The Record of Judge John Roberts

[dweller]

by Gene C. Gerard
July 20, 2005

President Bush has nominated Judge John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the
Supreme Court. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1979, Mr. Roberts was a law
clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He went on to serve in the Reagan
administration as an assistant to Attorney General Smith and as an associate White House
legal counsel. He also served as deputy solicitor general in the administration of Mr. Bush’s
father. He was in private practice until 2003 when he was confirmed to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Many people hoped that Mr. Bush would appoint a moderate Republican in the mold of Justice
O’Connor. Unfortunately, Judge Roberts is a solid conservative. While his legal record will be
reviewed intently over the course of the next few months, his role in the following cases will
likely take center stage.

In 1980, the Supreme Court overturned portions of the Voting Rights Act in the case of City of
Mobile v. Bolden. The Court ruled that portions of the act could only be violated by intentional
discrimination and not as a result of laws that had the unintended consequence of being
discriminatory. Congress debated creating a law to offset this ruling. Mr. Roberts, while in the
Reagan administration, attempted to squash this effort.

As deputy solicitor general in 1990, Mr. Roberts wrote a brief on behalf of the government in
the case of Rust v. Sullivan, which pertained to the prohibition of federal funding for family
planning clinics if they discussed abortion with their patients. Mr. Roberts wrote, “…Roe was
wrongly decided and should be overruled…(T)he Court’s conclusion in Roe that there is a
fundamental right to an abortion…find(s) no support in the text, structure, or history of the
Constitution.”

much more...here at Detroit Free Press

dp

[confludemocrat]

1. if you are a DUer and you read this and still wanna "fight another day",

that is, throw in the towel, the I feel sorry for you. This guy is bad news; this could be assumed for anyone Bush appoints anyway , but disgustingly I keep reading this a done deal, nothing to see here.

[ismnotwasm]

2. I expected no less from that creep in the white house

And I would fight just on general principles. bush gets his way too often and for far too long. This guy has NO business on the supreme court, just from what is verified information about him so far...and I'm sure more will be revealed.