WASHINGTON - President Bush chose federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. on Tuesday as his first nominee for the Supreme Court, selecting a rock solid conservative whose nomination could trigger a tumultuous battle over the direction of the nation's highest court, senior administration officials said.Roberts does appear to be a staunch conservative but his stand on Roe v. Wade as claimed by pro-abortion extremists and reported in the media may be highly exaggerated. When he was specifically asked during the first round of oral arguments in one of the cases whether he was asking that Roe v. Wade be overruled, Roberts answered "No, Your Honor, the issue doesn’t even come up." [more here][snip]
Abortion rights groups allege that Roberts is hostile to women's reproductive freedom and cite a brief he co-wrote in 1990 that suggested the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion.
"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 brief said.
Nevertheless, pro-life groups should be encouraged by the statement quoted above in the AP article.
Earned Media has published a summary of Judge Roberts beginning with the following:
Judge John Roberts has the keen intellect, impartiality and temperament, sound legal judgment and highest integrity necessary in a Supreme Court justice.From the Traditional Values Website:He rules based on the application of existing laws and specific facts of the cases before him, rather than making new laws or creating new policies based on personal opinion.
It’s not surprising that The National Journal has said that “John Roberts seems a good bet to be the kind of judge we should all want to have — all of us, that is, who are looking less for congenial ideologues than for professionals committed to the impartial application of the law.”
Roberts is currently head of Hogan & Hartson's Appellate Practice Group in Washington, DC. He graduated magna cum laude in 1979 from Harvard Law School. Shortly after graduation, he clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist. He later served as Special Assistant to U.S. Attorney General William F. Smith. In 1982, President Reagan appointed him the White House staff as Associate Counsel. Roberts has presented oral arguments before the Supreme Court in more than thirty cases.
Roberts is being opposed by the National Abortion Rights Action League because of positions he took in two cases: Rust v. Sullivan and Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic. When he was involved in these cases, he was a Solicitor General at the Justice Department. It was his duty to advance the position of the United States in these cases.In Rust, Roberts defended the right of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to enforce regulations that prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion-related services. Rust never threatened Roe v. Wade. In Bray, Roberts specifically declined to say that he was arguing that Roe be overturned.
Roberts is also being criticized for representing businesses against the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). In Toyota Motor Manufacturing v. Williams, the issue involved whether a person with carpel tunnel syndrome fell under the coverage of the ADA. Roberts-and the Supreme Court determined that this injury did not qualify for coverage under ADA-yet critics are claiming Roberts wanted to overturn the ADA.
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