NYT/AP: Roberts Disparaged State Efforts on Sex Discrimination

[DeepModem Mom]

Roberts Disparaged State Efforts on Sex Discrimination
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 18, 2005


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday, and wondered whether ''encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good.'' (Later in the article, it's noted that Roberts married an attorney ten years later.)

A young White House lawyer at the time, Roberts also criticized a crime-fighting proposal by Sen. Arlen Specter as ''the epitome of the `throw money at the problem''' approach.

Specter, R-Pa., then a first-term senator, is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee and will preside at Roberts' confirmation hearings, scheduled to begin Sept. 6.

The documents, released simultaneously in Washington and at the Reagan Library in California, show Roberts held a robust view of presidential powers under the Constitution. ''I am institutionally disposed against adopting a limited reading of a statute conferring power on the president,'' he wrote in 1985.

The materials made public completed the disclosure of more than 50,000 pages that cover Roberts' tenure as a lawyer in the White House counsel's office from 1982-86....


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Roberts.html

[rfranklin]

1. All you women who voted for Bush...

Here's your payback.

[Karenina]

2. In spite of all attempts

to hide his core values, women and Negroes rights are CLEARLY way down on the list of his priorities. I wonder who else... :shrug:

[indepat]

4. Vengeance with interest thrown in as a little lagniappe for good measure

[AlGore-08.com]

3. But there's no REASON to oppose his nomination!

He got such great ratings from the bar association!

:sarcasm:

Wonder what Ruth Bader Ginsberg thinks of Robert's remark?

[Straight Shooter]

5. Roberts did not marry until he was in his forties.

I just find that to be a bit ... peculiar. Most people who want to get married will do so at a younger age. But he seems to have gotten married and "acquired" a girl and a boy (how charmingly American) in very rapid succession. Ready-made family, you might say. (Interesting though that the girl is older than the boy.)

Roberts had three sisters, no brothers, and he was second born. Could it be that he has a little *cough* resentment towards the female gender in his system? Bossed around by an older sister maybe?

The factual info about Roberts is on wikipedia, the rest is just my musing.

[SouthernDem2004]

6. So... Any marriages by people in their 40s are suspicious? hmmm

[rfranklin]

7. I would say so...

You should have married at least twice by then.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. The guy soulds like a real troglodyte

:wtf:

[Omaha Steve]

9. Roberts Knocked Affirmative Action

(AP) Supreme Court nominee John Roberts criticized state efforts to battle sex discrimination, calling programs promoting affirmative action and comparable worth "highly objectionable" in his legal advice to President Reagan.

Roberts, who has been nominated by President Bush to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, worked as associate counsel in the Reagan White House in the early 1980s during Reagan's first term.

In a Jan. 17, 1983, memo, Roberts was responding to a "Fifty States Project," which he described as addressing "perceived problems of gender discrimination" and which was to be sent to state leaders and women's groups.


Full story at CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/18/supremecourt/main786870.shtml

[rexcat]

10. That little piece of information will help the base...

of the repukian party support him a little more. How convenient of the WH to release that tidbit of information.

[LisaM]

11. EVERYTHING is wrong with this guy and no one cares

I also can't bear that he looks like a young John Ashcroft.

[aquart]

12. Where are these memos from?

The missing file or material that has been released? If the latter, does this mean there is much worse out there?

[Omaha Steve]

13. Roberts Disparaged States' Sex-Bias Fight

Aug 18, 8:11 PM (ET)

By DAVID ESPO

(AP) Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, flashes a smile while waiting to meet with Sen. Orrin Hatch,...
Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday - and wondered whether "encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

As a young White House lawyer, Roberts also expressed support for a national ID card in 1983, saying it would help counter the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."

Full story here: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050819/D8C2I7G00.html

[madaboutharry]

14. This guy is such a creep

Just another country club good ol' boy. Yuck.

[lanlady]

15. "institutionally disposed"

Say what? Is he an institution all to himself?

[spooky3]

16. Here's one from WaPo: Roberts Resisted Women's Rights

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/18/AR2005081802041.html

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

[Triana]

17. and DEMOCRATS won't oppose him eh?

How "INTERESTING"

:mad: