. Describe what exactly is wrong with the system. It's all too easy to just say it's the system, when no one knows what that means. Do you want to do away with government?

Greed · Sep 14, 2005

Re: Confirmation Hearings Have Grown Tougher

no, i'm no anarchist. and the problem with the system is there's no accountability in government, which is a point you already agreed with.

and i saw the could, and i think thats the problem. i dont act on possibilty. i act on probability. and the probability that government will help blacks is next to nothing.

you can stay in that mindset that we just need the right person if you want, but i look at you like a science project and i'm observing how long it will take for you and people like you to stop waiting on that person/administration.

we've never had it but people still base their lives on the mentality that government saves. louisiana blacks bought it hard after being failed on every level of government and i wonder how hard a lesson you need to learn personally.

Greed · Sep 20, 2005

Reid Likely to Oppose Roberts' Nomination

finally

Reid Likely to Oppose Roberts' Nomination
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has told associates he intends to oppose confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice, Senate sources said Tuesday as rank and file Democrats began staking out positions on the man named to succeed the late William H. Rehnquist.

Reid scheduled a speech on the Senate floor for mid-afternoon, at which he was expected to make his announcement public.

Roberts has strong Republican support and appears headed for easy confirmation.

As party leader, Reid had urged fellow Democrats not to announce their positions until the conclusion of last week's confirmation hearings for Roberts.

By stating his own position first, Reid likely would set the stage for strong Democratic opposition to the 50-year-old appeals court judge and former Reagan administration lawyer.

Reid's office declined comment. The sources who described his intention did so on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt the speech.

Senate Democrats, including the eight Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, met privately during the day to discuss the nomination, which has drawn strong opposition from critics who argue that Roberts might vote to overturn a 1973 ruling that established the constitutional right to an abortion. Civil rights organizations also oppose Roberts' confirmation, citing some of the positions he took as a lawyer with the Reagan administration and his refusal to disavow them at confirmation hearings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination on Thursday. The panel includes 10 Republicans and eight Democrats — two of whom are members of the party's leadership. The outcome of that vote is expected to serve as a preview of the level of bipartisan support Roberts can command in the Senate.

The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, and the Service Employees International Union, which has 1.8 million union members, both announced their opposition to Roberts during the day as critics mounted a last-minute effort to discourage Democrats from voting for him.

"The record available to us at this time does not allow us to say with any degree of confidence that Judge Roberts has an understanding of, or commitment to, protecting the hard-fought rights and protections of working families, including their right to equal opportunity," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

The Congressional Black Caucus, which is made up of the House's African American lawmakers and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., also announced its opposition.

"Judge Roberts' civil rights record and views remained the most controversial and unexplained part of his record when the Judiciary Committee hearing concluded, just as his civil rights record and views had been the most controversial part of his record when the hearing began," said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., the CBC's leader.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050920...XpuCM0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Greed · Sep 22, 2005

Roberts wins Senate panel backing

Roberts wins Senate panel backing
By Thomas Ferraro
55 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday brushed aside concerns of divided Democrats and backed President George W. Bush's nomination of conservative John Roberts to be chief justice of the United States.

On a vote of 13-5, the panel recommended confirmation of Roberts to lead the U.S. Supreme Court by the full Republican-led Senate, which appears certain to do so next week -- perhaps shortly before Bush offers a second Supreme Court nominee who is likely to face a much tougher fight.

Confirmation by the Senate next week would enable Roberts to take his seat before the court begins its new term on October 3.

Roberts, 50, a federal appeals judge the past two years, would be the youngest chief justice in two centuries.

In the lifetime post, Roberts would be positioned to lead the judicial branch of the U.S. government for decades, helping shape the American way of life on matters from workers' rights to environmental protection.

Reflecting Roberts' Senate support as well as division among Democrats, three of the eight Democrats on the committee joined all of the panel's 10 Republicans in voting for him.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record) of Utah, a veteran of many battles over Supreme Court nominees the past three decades, voted for Roberts, saying: "He's the best I've seen -- and that's really saying something because some of the others have been absolutely tremendous."

Republicans hailed Roberts as a stellar legal mind who preaches strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution. They also noted that the American Bar Association gave him its top rating for a seat on the high court.

Democrats acknowledged Roberts' academic credentials, but some questioned whether his heart was as big as his intellect.

"Based on the record available, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Judge Roberts's view of the rule of law would include as paramount the protection of basic rights," said Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, who voted against the nominee.

Democrats voiced concerns about Roberts' commitment to civil rights and women's rights, based largely on memos he wrote as a young attorney two decades ago in the Reagan administration.

They also complained about his refusal at his confirmation hearing to disclose how he might rule on some hot-button legal issues, such as abortion rights.

Roberts argued it would be improper to prejudge cases that might become before him, and said the old memos reflected the opinions of a conservative Republican administration, not necessarily his own.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, backed the nominee, saying, "Judge Roberts is a man of integrity. I take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda."

Chairman Arlen Specter, a moderate Pennsylvania Republican, hailed Roberts as a potential consensus builder on the often divided high court, but noted that like previous Supreme Court nominees it's an open question what he will do on the bench.

"His approach of modesty, of stability, and away from judicial activism, I think, is a model," Specter said. "Whether it is carried out, remains to be seen."

Roberts would replace the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had been the court's conservative anchor for 33 years.

The next nominee would seek to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who often has been the swing vote on the bitterly divided nine-member court.

With the balance of the court likely at stake, there have been competing strategies about how Democrats should handle Roberts. Some argue Democrats should hold their fire for the next nominee.

Others, including major liberal groups, contend Democrats should muster as much opposition as possible to send a message to Bush that in order to avoid a major fight he should send up a noncontroversial nominee.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050922...sRZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Greed · Sep 29, 2005

Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice

so, only half the democrats represent their constituents. i'm sure this will go over well with moveon.org.

Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - John Glover Roberts Jr. won confirmation as the 17th chief justice of the United States Thursday, overwhelmingly approved by the Senate as the jurist to lead the Supreme Court through turbulent social issues for generations to come.

The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts — a 50-year-old U.S. Appeals judge from the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. — as the successor to the late William H. Rehnquist, who died earlier this month.

All of the Senate's majority Republicans, and about half of the Democrats, voted for Roberts.

Underscoring the rarity of a chief justice's confirmation, senators answered the roll by standing one by one at their desks as their names were called, instead of voting and leaving the chamber.

Roberts is the first new Supreme Court justice since 1994. Before becoming a federal judge, Roberts was one of the nation's best appellate lawyers, arguing 39 cases — many in front of the same eight justices he will now lead as chief justice.

He won 25 of those cases.

Roberts watched the Senate vote on television from the White House's Roosevelt Room.

He and his wife Jane, were to have lunch with President Bush and first lady Laura Bush, followed by a swearing-in ceremony with the president at the White House, so Roberts could take his seat in time for the new court session Monday. Justice John Paul Stevens was administering the oath.

Under Roberts, justices will tackle issues like assisted suicide, campaign finance law and abortion this year, with questions about religion, same-sex marriage, the government's war on terrorism and human cloning looming in the future.

"With the confirmation of John Roberts, the Supreme Court will embark upon a new era in its history, the Roberts era," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., whose 55 GOP members unanimously voted for the multimillionaire judge. "And for many years to come, long after many of us have left public service, the Roberts court will be deliberating on some of the most difficult and fundamental questions of U.S. law."

Twenty-two Democrats opposed Roberts, saying he could turn out to be as conservative as justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court anchors on the right.

"At the end of the day, I have too many unanswered questions about the nominee to justify confirming him to this lifetime seat," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Anti-abortion and abortion rights activists both have their hopes pinned on Roberts, a former government lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. While Roberts is solidly conservative and his wife, Jane, volunteers for Feminists for Life, both sides were eager to see how he will vote on abortion cases.

Roberts told senators during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings that past Supreme Court rulings carry weight, including the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973. He also said he agreed with the 1965 Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that established the right of privacy in the sale and use of contraceptives.

But he tempered that by saying Supreme Court justices can overturn rulings.

During four days of sometimes testy questioning by Democrats, Roberts refused to hint how he would rule on cases.

"If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, then the little guy's going to win in the court before me," Roberts told senators. "But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well then the big guy's going to win because my obligation is to the Constitution."

Over and over, he has assured lawmakers his rulings would be guided by his understanding of the facts of cases, the law and the Constitution, not by his personal views. "My faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role," said Roberts, who is Catholic.

Roberts' confirmation brings the number of Catholics on the court to a historic high of four. The Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes abortion.

Democrats, even as they complained about his Reagan-era opinions and the White House's refusal to release his paperwork from the George H.W. Bush administration, acknowledged his brilliance and judicial demeanor.

"I've taken him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda and he will be his own man as chief justice ," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary.

Republicans showered praise on Roberts, and said the justices on the court like him too. "There have already been indications from members of the court about their liking the fact that Judge Roberts is going to be the new chief justice," said Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who shepherded the nomination out of his committee on a 13-5 vote.

Roberts has the potential of leading the Supreme Court for decades. Not since John Marshall, confirmed in 1801 at 45, has there been a younger chief justice.

Roberts also will hold a record of sorts — nominated to succeed two different Supreme Court justices within seven weeks. Bush originally named him to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in July. Rehnquist's death led to the second nomination on Sept. 6, and Roberts now will be confirmed as chief justice while O'Connor remains on the court until the president selects a new replacement.

Democrats already were warning the White House not to nominate a conservative ideologue to replace O'Connor. Bush was expected to announce the nominee soon.

"While this nomination did not warrant an attempt to block the nominee on the floor of the Senate, the next one might," Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said.

Roberts is married to lawyer Jane Sullivan Roberts, and has two adopted children, ages 4 and 5.

He grew up in Long Beach, Ind., working summers in the same steel mill where his father was an electrical engineer. After graduating with honors from Harvard University — both as an undergraduate and in law school — he clerked for Rehnquist on the Supreme Court.
___
On the Net:
Senate: http://www.senate.gov
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts

QueEx · May 31, 2009

Re: Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice


<center>

An amazing "absence" of the vitriolic controversy
we now see in the Sotomayor confirmation



</center>

QueEx · Jul 14, 2009

Re: Senate Confirms Roberts As Chief Justice

<center>
"In every major case since he became the nation’s
seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with:
the prosecution over the defendant,
the state over the condemned,
the executive branch over the legislative, and
the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.

Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism
during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts
has served the interests, and reflected the values, of
the contemporary Republican Party."

- Jeffrey Toobin, No More Mr. Nice Guy</center>

<IFRAME SRC="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/25/090525fa_fact_toobin?printable=true" WIDTH=780 HEIGHT=1500>
<A HREF="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/25/090525fa_fact_toobin?printable=true">link</A>

</IFRAME>

Bush Nominates John G. Roberts for Supreme Court

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