Roberts Would Swing the Supreme Court to the Right

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Is the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court a seismic event that threatens to deepen the nation's red-blue divide?


http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_liu&sid=alGK4Jy5eXwc


Roberts Would Swing the Supreme Court to the Right: Goodwin Liu
July 22 (Bloomberg) --

<snip>In addition to weakening key environmental laws, Roberts's theory of limited federal power would potentially undermine bedrock civil rights laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His theory was so extreme that it was all but rejected by the Supreme Court in a recent decision upholding federal power to ban medicinal uses of home-grown marijuana. <snip>


Before becoming a judge, he belonged to the Republican National Lawyers' Association and the National Legal Center for the Public Interest, whose mission is to promote (among other things) ``free enterprise,'' ``private ownership of property,'' and ``limited government.'' These are code words for an ideological agenda hostile to environmental, workplace, and consumer protections.

Even as a law student, before clerking for conservative stalwart William Rehnquist, the Supreme Court's chief justice, Roberts wrote two law review articles urging a more active judicial role to protect private property and contracts from worker protections, land use ordinances, and economic regulation. He argued that courts should go beyond a strict construction of the Constitution's text.

With remarkable consistency throughout his career, Roberts has applied his legal talent to further the cause of the far right. His activities and positions fit the profile of a social, political, and economic conservative and, importantly, not a judicial conservative. His record suggests that he has a vision for American law -- a right-wing vision antagonistic to important rights and protections we currently enjoy -- and that he is not afraid to flex judicial muscles to achieve it.
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Last Updated: July 22, 2005 00:11 EDT