Archive: August 21, 2005 - August 27, 2005
The Hapless Toad Cont.
"Is John Roberts Too Much of a Judicial Activist?" Adam Cohen asks on the NYT op-ed page Saturday morning. The piece suggests he is, based on the author's analysis of JR's dissent from denial of en banc review in Rancho Viejo v. Norton. Here is the dissent. JR's views in this case will very likely be a major area of questioning during his confirmation hearings. See previous post on this subject....
By Fred Barbash | August 27, 2005; 9:49 AM ET | Comments (2)
Press Release: New NARAL Ad
NARAL Pro-Choice America, which withdrew an earlier controversial ad critical of Roberts, has a new one. Here's the announcement: This morning, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a television advertisement focusing on John Roberts' disturbing record on privacy and choice. The ad highlights a memo written by Roberts for the U.S. Attorney General in 1981, in which he calls an established liberty a "so-called 'right to privacy'" and a brief he co-authored a decade later calling for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. You can check out the ad and supporting document on NARAL's Web site....
By Fred Barbash | August 26, 2005; 12:04 PM ET | Comments (3)
'He didn't write it....We can't tell you who did.'
The note below from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, while only arguably related to the purpose of this forum on the Supreme Court nomination, is too good not to report. Incidentally, I cannot locate the offending opinion piece, which appears to have been deleted from cyberspace. FB Opinion column was not written by Zeidler By O. RICARDO PIMENTEL Editorial Page Editor Posted: Aug. 24, 2005 In last Sunday's Crossroads section, we ran a column ("A return to the rule of law") about the U.S. Supreme Court and attributed it to former Milwaukee Mayor Frank P. Zeidler. The problem: He didn't write it. Another problem. We can't tell you who did. We get dozens of opinion submissions every week. When we opt to run one, we do our level-best to ascertain true authorship. We didn't do enough of that in this case. Submissions to the editorial pages and Crossroads are routinely verified with...
By Fred Barbash | August 26, 2005; 10:32 AM ET | Email a Comment
Sen. Feinstein: JR's view on Roe critical
From the San Francisco Chronicle: Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-Calif.], speaking to a large gathering of lawyers, made it clear Wednesday that maintaining a woman's right to have an abortion would be the litmus test she would apply in deciding whether to support Judge John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court. Feinstein, who has long supported abortion rights, has said Roberts' view of the landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling would influence her decision on his nomination as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But her comments to the lawyers and to reporters afterward marked the first time she has stated that her vote on Roberts' nomination would hinge on his position on this single contentious issue. "It would be very difficult for me to vote to confirm someone to the Supreme Court whom I knew would overturn Roe and return our country to the days of the 1950s," the...
By Fred Barbash | August 25, 2005; 11:19 AM ET | Comments (24)
Mario Cuomo on JR and Religion
Former New York governor Mario Cuomo has an op-ed today in the LA Times: For more than 20 years, some conservative clerics and politicians have bitterly criticized Catholic public officials for refusing to use their office to "correct" the law of the land. They demand that Catholic officials make political decisions reflecting their religious belief that abortion is tantamount to murder and work to overturn Roe vs. Wade and other laws that make abortion legal. Most of the targeted officials have been Democrats such as Ted Kennedy, Gerry Ferraro and John Kerry. But now that Judge John G. Roberts Jr. -- their candidate -- has been nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court, the shoe is on the other political foot. Conservatives are outraged that another Catholic public official might be considered deserving of the same criticism. They demand that Roberts not be asked about personal beliefs, including religious ones,...
By Fred Barbash | August 25, 2005; 7:19 AM ET | Comments (7)
The Morning Papers
Good morning. Here are some JR-related headlines from the newspapers. The Washington Post: Group Defends Roberts's Rights Record; Conservatives Answer Critics Who Point to Reagan-Era Remarks and Democrats Seeking Release of Withheld Roberts Documents; Iran-Contra Among Topics of Reagan-Era Papers In the New York Times: Nominee's Role in Tribunal Case Draws Democrats' Interest From the Boston Globe: Liberals bracing for Roberts hearing, Leading group issues opposition; Democrats gear up...
By Fred Barbash | August 25, 2005; 5:48 AM ET | Email a Comment
Confirmation History
Nancy Benac of AP on the history of Supreme Court hearings: 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 OK'd him just 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. And it wasn't until the mid-1950s that the notion of a nominee facing a line of questioners became more typical. Even in 1986, when William H. Rehnquist was nominated to rise from associate justice to chief justice, he thought he shouldn't have to appear before the Senate. After...
By Fred Barbash | August 24, 2005; 6:37 PM ET | Comments (5)
Schumer, Feingold: JR's Ethical Questions
Jesse J. Holland of the AP reports via The Post: Two Democratic senators said Wednesday that they want Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to explain before his confirmation hearings why he continued to judge a lawsuit against the Bush administration while being interviewed to be a justice. "It is clear that you have long understood the ethical issues raised by continuing to work on a case in which a party is considering you for another position," Judiciary Committee Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said in a letter to Roberts....
By Fred Barbash | August 24, 2005; 3:55 PM ET | Comments (5)
U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Support Roberts
The AP reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed JR's confirmation: "Roberts has attracted broad, bipartisan support for his fairness, keen intellect, open-mindedness, and judicious practice of the law," said Tom Donohue, the chamber's president and CEO. "He is highly regarded and well respected by the legal and business communities." The chamber is the world's largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations. Roberts did some work for the chamber during his time as a private attorney. He represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a battle over a groundbreaking law in Maine designed to lower drug prices for state residents without insurance coverage. The law let the state negotiate for lower prices and if prices didn't drop in three years, Maine could impose price controls....
By Fred Barbash | August 24, 2005; 10:54 AM ET | Comments (5)
PFAW: Oppose Roberts
People for the American Way has announced its opposition to the confirmation of Judge Roberts. "A review of John Roberts' record and the tens of thousands of pages of documents so far released by the Administration show that confirming John Roberts would endanger much of the progress made by the nation in civil rights over the past half-century," the organization said in a news release. John Roberts has spent much of the past two decades in political and legal positions of great influence. The public record that has been revealed over recent weeks demonstrates that Roberts has consistently advocated positions that would undermine Americans' fundamental rights and liberties under the Constitution and federal law. The confirmation of John Roberts to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would bring dramatic change, move the Supreme Court significantly to the right, and shift the balance of the court to the great and lasting detriment...
By Fred Barbash | August 24, 2005; 10:32 AM ET | Comments (3)
Blogosphere Document Analysis
Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt at radioblogger.com recently organized a blogger JR document analysis in which volunteers agreed to review the JR materials from the Reagan Library, each taking on a specific box. They provide their own analyses, of matters great and small here. For more on Hewitt, see Nicholas Lemann's piece in this week's New Yorker (unavailable online.)...
By Fred Barbash | August 24, 2005; 7:18 AM ET | Email a Comment
The Morning Papers
Good morning. There's not much news on the JR front but lots of opinion, particularly on the subject of the Roberts documents pertaining to women. An editorial in the Washington Times goes after The Washington Post on the subject: We've come to expect zealotry on the left in the campaign to derail the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, and in the superheated partisan atmosphere prevailing in Washington it's probably unrealistic to expect good humor. These guys not only can't take a joke, they can't recognize one. The Washington Post analyzed 38,000 pages of documents covering Judge Roberts' tenure as associate counsel to President Reagan (1982-85). Such a task might boggle even a nimble and well-meaning mind, but The Post concluded that its analysis demonstrated that Judge Roberts "consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan...
By Fred Barbash | August 24, 2005; 2:24 AM ET | Comments (1)
Specter Questions
Jesse J. Holland of the AP reports: Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter plans to use the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to criticize what he calls the high court's judicial activism, saying Tuesday that justices have started acting as a "super legislature." "I am concerned about the Supreme Court's judicial activism which has usurped congressional authority," Specter, R-Pa., said in a letter to Roberts, who will face senators' questions at his confirmation hearing on Sept. 6. The AP also reports that People for the American Way is expected to announce its opposition to Roberts's nomination at a press briefing Wednesday....
By Fred Barbash | August 23, 2005; 6:28 PM ET | Comments (3)
Daily Standard: JR 'within the political mainstream'
Paul Mirengoff, writing in the Weekly Standard's daily online content: It is quite misleading....to suggest that there was anything truly radical about what Roberts and his fellow insurgents attempted to accomplish. When Roberts wrote his memos, Republicans had won landslide victories in two of the previous three presidential elections based, in part, on denunciations of the liberal activism of the Supreme Court. And they were on their way to a third such triumph. Roberts's insistence on a colorblind society, his unhappiness with judicial short-circuiting of the political processes, his disagreement with Roe v. Wade, to cite just three examples, all placed him well within the political mainstream....
By Fred Barbash | August 22, 2005; 4:37 PM ET | Email a Comment
JR: Nothing in his record detrimental to civil rights
Responding to suggestions that JR is hostile to civil rights and equity issues, Peter Kirsanow writes in National Review Online: The NAACP's Washington bureau released a statement last week contending that recently revealed John Roberts documents display a longstanding hostility toward NAACP civil-rights priorities. The statement maintains that the documents show several "disturbing instances in which Judge Roberts' legal philosophy and judicial temperament appeared to be detrimental to the civil rights, civil liberties and educational equity issues supported by the NAACP, including race and gender discrimination (sic) and affirmative action." A search of Roberts's record reveals nothing in his legal philosophy or temperament detrimental to civil rights, civil liberties, or "educational equity" issues. Nor has Roberts demonstrated hostility toward race- and gender-discrimination laws or even affirmative action as lawfully constituted. (Whether his legal philosophy cheers the NAACP, though, may be another matter.) The NAACP statement is emblematic, however, of...
By Fred Barbash | August 22, 2005; 12:46 PM ET | Comments (2)
The Sunday Papers
The Washington Post offers an overview of Roberts's legal philosophy as gleaned from the documents released to date: "Sifting Old, New Writings for Roberts's Philosophy," by R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker. Jan Crawford Greenburg in the Chicago Tribune focuses on what the documents show of JR's views on the role of the judiciary. Click here for "Roberts firm on courts' leaving Constitution alone . . . From writings in the '80s to a recent Senate questionnaire, the high court nominee says jurists shouldn't try to cure society's problems." David Espo of the Associated Press also reviews the papers in a piece headlined, at washingtonpost.com, "Roberts' Writings Reveal Self-Confidence." In the New York Times, see "Roberts's Harvard Roots: A Movement Was Stirring," by Janny Scott on JR's days as a conservative in Cambridge. Meanwhile the Cox News Service reports that "Records do not elicit attacks of court pick ....
By Fred Barbash | August 21, 2005; 10:01 AM ET | Email a Comment
