United States President George Bush on Tuesday night nominated an appeals court judge, John Roberts, as the new member of the supreme court, describing the choice as ”one of the most consequential decisions a president makes”.
The choice of Roberts took the political world in Washington by surprise, as most of the speculation leading up to the nomination had suggested the president would choose a woman to replace the outgoing justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, or a member of a minority.
The president defied conventional wisdom, opinion polls and the recommendation of his own wife by ignoring calculations of gender or ethnicity.
However, he did not ignore the political arithmetic of the Senate.
Roberts is a conservative but not an outspoken ideologue. The 50-year old Harvard-trained jurist has not been on Washington’s federal appeals court long enough to leave much of a ”paper trail” of decisions to be lauded or attacked for. He has not taken a clear stand either way on the vexed question of abortion.
Democratic senators on Tuesday vowed to question him closely in the coming confirmation hearings.
”No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the supreme court,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, the leading Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee.
Another Democratic senator, Charles Schumer, pointed out he had voted against Roberts at his appeals court confirmation hearings in 2003, because the judge refused to specify his positions on some key issues.
He said he would pose some of the same questions again.
However, the Democratic response was cautious rather than hostile. Liberal advocacy groups vowed to fight the nomination but it seemed unlikely on Tuesday night that Democrats would be able to muster enough votes to mount a filibuster.
Under a Senate deal brokered between seven moderate Republicans and seven centrist Democrats earlier this month, a filibuster would only be used in ”extraordinary circumstances”, and it is unlikely the nomination of Roberts will rise to that level in the eyes of the centrist Democrats.
”He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: experience, wisdom, fairness, and civility,” the president said, in a prime-time appearance with the judge to announce the nomination.
”He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench.”
In between periods as a private lawyer arguing cases before the supreme court, Roberts served in the first Bush administration as a deputy solicitor general. It was in that capacity in 1990, he argued for a government regulation banning abortion-related counselling by federally-funded family planning programmes.
In his brief he noted that Roe v Wade, the landmark supreme curt decision legalising abortion, should be overturned.
However, asked about this brief in 2003, Roberts said he was only acting as an advocate for his client rather than representing his own views. At his confirmation hearings that year he acknowledged that Roe v Wade was the ”settled law of the land” and added ”there’s nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent”.
Democrats and Christian conservative groups will attempt to draw out his own beliefs on this divisive subject in the next few months, but if he maintains his cool, he is likely to be confirmed. – Guardian Unlimited Â