Re: Supreme Court Nomination
cnredd said:
Let the smearing begin....
Interesting, you assume that is all we want to do. An interesting note on this Roberts guy (who I honestly don't know a great deal about...some, but not much) is that he sits on the DC Circuit court, which is known as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court. And on a ironic note, there is another John Roberts who is a prominent spiritualist.
Some more info on this guy is that he served as white house associate counsel and has clerked for the current cheif justice. He comes from within the Bush white house in a sense because he was part of the legal team that helped write the briefs for
Bush v. Gore the decision that landed Bush in the white house. Some info on his abortion stances, and yes, I do mean stances...
cnn said:
"NARAL alleged that Roberts had actively worked to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that struck down state laws outlawing abortion."
He said in 1990 that the Roe decision "was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
In his 2003 confirmation hearing, however, he told senators he was acting as an advocate for his client, rather than presenting his own positions.
Liberal groups and conservative activism groups will likely attack him on this issue most heavily even though there really isn't any legal room for abortion anymore thanks to O'Connor's court.
Another issue that may come up is environmental concerns and general immunity of government from suit in court. Roberts was the lead counsel for the United States in the Supreme Court case Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, in which the government argued that private citizens could not sue the federal government for violations of environmental regulations. He also represented as a private lawyer corporations accused of environmental contamination.
Civil Rights. After a Supreme Court decision effectively nullified certain sections of the Voting Rights Act, Roberts was involved in the Reagan administration's effort to prevent Congress from overturning the Supreme Court's action.6 The Supreme Court had recently decided that certain sections of the Voting Rights Act could only be violated by intentional discrimination and not by laws that had a discriminatory effect, despite a lack of textual basis for this interpretation in the statute. Roberts was part of the effort to legitimize that decision and to stop Congress from overturning it.
Religion in Schools. While working with the Solicitor General's office, Mr. Roberts co-wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the Bush administration, in which he argued that public high schools can include religious ceremonies in their graduation programs, a view the Supreme Court rejected.7
Pro Bono. Mr. Roberts has engaged in significant pro bono work while at Hogan and Hartson, including representation of indigent clients and criminal defendants. Source=independentjudiciary.com
He has taken some stances that were completely overruled by the Supreme Court and it will be interesting to see the reaction to that by the Democrats (I know my position on two of them). I love the fact he did pro-bono work and shows he has empathy for his fellow man and isn't someone who just sits on high judging others.
The only other problem that may arrise is the fact he is a member of two pro-corporate and anti-regulatory groups (one of them being the evil (jk) Federalist society). Should be interesting to see whether that comes into play.
Now did that attack him? Nope, just giving some info.
