AP: Roberts Gets 'Well Qualified' From ABA (highest rating)

[DeepModem Mom]

Roberts Gets 'Well Qualified' From ABA
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts on Wednesday received a "well qualified" rating from the American Bar Association, clearing another hurdle in his path to the nation's highest court.

The rating was revealed as the Senate Judiciary Committee announced its plans for Roberts' Sept. 6 confirmation hearings, which include having the nominee questioned by the 18 senators on the panel for almost an hour each.

This is the fourth time the ABA has rated Roberts. He was designated as well qualified in 2001 when nominated to be an appeals court judge in the District of Columbia and again in 2003 when he was re-nominated and confirmed. He had been rated qualified as an appeals court nominee in 1992, but the Senate never took up that nomination....

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For more than 50 years the ABA has evaluated the credentials of people chosen for federal judgeships. Supreme Court nominees get the most intensive scrutiny.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050817/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts_28

[bluestateguy]

1. This is a losing battle

And one side of me just says let the American people get what they deserve.

I think the Senate Democrats should just vote against him and kind of keep quiet about it.

[trogdor]

2. Yep.

Let the GOoPers pass everything 55-45 and impress upon the voters that if they want protection against idiots, they'll have to take their voting responsibilities more seriously.

[On the Road]

10. It's Not Lost Yet

It just needs a scandal or a major ethical lapse. Not sure the conflict of interest thing is going to do it.

[jsamuel]

12. Giving up is for LOSERS!

:rofl:
Don't take it personally, I just have seen too many Dems giving up when I know this guy is going down. He has done things that are unspeakable. We are just waiting on proof to solidify.

[ironman202]

3. ABA Review: Has he paid his dues? He Has? Highly Recomended.

[Borgnine]

4. I knew this was a losing battle from the start.

On the surface, Roberts doesn't appear as the raving psychopathic Nazi that a lot would expect Bush to appoint. Yes, Roberts is no good, but appearances are everything.

I think Bush, and the Democrats for that matter, are saving up for the next Supreme Court fight when the gloves will really be off.

[MisterP]

6. of course, there's nothing stopping the spineless from rolling over

again
and again
and again

[geek tragedy]

5. No surprise. He's a very smart lawyer and judge. That has nothing

to do with whether his ideology is Borkian.

[seeminer21]

7. No

He's a moron.

[geek tragedy]

9. Well, I guess if you say so it must be so.

:sarcasm:

[AngryAmish]

8. They don't have "baby-eating monster" catagory?

[pfitz59]

11. Roberts is a partisan hack....

with a long history of kissing up to authority! He simply LUUUUVS aristocracy, wealthy, pomp and the Pope! He'll be confirmed....

[question everything]

13. No surprise there.

I remember when the ABA gave the equivalent of a D to Thomas

[featherman]

14. Reality check

We lost this battle when the Dems lost the Presidency and failed to gain any ground in the Senate and the House in 2004. Roberts IS the new Justice for the next few decades. Barring the proverbial "dead woman or live boy" type of scandal this will happen. And once he is in, that's it...until death.
How these people will shape the Supreme Court over the next 3+ years is a horror show in progress, I know, but there is a an awful inevitability to it. There is no silver lining here. Congress and the Senate and the Presidency can change hands over 2-4 years but the Supreme Court will remain as a Reagan - Bush - Bush legacy for a long time.

[TaleWgnDg]

15. This is no surprise. None whatsoever. Because Judge Roberts

.
This is no surprise. None whatsoever.

Because Judge Roberts is very well qualified as a jurist to sit on the SCOTUS bench. Judge Roberts has the highest of the high credentials. Again, it's no surprise that the American Bar Association (ABA), America's premier bar association (of which I am a member btw) would report as such. After all, the ABA doesn't play politics, doesn't demonstrate favoritism, and tries its damnedest to be as objective as is possible whenever rating any potential candidate for SCOTUS. All this despite what George Walker Bush said that he would not call upon nor rely upon ABA recommendations for his SCOTUS nominees. Bush claimed that the ABA was biased in favor of "liberals."

However, all that being said, Roberts' apparent legal theory -- to the far right -- may place the SCOTUS bench "out of balance." So much so that for the next 40 or so years as Roberts sits on SCOTUS and for approximately 50 or years after his death, the SCOTUS may be stuck in a reactionary groove prior to the 1880s!

Yup, Roberts may be the 100-year throw-back that the Republican Party has been seeking since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Now, that's some serious stuff!


Bush "returns" Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal"



.

[Dinger]

16. Question To Legal Minds Out There . . .

What was all that stuff about pink & blue slips, and the ABA. I think it was March or February 2001, about a month or so after asswipe was installed/shoved into the WH that he ended this nearly 50 year tradition. I remember it being a signal that asswipe was going to the hard right. Anybody have more info on that?

[TaleWgnDg]

17. A "blue slip" is a Senate Judiciary Cmte issue . . . and as for the

.
A "blue slip" is a Senate Judiciary Cmte issue . . . for example, as a Senate courtesy it has been a Senate tradition that all federal judicial nominees made by the president be "okayed" by each Senator from where the nominees lives. The paper procedure to do so in the Senate was completed on a piece of paper colored blue. Hence the name "blue slip." If a Senator approved of the judicial nominee then s/he would return the "blue slip" with such approval. But if a Senator disapproved of a nominee then the "blue slip" was return as rejected or not returned at all. A rejected "blue slip" meant that the nominee's Senate procedure would not go forward. It would be successfully blocked. I believe it was Senator Orrin Hatch who, as Senate Judiciary Chair, stopped the "blue slip" procedure. I could be wrong. However, it was within this Bush Administration, I believe, that it occurred. Try a google search on it.

As for the ABA issue. George Walker Bush, shortly after his first inauguration, announced that he would not ask for, nor rely upon, any recommendation of the ABA regarding any federal judicial nominee. He stated, or someone from his Administration stated, that the ABA was a "liberal" organization and could not be relied upon to do an objective job. The ABA is well-known for its unbiased, objective research and recommendations of federal judicial nominees for sitting presidents for more than the last 1/2 century.

_______________________________________________
edited to include:

Blue Slip Policy

(Senator Orrin) Hatch has also changed another fundamental Senate rule regarding judicial nominations. In the past, (Senator Orrin) Hatch has been a fervent supporter of the Senate’s “blue slip” policy, which has allowed home-state senators who object to a judicial nominee to delay action in the Judiciary Committee by not returning a nominee’s “blue slip” to the committee. As American Prospect has noted, “it was Hatch, in 1995, who hardened the blue-slip policy to allow a single senator to block a nomination indefinitely.” Indeed, Sen. Hatch made his blue slip policy explicit in 1998 by stating on the blue slips themselves that “(n)o further proceedings on this nominee will be scheduled until both blue slips have been returned by the nominee’s home state senators.”

Now, however, Hatch has apparently declared a new policy saying that even though a senator’s decision not to return a blue slip would be given great weight, it would not be allowed to prevent Hatch from moving nominees he wants to move. “In other words,” says Hatch, “we can go ahead with certain nominees where you might have a withheld blue slip.” Sen. Barbara Boxer has objected to proceeding on controversial nominee Carolyn Kuhl, but Hatch has scheduled a committee vote on the nomination on Thursday, May 8.

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=10520

.

[DeepModem Mom]

18. Thanks for posting, TaleWgnDg -- a valuable view from an ABA member. nt

[TaleWgnDg]

19. You're welcome, and thanks for the kudos . . . n/t