Archive: Roberts Background
Hapless Toad II
More on Rancho Viejo. See previous post as well. Ted Frank, writing at pointoflaw.com, says: With so few opinions in his two years as a junior member of the D.C. Circuit, there is a lot of focus on Judge Roberts' dissent from a denial of an en banc review in Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, with opponents seizing on this decision in an effort to tar Roberts as anti-environmentalist and worse. I was interviewed on this topic in a front-page article in my old hometown paper. (Bill Walsh, "'Hapless toad' case fuels fears of Roberts' foes", New Orleans Times-Picayune, Jul. 22). I noted, but didn't seem to persuade the writer, that Judge Roberts' dissent did not necessarily indicate that he intended to strike down the Endangered Species Act as unconstituional, but rather asked the D.C. Circuit to revise its jurisprudence on the question in a manner consistent with Supreme...
By Fred Barbash | July 23, 2005; 06:24 AM ET | Comments (1)
Hapless Toad
For a good analysis of Judge Roberts's much discussed "hapless toad" dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in Rancho Viejo v. Norton see Tom Goldstein's Supreme Court Nomination blog. There are two very different plausible readings of Judge Roberts's Rancho Viejo opinion. On one view, he sought to advance aggressively a vision of limited federal power.... On another reading, however, Judge Roberts's opinion was far more innocuous. There is a tendency to read substantial subtext into Judge Roberts's opinion because it addresses such a controversial subject and is written with such understatement. But I think the opinion is better read to mean exactly what it says: that he perceived an inconsistency between circuit and Supreme Court precedent on an important issue that ought to be resolved by the full court....
By Fred Barbash | July 22, 2005; 07:44 PM ET | Email a Comment
Roberts Background
John G. Roberts has long been considered one of the Republicans' legal heavyweights. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003 by Bush. He was also nominated by the first President Bush, but never received a Senate vote. Previously, he practiced law at Washington's Hogan & Hartson from 1986-1989 and 1993-2003. Between those years, he was he principal deputy solicitor general, helping to formulate the administration's position in Supreme Court cases. During the Reagan administration, he served as an aide to Attorney General William French Smith and as an aide to White House counsel Fred Fielding from 1982-1986. He attended Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, clerked for Justice (now Chief Justice) William H. Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. He has not been considered a "movement conservative," and in the past, some on the party's right have doubted his commitment to their...
By Fred Barbash | July 19, 2005; 08:03 PM ET | Comments (1)
