Boxer threatens to slow Senate activity over court pick
She'll vote 'no' unless Roberts backs right to abortion
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/08/11/MNGC1E63J81.DTLSen. Barbara Boxer said Wednesday she will vote against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts unless he supports rights she considers essential - - including abortion and privacy -- and slow Senate business to a crawl if he doesn't answer her questions.
"I need to know exactly where he will stand, and I need to know if he will fight to protect and defend the rights and freedoms of the American people,'' Boxer, D-Calif., told reporters after addressing a group of law students and abortion rights supporters at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.
Those rights, she said, include reproductive choice and the constitutional right of privacy that was the basis of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion. Boxer said she was alarmed to learn that Roberts, as a lawyer in President Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, referred in a 1981 memo to a "so-called right of privacy.''
Roberts must answer questions about his writings, his work on anti- abortion legal briefs, and his rulings as a federal appeals court judge, including a recent opinion that questioned federal authority to protect endangered species, Boxer said. If he declines, she said, she will "use all the parliamentary tools I've been given as a U.S. senator,'' including procedures that "make it difficult for other business to get done until we get the information we need.'' She did not threaten a filibuster, however, reflecting Democrats' hesitation to embark on all-out political warfare against the nomination.
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