WASHINGTON — As an assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith in 1982, John Roberts urged Smith to take an "aggressive stance" in opposing efforts by Congress to strengthen protections for minorities in the Voting Rights Act.
In documents released Thursday by the National Archives, Roberts urged Smith to fight "any retrenchment" on President Reagan's position that minorities who alleged discrimination in voting procedures should have to prove that state or local officials intentionally discriminated against them. "The president is fully committed to this effort," Roberts wrote. "His staff should be as well." In the end, however, Reagan accepted a compromise plan that included some additional protections for minorities.
Roberts' writings, included in 500 pages of documents from his work for the Justice Department in the early 1980s, reiterate the image of the current Supreme Court nominee as a young, ambitious government lawyer who embraced Reagan's conservative revolution. Roberts was active in efforts to limit affirmative action, busing and other programs intended to favor minorities because of past discrimination.
But like thousands more documents from Roberts' government work, Thursday's papers offered a limited and dated view of the man President Bush has chosen to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. As a result, Democratic senators preparing for the start of Roberts' Senate confirmation hearings on Sept. 6 continue to press the White House to release papers from Roberts' work as deputy to Solicitor General Kenneth Starr from 1989 to 1993. During that period, Roberts helped on cases involving abortion rights, school desegregation and religion in public places.
http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-11-roberts-papers_x.htm?csp=1
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