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July 20, 2005
John G. Roberts: Very Smart, Very Inexperienced, Very Conservative
By now, just about everyone has commented on President Bush's nomination of Judge Roberts to the bench. The best overviews of Judge Roberts can be found at ACS Blog and SCOTUS Blog. Most of my observations below come for these sites.
First, Roberts is smart, energetic and a successful lawyer:
- B.A. from Harvard College (summa cum laude)
- J.D. from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude)
- Rehnquist clerk
- Won 25 of the 39 cases he pled before the Supreme Court
- Made $1,044,399.54 the last year he worked for Hogan & Hartson LLP
Second, for all he experience before the Supreme Court, Judge Roberts is a very inexperienced judge.
- Total experience on any bench: 2 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Bush I previously nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals position but his nomination never got out of committee.
Third, Judge Roberts has impeccable rightwing credentials.
- Rehnquist clerk (I get to use the same evidence twice)
- Aide to Attorney General during Reagan administration
- Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the Bush I administration
- Involvement with The Federalist Society
- Involvement with The National Center for Law and the Public Interest
I have seen only three of his rulings discussed:
- Upheld the arrest and detention of a 12-year-old girl for eating french fries on the D.C. Metro train
- Wrote a dissenting opinion that suggested Congress lacked the power to regulate the treatment of a certain wildlife species
- Ruling in part against granting a habeas petition of Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan
With regard to the first one Majikthise says,
Roberts concluded that the state sometimes has a legitimate interest in hauling children away for offenses that would net a grownup a ten dollar ticket.
I find the second ruling very distressing. The third ruling is not clear-cut but still of considerable concern.
If it weren't for his other rightwing qualification one could ignore the cases he plead for both the Reagan and the Bush I administration as representing positions of a legal advocate positions rather than personal positions But in the context of other items in his biography, I believe that, if confirmed, Judge Roberts will contribute to
- The erosion of Roe v. Wade rights (he will not vote to overturn Roe but only chip, chip, chip away at it.)
- The erosion of protects of the environment.
- The erosion of many individual civil rights.
- The erosion of many protective regulations (Drugs, etc)
- The strengthening of corporate rights over against consumer rights
As far as the conservative agenda goes, I look for him to be an activist judge. If the moderates and liberals want to stop this nomination without doing themselves great political harm, they need to convince six Republican Senators that their reelection depends on denying Roberts a seat on the Court. No amount of chest beating by the left can stop this nomination even though I do think some chest beating is in order. . If you have a Republican Senator make sure that Senator knows that you and everyone you know will vote for someone else if Roberts is confirmed. Otherwise, it appears that Bush will leave a rightwing legacy on the Court that could last for 30 years.
Update: I previously confused the Hamdi case with the Hamdan case and have fixed it above.
Posted by Duane Smith at July 20, 2005 3:33 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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