Hearings on Roberts to begin Sept. 6
- Aug 15, 2005 - comment
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will open hearings Sept. 6 on the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court.
Roberts and the 18 members of the panel are scheduled to make opening statements on the first day of the hearings. Senators will begin questioning the nominee Sept. 7.
Abortion-rights and other liberal advocacy organizations are pushing senators to oppose the nominee. Barring any unexpected developments, however, it appears the federal appellate judge has the votes needed for confirmation.
Pro-life, pro-family advocates have given widespread support to Roberts, who has served on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals since 2003. Most of the information uncovered so far has shown Roberts to hold a conservative viewpoint on hot-button issues.
Though Roberts has not committed himself on the Roe v. Wade opinion legalizing abortion, social conservatives appear content to trust his judicial philosophy, which seems to be based on operating within the constraints of the Constitution. Meanwhile, abortion-rights supporters fear Roberts will vote to overturn the 1973 ruling and have urged his defeat.
Even a report that Roberts provided assistance to advocates for homosexual rights in a 1996 Supreme Court case has failed to peel off most conservative support. At the request of a colleague in his law firm, Roberts donated his expertise to homosexual activists as part of the company’s free legal work. In Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to strike down a Colorado constitutional amendment that barred the state and municipalities from giving civil rights status to homosexuality.
“I understand it was Judge Roberts’ standard practice to provide pro bono assistance when asked by colleagues at the firm in areas of his expertise, which certainly included constitutional law,” said Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land. “It also is my understanding he provided between five and 10 hours of advice and counsel to the firm’s lawyers who were in direct charge of the case. In other words, John Roberts did what lawyers have sworn an oath to do—that is, provide the best legal advice possible to their client, in this case a homosexual rights group that others in the firm had decided to represent.
“Everything in Judge Roberts’ judicial philosophy reveals him to be an original-intent, strict-constructionist judge,” Land said. “It is overwhelmingly probable as a sitting justice he would have voted the same way his mentor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, did, which was against the majority opinion. . . . We should remember that Judge Roberts did what he had sworn an oath to do—represent his client. And when he is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, his client will be the Constitution.”
President Bush nominated Roberts, 50, to replace Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired July 1 after 24 years of service.
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