The John Roberts Dossier
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Salon.com
Wednesday 20 July 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/072005I.shtml
Everything you need to know about Bush's nominee, before the battle begins.
Who is he?
John G. Roberts, 50, now serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit, where he's been since 2003. It took him
three nominations and more than a decade to get there. He was originally
nominated for the court in 1992 by the first President Bush, and again by
George W. Bush in 2001; both nominations died in the Senate. Roberts was
renominated in January 2003 by President Bush and joined the court in May of
that year.
His two-year stint on the D.C. court offers a short record of decisions to
scrutinize. But in his career as a litigator, Roberts argued 39 cases before
the Supreme Court, both as a lawyer in private practice and as one working
for the government under Republican administrations. He won 25 of them.
Roberts was a member of "Lawyers for Bush-Cheney" and contributed $1,000 to
the first Bush-Cheney election campaign in 2000. His professional ties to
the Bush family go back a generation; he served under Kenneth Starr as the
principal deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration. He also
campaigned for that administration's election, as a member of the executive
committee of the DC Lawyers for Bush-Quayle '88. Before that, he was the
deputy White House counsel for four years in the Reagan administration.
When not serving in Republican administrations -- or contributing money to
them -- he's been in practice as a corporate lawyer at Hogan & Hartson, the
largest law firm based in D.C., where he was paid more than $1 million in
2003, the last year he worked there. His clients ranged from the states of
Hawaii and Alaska to the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the
Pulte Corp. He successfully represented Toyota Motor Manufacturing in a case
before the Supreme Court, where he argued that a worker with carpal tunnel
syndrome was not protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act, even
though she was fired for an injury acquired on the job. He also served as a
lobbyist on behalf of the Western Peanut Growers Association and the
Panhandle Peanut Growers Association. A partner at Hogan & Hartson for 10
years, his net worth is more than $3.7 million, according to financial
disclosure statements.
Roberts is also a member of the influential Federalist Society for Law and
Public Policy Studies,a group of conservatives and libertarians, which holds
that the legal professional is currently dominated by "a form of orthodox
liberal ideology."
If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Roberts will be the 105th white male
justice to serve.
Where does he come from?
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1955, Roberts grew up in Indiana. He has an Ivy
League résumé and the top-tier clerkships to go with it. He attended Harvard
College, from which he graduated in three years, and then Harvard Law
School, where he was on the Law Review, graduating in 1979. After school, he
clerked for Henry Friendly at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit,
as well as Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court, before
being appointed the special assistant to the attorney general in the
Department of Justice.
A Catholic, he's married to a lawyer, Jane Marie Sullivan, with whom he has
two children, Jack and Josephine.
Where does he stand on abortion?
Roberts has been involved in two key decisions while arguing on behalf of
Republican administrations, both of which pro-choice groups consider attacks
on women's reproductive rights.
In Rust v. Sullivan, the then-deputy solicitor general coauthored a brief in
support of regulations prohibiting U.S. family planning programs, which get
federal aid, from giving any abortion-related counseling. In that brief, he
wrote: "We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be
overruled ... The Court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental
right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure, or history
of the Constitution." The court upheld those regulations. In another case,
involving the Operation Rescue, he coauthored the government's amicus brief
supporting the group's right to target clinics, under the First Amendment,
arguing that Operation Rescue was not engaged in a conspiracy to deny women
equal protection.
But in his confirmation hearing in 2003 to the appeals court, when asked
about abortion, Roberts said that the Supreme Court was clear on the matter,
and he could uphold it: "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land," he
said. "There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully
and faithfully applying that precedent." Whether as a member of the court he
would try to change that law remains to be seen.
What do "enemy combatants" and French fries have in common? (Roberts' track
record on civil liberties.)
Last Friday, the court on which Roberts now serves decided a case that
supports the Bush administration's plans to use secretive military tribunals
in the war on terror, which have provoked an international outcry from civil
libertarians and human rights advocates. The three-judge panel, including
Roberts, ruled unanimously that tribunals set up to try terrorism suspects
for war crimes, in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, were authorized under
federal law. And it found that any rights accorded by the Geneva Convention
to prisoners of war did not apply to suspected al-Qaida members or so-called
enemy combatants. The two lawyers representing Hamdan in the case called the
decision "contrary to 200 years of constitutional law." It was the first
major opinion in which Roberts concurred -- and, ironically, could be tested
in the Supreme Court during its next term.
Another, much-noted accomplishment also has to do with civil liberties. In
2004, Roberts upheld the arrest of a 12-year-old girl who was handcuffed by
transit police on the Washington Metro system for eating a single French
fry. "No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation," he
wrote. Yet, he determined that the cops didn't violate the girl's rights
under the Constitution's Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable
searches.
What about the environment?
Robert's doesn't seem to be a big fan of the Endangered Species Act, at
least considering his attitude toward the arroyo toad -- about which he
wrote "for reasons of its own lives its entire life in California," rather
snippily in a dissent in the case of Rancho Viejo v. Norton. In 2003,
Roberts wanted the court to reconsider a panel's decision that upheld a Fish
and Wildlife Service regulation protecting the toads under the act. The
court declined to hear the case, but in his dissent Roberts maintained there
could be no interstate commerce rationale for protecting the toad.
When Roberts was the government's lead counsel before the Supreme Court in
Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, he successfully argued that members
of the environmental group did not have a right to file claims against 4,500
acres of public land being opened to mining. The court agreed, making it
harder for plaintiffs to challenge government actions that hurt the
environment.
Where does he stand on gay rights?
Gay rights advocates like the Human Rights Campaign say that Roberts has no
paper trail on the issue as a judge. But they fear that his conservative
Republican record, including his criticism of the right to privacy
authorized by Roe, bodes badly for them.
What about prayer in school?
Roberts has argued on behalf of his clients for the expansion of religion in
public schools. In a coauthored brief to the Supreme Court in Lee v.
Weisman, he argued that religious ceremonies should be allowed to be a part
of graduation ceremonies. The Supreme Court rejected that position. But
Roberts successfully argued to the court that religious groups should not be
banned from meeting on school grounds in the case of Mergens v. Westside
Community School District.
Go to Original
Roberts Is Well Liked, but His Judicial Record Isn't Clear
By Stephen Henderson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Tuesday 19 July 2005
Washington - If you're looking for clear ideological markers in the work of
John G. Roberts Jr., the kinds of screeds or invectives that might define a
judge more as a political actor than a measured jurist, you'll look a long
time in vain.
That's because Roberts, President Bush's nominee to become the 109th justice
of the Supreme Court, has made an art of avoiding controversy in a town that
thrives on it.
What does Roberts think about affirmative action or gay rights? About
separation of church and state or the death penalty? Legal insiders in
Washington, where Roberts has spent nearly 30 years as a lawyer, government
official and judge on a prestigious appeals court, respond unanimously: Who
knows?
Even on abortion, perhaps the most divisive issue the Supreme Court
confronts, Roberts' record is mixed.
As a young lawyer in the George H.W. Bush administration, Roberts had a hand
in taking a position that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized
abortion, was wrongly decided and should be overturned.
But during 2003 confirmation hearings for his appointment to the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Roberts was equally
unequivocal on the opposite side. He said Roe was settled law.
"He's a very moderate personality, but no one really knows whether his
politics and his jurisprudence are also moderate, because he hasn't let that
be known," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who argues before the
Supreme Court and whose firm, Goldstein & Howe, operates an Internet site
that tracks high court activity. "He's definitely not an open ideologue, but
what does he believe? I don't know."
H. Christopher Bartolomucci, a partner at Hogan & Hartson, LLP, the
Washington law firm where Roberts worked, said the nominee took cases that
advocated positions across the political spectrum and had no problem
representing all sorts of clients. Roberts once argued on behalf of welfare
recipients who were being cut off, saying they were entitled to individual
hearings before their benefits were discontinued.
On the D.C. appeals court, which is split between Democratic and Republican
appointees, Roberts has written about 40 opinions and has had only two or
three other judges dissent from his rulings, Bartolomucci said.
"I think that says something, if he's got Carter and Clinton appointees
going along with what he says," Bartolomucci said.
Roberts' enigmatic record may prove a boon in the Senate Judiciary
Committee, improving his chances for quick confirmation.
But some interests are already saying his lack of clear positions is
troubling, because no one really knows what the country might expect from a
Justice John Roberts.
"At first blush, John Roberts may not appear to be an ultra-right judicial
activist," said Wade Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights, the nation's largest coalition of civil rights
groups. "While in reality John Roberts may be a hard-nosed extremist with a
soft conservative facade. In short, the president may have nominated a
stealth candidate, a Justice (Antonin) Scalia or (Clarence) Thomas in
(Sandra Day) O'Connor's robes."
In some ways, Roberts has all the credentials that conservatives were
seeking in a high court nominee. He clerked for Chief Justice William
Rehnquist, worked in the Reagan White House and is a member of the
Federalist Society, a prominent group of conservative lawyers.
That background is reflected in opinions Roberts has written on the D.C.
circuit that suggest a limited role for the federal government in economic
and environmental regulation. He's questioned the reach of Congress to
enforce some parts of the Endangered Species Act and the ability of federal
courts to interfere in criminal proceedings to uphold civil liberties.
In an opinion that Roberts' opponents often cite, he upheld the arrest and
detention of a 12-year-old girl for eating french fries in a Washington
subway station. Roberts acknowledged that no one was happy about the
circumstances of the arrest, but denied the girl's claims that her arrest
violated the Constitution.
But Roberts also has taken positions that are inconsistent with some
conservative views, suggesting that he has a more open-minded view of the
Constitution than some of his critics say.
He's sided with criminal defendants in some cases, opposing other Republican
appointees. And he's taken other inconsistent views, depending heavily on
the facts in cases.
That highlights a part of Roberts' approach that separates him somewhat from
Justices Scalia and Thomas: Though he has a firm view of the Constitution
and its limitations on government, he's intensely interested and
contemplative about the facts in each case.
Bartolomucci said a Justice Roberts probably would combine attributes of
several current justices.
"I think he'll be a little bit like Rehnquist, a very careful comber of
precedent and text, and I think John may have some of O'Connor's ability to
look at facts and realities, and be sensitive to the nuances in a case,"
Bartolomucci said.
"He will definitely bring the pure intellectual power of a Scalia to the
court, and that's a good thing."
That's one attribute that no one disputes for Roberts. A Harvard law
graduate who was managing editor of the school's law review, he's regarded
by lawyers across the spectrum as one of the great legal minds of his
generation. He's argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court - a staggering
number - and he attracted the support of dozens of other legal scholars when
he was nominated to the appeals court.
Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights said he respected
Roberts' intellect and record of accomplishment but that he remained
concerned about what kind of justice he'd be.
"I don't think it's possible to endorse him, given the record we've seen,"
Henderson said. "But the question is whether we might actively oppose him.
We'll have to wait and see."
He said the president missed an opportunity by picking Roberts.
"We're saddened that President Bush has chosen the politics of conflict and
division over bipartisan consensus," he said. "Let's be clear: John Roberts
is no mainstream judge."
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/072005I.shtml
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http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.main
=================
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: for your careful consideration
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:08:22 -0700
From: atovic@ttlv.net
http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction3Dnews.showstory&storyid3DC9BFBBAC-F3CA-BD2E-008C7B34AFE33114
Let's see. There was a plane bombing 'exercise' in the US. And right in
the middle of it, the events of 9-11 took place. Then there was a London
bombing 'exercise', and right in the middle of it there were actual 7-7
London bombings. Now there is going to be a nuclear terror 'exerc
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