John G. Roberts Jr.

July 19, 2005

As of 7:47 PM ET, the Associated Press reports that Bush will nominate federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court.

OK, so who’s John G. Roberts? He is currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, nominated by Bush in 2003. Though he’s spent most of his legal career in private practice, Roberts was the principal deputy solicitor general in the George H.W. Bush administration, helping formulate the administration’s position in Supreme Court cases. In the Reagan administration, he was an aide to Attorney General William French Smith from 1981 to 1982 and an aide to White House counsel Fred Fielding from 1982 to 1986.

Roberts’ resume is what you’d expect — he attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, clerked for then-Justice William H. Rehnquist Jr. on the Supreme Court and has argued frequently before the court.

He’s also known for being deeply partisan, having been active with the Republican National Lawyers Association and the National Legal Center For The Public Interest, which is active in promoting an anti-regulatory agenda. When the first President Bush nominated him to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, his nomination didn’t get past the Senate Judiciary Committee — he was considered too conservative.

On abortion rights, Roberts has been described as a “hard-liner.”

In 1991, as deputy solicitor general for President George H.W. Bush, John Roberts (now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) co-wrote the administration’s brief in Rust v. Sullivan. Roberts’ position, which was adopted by the Supreme Court, barred doctors and clinics receiving federal funds from discussing the possibility of abortion with their patients or referring them to family-planning clinics that do the procedure. The brief said on behalf of the administration, “We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled.” Roberts could try to distance himself from this stance by arguing that he was merely stating his client’s position, but the stark language in the brief could be hard to disown.

The Alliance For Justice has a detailed report on Roberts’ career and judicial approach online.

And this seems like the kind of thing that progressive activists might find interesting: Roberts was Ken Starr’s Deputy at Justice Department. During the Clinton investigation, Roberts praised Starr’s “professionalism, his discretion and his judgment.” [Investors Business Daily, 2/10/98]

Update: Some have emailed asking about his confirmation vote in 2003. It turns out, Roberts was confirmed on 5/8/03 without a roll-call vote on the Senate floor. As for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Roberts was approved, 16 to 3.

Second Update: It turns out Roberts never joined the Federalist Society.

Third Update: OK, maybe we were right the first time. Roberts was in the Federalist Society and was a member of the steering committee of the organization’s Washington chapter.

Damnit.

  • Wow…anti-regulation and anti-Roe. W managed to find a two-fer. Damn.

    Any chance his original stumbling in the Senate Judiciary Committee will provide enough cover for the dems to filibuster?

  • To hell with the man’s qualifications. Is he a born-again Christian or isn’t he? It’s like the whole world gives these people a pass because nobody wants to deal with the fact that a small religious cabal is running our country. Well I’m tired of all the back-room nods and bible-thumping hypocrisy. If the man is born-again, then he’ll overturn R v. W. Those people put the bible ahead of everything else, including the constitution.

  • Roberts got it, AP a few minutes ago. They have to release
    it before the speech, which I will not watch. I will not let Bush
    into my house.

    Could it be worse?

  • You know, I was pondering another angle to the reason why the GOP might oppose abortion–i.e., trying to figure out a non-religious dogma reason why they might oppose it. None of us buy the nonsense about “Culture of life” stuff, and the only constant for the GOP has been to look after the interests of the super wealthy.

    Anyway, the judge’s opinion about barring clinics from federal funds says a lot as does his anti-regulation stance. The people who *probably* benefit from the federal dollars at these clinics are the poor. Rich people don’t want to see their tax dollars go to poor people. They’d rather either keep the money to dispose of as they see fit or else see that money returned to them sevenfold through business contracts. Thus, it seems natural for the GOP to oppose abortion, just like they would any program that would help the poor. Of course, the issue of abortion probably wouldn’t be a big deal for the GOP except that it gives them a ready constituency of religious militants.

    So this guy need not be a born-again Christian. For the time being, the Christian right and the GOP are pursuing similar policies, but probably for different reasons. The real test will be if the GOP ever attempts to share real power with the religious zealots. They haven’t really, yet. As we know, they don’t share too well.

  • Is it safe to assume that John Roberts is a nominee that the Democrats should go to war over? And if so what do we think the outcome is likely to be?

  • Thus, it seems natural for the GOP to oppose abortion, just like they would any program that would help the poor.want people to be poorer, and a cheaper labor market from excessive numbers of poor people, they’d oppose abortion, for those very reasons.

    So whether Fiscal Conservatives support abortion would depend on how cynical (or evil) they are. In fact, I see the expense of actual abortions themselves to be the least of their concerns; for the same reason that a health insurer will pay for sterilization, but not pay to reverse the procedure. Because the sterilization is cheaper than child-birth and the medical expenses of the growing child. Similarly, from the Fiscal Conservative’s perspective, it would be cheaper to pay for the abortion, than to pay the welfare, medicaid, education, and eventual imprisonment of the poor child. And the only advantage is cheaper workers and deeper levels of poverty. And while I’m sure that is a factor for some of them, I just don’t think the cost/benefit analysis comes out in that position.

    So basically, I’m saying that the Fiscal Conservatives should not be against abortion; and that they’re only against it to gain votes from Social Conservatives. And my Supreme Court prediction was always that he’d replace O’Connor with a hard-rightie who would support Roe with a conservative-leaning argument; as Roberts supposedly does. So I don’t think that Roe will be overturned, though Roberts will probably do tons of damage elsewhere.

  • What the hell?!? The first part of my post somehow got erased. I look completely retarded!! This was probably my own fault, but I think I’ll blame Carpetbagger and sue. By god, I’ll sue!

    I guess you can get the gist of what I was saying in the missing part. I was disagreeing with the part I put in italics, and wrote something about how Fiscal Conservatives would be more likely to support abortion, because it would make fewer poor people; both by saving poor people the expense of raising children, and by making fewer overall children born into poverty. And that the only advantage to opposing abortion would be by making more poor people and by making them poorer, which is where my post seems to begin. Sorry for the confusion. It really was a good paragraph, I swear. Carpetbagger, you’ll be hearing from my attorney.

  • Carpetbagger, you’ll be hearing from my attorney.

    Doc, I don’t have any money. You can blame me if you want, though; the comments section has been quirky the last couple of days. We’re working on it….

  • Fundies want to get rid of abortion because they want women to be punished for being “bad” with an unwanted pregnancy. That’s why the same people are often opposed to birth control, which you’d think you’d favor if you were trying to reduce the number of abortions. The Culture of Life stuff is total BS. I think it’s as simple as that.

  • Another good overview of John Roberts Jr. at: http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/John_G._Roberts_Jr.

    He sounds like a bitter pill to swallow for the left but straight arrow and nice enough to get confirmed. Nice shouldn’t be a major criteria necessarily but the post speech conversation on NPR was uniformly warmer and fuzzier than I would have expected in hearing analysis about a really radical candidate. The concensus seemed to be very smart, very pleasant and easy to deal with and very conservative.

    Justice John Roberts Jr. Probably better get used to it.

  • Lawrence Tribe (who argued against Roberts in Bush v Gore) had a pretty good take on this. Namely, that Roberts is knowledgeable and affable, and that his appointment will definitely lead to a “nibbling away” (he was quoting others) at Roe. Then he stated that those whose rights are being violated don’t care whether that’s a nibble or a take-away, or whether he’s affable or knowledgable. He gave a very cogent argument why the committee (esp. Schumer and Durbin) should question Roberts very closely on everything – the source he cited to back this up was none other than Scalia in 2002 (who admitted, nay bragged, that judges come in to cases with fixed ideas and ideologies).
    Tribe was opposing a view expressed earlier by that asshole Joe Biden who doesn’t think the committee has any right to question Roberts about anything which might come before him.

  • burro makes a good point……Justice John Roberts Jr. Probably better get used to it.

    We should probably resign ourselves to the fact that this is going to happen. Morbo also made a good point this weekend, that maybe we need to see Roe v. Wade get overturned and stop these “soccer moms” from voting Republican. In the end I always believed that the Republicans really didn’t want R v W overturned because it was a great wedge issue for them….guess I was wrong. The good part of this is that 65% of the American public disagrees with the Bushies on this one. This may turn into a mid-term bonanza!

  • Democrats should talk tough in the hearings and then let him sail through. And I’m a committed Democrat.

    1. Let GOP fuck with the other third rail of American politics, Roe V. Wade. They repeal it at their peril.

    2. At a moment when people think both Congressional Republicans and Congressional Democrats suck, we can deflect criticism away from us.

    3. If we didn’t want this guy, we should have done better in November. Damn straight we will do better in November 2006.

    4. Bush is toast anyway — SCOTUS appointments are his last hurrah. Don’t get emotional about it. At least Roberts isn’t a dope. (This point may consist of multiple points.)

  • The big problem for me is that he just wasn’t a judge long enough for his own personal beliefs to become well documented. There may be hints but nothing is certain. What he did as an employee of a conservative administration doesn’t count as much when his paycheck depended on doing what the boss wanted done. The big question is what will he do once he rises to the point of total independence from every form of pressure except his own conscience. A lot of circuit judges spent years as judges in lower courts before that so their attitudes would have at least some basis for examination. Roberts doesn’t even have that much to go on, which makes it a big problem for those who worry about letting a wolf in sheep’s clothing get into the highest court in the land.

    This was a shrewd move by Bush, although to me it smacks of real dishonesty in that it’s a calculated move to avoid a battle by sending up someone that nobody really knows and is very difficult to get the inside scoop on. Heaven knows there are dozens of qualified people who have a lot more provenance than Roberts does.

    But at the same time, I don’t think anybody expected Bush to send Mother Teresa out there. We knew we were going to get a conservative no matter what. At least this one isn’t the overtly snarling, frothing wingnut we all feared, which is another aspect of the slickness of Bush’s strategy. Can we learn enough about him to feel good about the choice? No, we’ll only have his word on how he’ll comport himself on the bench, and there are never any guarantees even with the best of candidates. But will we be sure enough about him to reject him out of hand without solid proof that he’s not worthy of the job? Again, sadly, the answer is probably no. As Burro said, we’d better get used to him as Justice Roberts because unless he’s got some big whopping skeletons in the closet he’s probably going to end up getting confirmed.

    Like they say in the funny papers, “God Save The United States of America, And This Honorable Court!”

  • We’ve all seen that Bush can make the quick, self-satisfying, knee-jerk decision that he thinks is very cunning and wise … and we’ve seen how these decisions have turned out. My question is, is Roberts a live wire? Does Bush or his cronies have any idea how he’ll really turn out? Certainly we don’t, but I wonder if this will be the coup Bush may think he has. With such a limited track record, does Roberts have the pedigree for either side to evaluate him? Either they know something we don’t, or they they may not know as much as they think.

  • I am as Dem as it gets. I am also a lawyer and recently clerked for a federal judge on a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge John Roberts should be confirmed. He is the GOP counterpart to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. He is not a knee-jerk reactionary. True, his conservative convictions and credentials run deep. But that’s fair. He clearly has the credentials and temperment — unlike others who have been mentioned to be a Justice on SCOTUS.

    Ok. So we may not like his politics. But that’s no reason to sandbag his nomination. He is a smart, clear thinker, who will reach decisions based on logic and legal authority. He appears to have a healthy respect for precedent. I agree with the earlier post that we should have done better in November if we want to quibble about the man’s political persuasions. The last thing we want is an ideologue, and we all know how close we came to getting that. Indeed, the chances are tremendous that the next one will be a nutter — let’s save our political capital for that one..

  • John Roberts is a member of the Federalist Society, like Scalia, Thomas and Bork, the more I learn about that organization the more paranoid that I get.

  • I agree with Progressive Junkie, IFF Senate Dems gain political capital in supporting his nomination on the floor of the Senate. Because we will need additional political capital in order to stop a true right-wingnut.

    • Comments are closed.