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Roberts avoids specifics during senate hearing { September 15 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/15/roberts_exercises_right_to_avoid_specificshttp://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/15/roberts_exercises_right_to_avoid_specifics
Roberts exercises right to avoid specifics
Says answers on issues could taint process
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | September 15, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Frustrating senators from both parties, Supreme Court chief justice nominee Judge John G. Roberts Jr. continued his delicate dance yesterday around tough questions from the committee that will decide his fate, insisting that if he gave detailed answers -- and spelled out his opinion -- he could be seen as prejudging issues that may come before him on the nation's highest court.
In his second day in the Senate Judiciary Committee's hot seat, Democrats offered the bulk of the criticism on Roberts's performance, saying he used the notion of judicial impartiality to deliberately hide his conservative views. But Republicans -- notably the committee chairman, Arlen Specter -- could not get Roberts to talk about those views in greater detail.
Liberal groups counted more than 100 questions over two days that Roberts declined to answer, and several Democrats said they will remember that fact when the committee makes its decision on him next week. The confrontations occurred on the same day that Democrats received final word from the White House: They will not get to see documents from Roberts's tenure as a lawyer in President George H. W. Bush's administration.
''You're not entitled to the job here, God love you," said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware. ''Without any knowledge of your understanding of the law -- because you will not share it with us -- we are rolling the dice with you, judge."
Still, Roberts's third day before the Senate Judiciary Committee ended with few hitches for the nominee. He fielded a sweeping range of queries on capital punishment, abortion, voting rights, and property rights with relative ease, and avoided stating a clear opinion on any of the issues.
Roberts said that memos he wrote as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration reflected his bosses' views and not necessarily his own. And in a calm, measured tone, Roberts said time and time again that it would not be proper to discuss any issues he may have to rule on later.
''I'm not standing for election," Roberts told Biden. ''And it is contrary to the role of judges in our society to say that this judge should go on the bench because these are his or her positions and those are the positions they are going to apply."
Roberts's demurrals extended across party lines: A day after Roberts said he supported an individual's right to privacy -- the bedrock principle for the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade -- Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas and an opponent of abortion rights, urged him to repudiate Roe and agree that an ''unborn child is a person." Roberts refused.
And when Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, tried to engage Roberts by asking him whether life is the opposite of death, the judge chose his answer carefully.
''Yes," Roberts said after an extended pause. ''I don't mean to be overly cautious in answering it."
His tightlipped approach irritated Specter, who wanted Roberts to spell out his opinion on the ability of Congress to use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to justify regulations it could impose in areas traditionally overseen by states. When Roberts said he could not answer a series of questions about cases where the Supreme Court undermined laws Congress made, Specter deadpanned that he liked Roberts's answers more a day earlier, when the judge seemed more willing to provide substantive answers.
''Judge Roberts, I'm not talking about an issue," said Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. ''I'm talking about the essence of jurisprudence."
Nonetheless, Specter said later that he respects Roberts's decision to remain silent on some questions. Many Republicans on the committee defended his right to refuse to answer, and Roberts appears on track to win confirmation before the Supreme Court's next term starts in October.
But the strength of the vote the committee gives him could be at stake. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee's top Democrat, said that he has not decided how he will vote, but that Roberts's silence could tip the scales against him.
''People either vote for him or against him based on what he says or doesn't say," Leahy said on CNN. ''So ultimately he has to decide whether he has said what he needs to to be confirmed."
For a second straight day, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, tangled with Roberts over the Voting Rights Act. In the early 1980s, as a young lawyer in the attorney general's office, Roberts opposed a legal change that would outlaw voting practices that discriminate based on race, regardless of whether the discrimination was intentional.
Kennedy asked Roberts whether he believes that such a change would be ''constitutionally suspect," as Roberts wrote in a memo in December 1981. The change was ultimately adopted, ushering in an era of expanded access to ballot boxes, Kennedy said, and could be challenged in court later.
''What's your view today?" the veteran senator asked. ''This is the backbone of effective voting in our country and our society."
Roberts answered that he has ''no basis for viewing it as constitutionally suspect today" -- a more explicit response than he gave a day earlier. He said he would ''confront that issue as a judge, and not as a staff attorney for an administration with a position."
If confirmed as chief justice in the nation's highest court, Roberts pledged to use his authority to bring ''coherence and consensus" to the court's rulings, bemoaning split decisions that offer conflicting guidance to lower courts and legislative bodies. He also said he is committed to increasing the Supreme Court's workload beyond the approximately 80 cases that it hears annually.
Democrats consistently objected to his dodges, but Roberts, a 50-year-old federal appeals court judge, used flashes of humor to defuse tense moments.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, sarcastically derided the ''absurd" nature of Roberts's responses. He wisecracked that if asked, Roberts probably would not even name a movie he liked.
''I ask you if you like 'Casablanca,' " Schumer said. ''You respond by saying, 'Lots of people like ''Casablanca." ' You tell me, 'It's widely settled that ''Casablanca" is one of the great movies.' "
The room was laughing along with Schumer, and Specter called for a 15-minute break. But Roberts insisted on being able to respond. ''First, 'Dr. Zhivago' and 'North by Northwest,' " he said, generating laughter of his own before offering a spirited explanation for his refusals to answer questions on judicial philosophy.
Globe correspondent Alan Wirzbicki contributed to this report. Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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