Democrats Feel Heat From Left on Roberts
Groups Say Fight Should Be Stronger
By Charles Babington and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 17, 2005; Page A01
Major liberal groups accused Democratic senators yesterday of showing too little stomach for opposing John G. Roberts Jr.'s Supreme Court nomination, saying newly released documents indicate he is much more conservative than many people first thought.
The response was quick and pointed, as two key senators unleashed their sharpest criticisms yet of Roberts and sought to assure activists that the battle is far from over.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, said in a statement: "Those papers that we have received paint a picture of John Roberts as an eager and aggressive advocate of policies that are deeply tinged with the ideology of the far right wing of his party then, and now. In influential White House and Department of Justice positions, John Roberts expressed views that were among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, privacy, and access to justice."...
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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the committee's senior member, also took his criticisms of Roberts to new heights yesterday in a letter to colleagues.
In a further bid to dispel an air of inevitability that liberals think too many Democrats have embraced, several organizations told allies that they will call for Roberts's rejection this month rather than wait for the Senate hearings to start on Sept. 6, as some members of the anti-Roberts coalition have urged....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/16/AR2005081601919.html
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