Justice John G. Roberts Jr.?
A David Souter in reverse? An enemy to Gulf War soldiers? A friend to the anti-abortion faithful?
Bare-knuckled first reaction in the blogosphere to President Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor previews the greater fight to come.
It's fierce, highly partisan and seemingly organized. It could be two distinct people they're writing about: a brilliant, impeccably credentialed conservative and a stealth reactionary cut of the same cloth as men like Edwin Meese and Richard Mellon Scaife.
SCOTUSblog's nomination site has a first-rate Roberts page. Snapshot from news sources: Appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Age 50. Married and father of two. Captain of high school football team in Indiana. Harvard College - summa cum laude in just three years - then Harvard Law. Former Rehnquist clerk. Has argued 39 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Won 25. Advised Bush campaign in Florida recount. Former deputy to Kenneth Starr. Lives in a million-dollar home. Known to cut his own grass.
Position on Roe v Wade not clear. Nevertheless, NARAL Pro-Choice America has mobilized against him.
His Wikipedia entry. An exhaustive summation from ABC's The Note.
Tony Mauro, a former USA Today reporter, wrote this profile at Law.com:
In spite of Roberts' quiet manner, his credentials -- former Rehnquist law clerk, deputy solicitor general, top-flight practitioner at Hogan & Hartson and, in the estimation of some, the finest oral advocate before the high court in the last decade -- are speaking for him and winning fans. Add to that a brief 20-month tenure on the court that provides few targets for Democrats, and Roberts is emerging as a top candidate for the high court.
And this:
Yet those who know Roberts say he, unlike Souter, is a reliable conservative who can be counted on to undermine if not immediately overturn liberal landmarks like abortion rights and affirmative action. Indicators of his true stripes cited by friends include: clerking for Rehnquist, membership in the Federalist Society, laboring in the Ronald Reagan White House counsel's office and at the Justice Department into the Bush years, working with Kenneth Starr among others, and even his lunchtime conversations at Hogan & Hartson. "He is as conservative as you can get," one friend puts it. In short, Roberts may combine the stealth appeal of Souter with the unwavering ideology of Scalia and Thomas.
The Volokh Conspiracy has considered liberal opposition to his nomination.
1) Roberts is an outstanding lawyer, excellent judge, and impressive individual. He is the sort of person, irrespective of ideology, who President's should nominate to the High Court (and those who have worked with him generally feel this way, even when they disagree profoundly with his legal views).
2) Roberts was initially nominated to the D.C. Circuit by the first President Bush, and the Democratic Senate refused to move the nomination. Some believe this was due to concern for the overall "balance" of the D.C. Circuit, or perhaps it languished as nominations often due in the last year or so of a President's term. Either way, he was nominated back then, and never confirmed.
3) Activist groups have already begun to misrepresent John Roberts record on various cases. For instance, he has been accused of voting to overturn the Endangered Species Act. In actuality, Roberts dissented from a denial of en banc review because, he stated, the panel decision was in conflict with those of other circuits. His opinion did not challenge the panels conclusion. Rather, he argued that there were reasons to be concerned about the conflicting (indeed, incompatible) rationales adopted by different circuits, and that this merited en banc review.
4) Last, and most distressingly, the leaders of various liberal activist groups are already on record stating that they would urge a filibuster of Roberts, even if he were nominated to replace Rehnquist. While I doubt (hope) this would not derail his confirmation, I suspect it would sway at least a few Senators.
An opposition paper from the liberal Alliance for Justice here.
In his Whiskey Bar blog, Philadelphia's Billmon notes the parallels between Roberts and Bob Roberts, the facile politician played by Tim Robbins in the eponymous film. The Hollywood politician is a smooth-talking hedge fund trader who uses his charm and Waspy looks to hide an ultra-conservative agenda.
And now we have John Roberts -- a smooth-talking corporate lawyer turned appeals court judge, whose Waspy good looks and blue-chip credentials may conceal an ultraconservative legal agenda. The perfect Stealth nominee, in other words.
He continues to stir things up for a few paragraphs, then stops. "But is that the true legal face of John Roberts?" Billmon realizes this is not so easy to divine. But here's something that is:
Professionally and culturally, Roberts is very much a Bush I throwback: a product of Harvard, government service and K Street (the pre-DeLay K Street). He clerked for Rehnquist, not Scalia or Thomas. It's a lot easier to imagine Roberts eating a working lunch in a corporate boardroom than breaking bread at a prayer breakfast with a bunch of Christian Dominionists.
These days, though, the two subcultures often overlap. Which is precisely what makes Roberts so scary. In his heart of hearts, he may be a raving Ayatollah -- as militant in defense of the New Theocracy as he appears to be in defense of property rights and corporate privilege. But in the clubby world of legal and political Washington, he's managed to convince an awful lot of people, including some staunch liberals, that he's really an OK guy -- a "reasonable" conservative.
What Billmon worries about is getting David Souter in reverse, a seemingly moderate respectable judge who "turns out to be a complete wack job" -- only a right-wing rendition.
John Hinderaker, an attorney and conservative at Power Line blog, weighs the opposition's likely arguments against Roberts and finds them light.
So the left has very little to work with in trying to rouse public opposition to Roberts' nomination. That leaves only one alternative: they will ask lots of questions. This theme has already emerged. They will try to force Roberts to take a loyalty oath to the liberal decisions of which contemporary Democrats are fondest. And, as Chuck Schumer said tonight, they will proceed on the assumption that "the burden is on the nominee to prove he is worthy," not on the Democrats to prove he isn't. So the Dems will try to dream up questions that Roberts can't properly answer, and documents they can request that can't be provided, relating, perhaps to Roberts' service as deputy solicitor general.
Nevertheless, barring some stunning and unforeseen revelation, the outcome is not in doubt. The Democrats simply don't have anything to work with. And, thankfully, they are a minority in the Senate.
Roberts's resume made little impression on PSOTD, formerly the Political Site of the Day. Robert, a blogger there wrote, "has spent most of his adult life carrying water for Republican administrations. Could certainly have been worse, but Roberts stands for nothing except the Republican party line. Little question he'll deliver exactly what's expected of him for the next thirty years."
PSOTD goes on: Barring an entirely unexpected revelation, there is little point for the Democrats to waste much ammunition on Roberts. There appears nothing to disqualify him from a spot with the Supremes.
I suspect ultimately Christian Fundamentalists will be disappointed. Establishment Republicans realize they can't afford to go too far across the line on social issues like choice, and John G. is clearly part of the Republican establishment. But no doubt Roberts will delight corporate America!
A Democratic Arizona blogger named Eli Blake at Deep Thought slows down the news that Roberts belongs to the Federalist Society.
Never heard of them? Well, The Society is chaired by Steven Calabresi and David McIntosh, a former congressman who has strong ties to Newt Gingrich, and voted in Congress to prohibit the enforcement of portions of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The organization also has a Board of Visitors (formerly the Board of Trustees) including Robert Bork, Orrin Hatch (in fact his son, Brent, is now the society's treasurer), Edwin Meese III and former Christian Coalition leader Don Hodel. Another member is Gerald Walpin, who has criticized the Supreme Court's 1966 Miranda decision for permitting "lawlessness" and has endorsed Congress' ability to set aside the ruling.
Scared of their board of trustees? Then try who funds them.
You won't be that surprised to find out that they are another very well funded right wing 'think tank,' receiving funding from, among others, the Koch foundation (Fred Koch was one of the founders of the John Birch Society) and the Scaife foundation (which funded the 'American Spectator's 'Arkansas project' to 'get' Bill Clinton).
On March 28, 2001, the Federalist Society's environmental law practice and their Chicago chapter sponsored a conference in Chicago, entitled 'Rolling Back the New Deal.' ...
While many commentators have warned against making any conclusions about Roberts's views on abortion rights, saying his legal argument against them was on behalf of a client, Patrick D. Roach at Procrastination Central seems to see through that into the nominee's own beliefs. And is delighted.
Roberts is quoted as saying, "We continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
Eat that John Kerry - that's why you didn't get my vote!
Lots of right of left chat at the National Review's The Corner page. My favorite:a skewering of the Huffington Post poster who wondered what Roberts thought about Star Trek.
A Liberal Dose gets going on one ruling in particular: Acree v. Republic of Iraq, where 17 U.S. soldiers who had been tortured as POWs during the Gulf War filed suit against the Republic of Iraq, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and Saddam Hussein. Roberts didn't come down on the soldiers' side.
Chris Bowers at Philadelphia's MyDD site sees the nomination as a beautifully timed diversion from the investigation into which White House operative leaked the identity of a CIA agent. But he preaches practically, and warns those fellow Democrats who would oppose Roberts over his perceived position on Roe v. Wade.
We can not be the party that opposes every judge that is anti-Roe. Abortion can not be the defining issue of our party. We need to move beyond this. Besides, this man will be confirmed. Advice and consent doesn't mean you get to stop a nominee just because he doesn't fit your argenda. We will lose this one if we fight it. Better to not fight it and focus on other things.
Thanks for weighing in, Jason. I have about 24 hours here without any comments, and I was worrying that I had ceased to exist. What, this isn't interesting? It's lonely here at home, today, typing, alone. Soon the mailman will visit. I will bake him something.
I would have felt awkward posting that if there was a political discussion going on in the comments. But, I saw his picture and I thought it was Bernie, so I calmly waited to proclaim my findings.
I think that having another conservative as a justice is a little scary. If he is elected as justice it will be Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy. Since Rehnquist died, Bush will wish to appoint another Conservative as Chief justice. There will be only 3 strong liberals and with a five to three vote, we already know who's going to be running things... It's a little scary for liberals such as myself... Tissa, 17
I was basing my opinion on the fact that Roberts wife is the former general counsel of Feminists for Life, not on anything that can be gleaned from his judicial record. Just thought I would clear that up to avoid looking like a blindly loyal Republican hack.