OUTRAGE: SC nominee John G. Roberts tried to CURTAIL civil rights

[Bluebear]

I am just beyond words.

=====

In the early 1980s, a young intellectual lawyer named John G. Roberts Jr. was part of the vanguard of a conservative political revolution in civil rights, advocating new legal theories and helping enforce the Reagan administration's effort to curtail the use of courts to remedy racial and sexual discrimination.

Just 26 when he joined the Justice Department as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith, Roberts was almost immediately entrusted to counsel senior department officials on such incendiary matters of the day as school desegregation, voting rules and government antidotes to bias in housing and hiring.

In prolific missives of a few pages and densely-written 30-page legal memos, Roberts -- whose co-workers recall had primary responsibility for civil rights matters in his office -- consistently sought to bolster the legal reasoning for the administration's new stances and to burnish its presentation of the policies to Congress and the public.

Roberts's record is being closely scrutinized and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee say they will rigorously question the Supreme Court nominee on his views of civil rights. A review of Roberts's papers from his time at the Justice Department and interviews with his contemporaries show he was deeply involved with the Reagan administration's efforts to recast the way government and the courts approached civil rights.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8770914

[still_one]

1. watch what our democratic representatives do

this will tell us what we are up against

[wtmusic]

2. "a band of ideological brothers"

so much for fairness.

[Erika]

3. Just imagine what he will do to women's rights n/t

[dajoki]

6. anti-roe; anti title IX

we are moving backwards

[Carolab]

4. The New Yorker reported last year on the Federalist Society

in a scathing indictment of their "views" on "voting rights". Clearly, they have engaged in egregious voter suppression in Fulton County, GA and elsewhere and Ashcroft set up the "Voting Rights" department at Justice just to further their efforts. It is, in fact, headed up by a member of the Federalist Society.

[dajoki]

5. more on federalist society

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1970883&mesg_id=1970883

[Carolab]

7. Hell, just read this!

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040920fa_fact

[dajoki]

8. WOW!!

protect the rights of white voters? i have no words but WOW!!:wtf:

[wli]

9. The Federalist Society are Klansmen in judges' robes

The mere nomination of this fascist bigot for the SCOTUS is an act of terrorism.

[Sapphire Blue]

10. The Record of John G. Roberts, Jr.: A Preliminary Report

There is so much more to Roberts than his anti-choice stance... here's some background...

http://www.savethecourt.org/atf/cf/{655C1FEB-1AAE-40BF-B630-DC0CEBFFA9ED}/stc-banner.jpg

The Record of John G. Roberts, Jr.: A Preliminary Report

This preliminary report provides a summary of the record of John Roberts, who has been a judge for less than two years, having been nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and confirmed in May 2003. In compiling this report, we have examined Roberts’s pre-judicial record as well as his limited record on the bench, focusing primarily on cases raising concerns with respect to civil rights and individual liberties.

Overview

Roberts’s record is a disturbing one. Among other things, Roberts is hostile to women’s reproductive freedom, and he has taken positions in religious liberty and free speech cases that were detrimental to those fundamental rights. Roberts has limited judicial experience, but even his short tenure as a judge raises serious concerns about his ideology and judicial philosophy. For example, dissenting opinions by Roberts have questioned the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act and argued that Americans tortured by Iraq when it was a terrorist state can receive no compensation. This preliminary review of Roberts’s record indicates that it falls far short of demonstrating the commitment to fundamental civil and constitutional rights that should be shown by a Supreme Court nominee.

Background

Judge Roberts was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1955. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School, and then clerked for Judge Henry Friendly on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist. Following his clerkships, Roberts worked in the Reagan Administration, first as a Special Assistant to Attorney General William French Smith (August 1981-November 1982), and then as Associate Counsel to the President (November 1982-May 1986). Roberts then entered private practice as an associate at Hogan & Hartson, where he became a partner in 1987. He left the firm in October 1989 to serve in the Administration of President George H.W. Bush as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General, also called the “political” Deputy. This position had been created during the Reagan Administration so that, if the Solicitor General “had to remove himself from a case . . . he could defer to a manager whom the Administration trusted.”<1> In this position Roberts was able personally to influence the legal decisions and positions taken by the Administration. Roberts left the Solicitor General’s office in January 1993 and returned to Hogan & Hartson, where he was a partner until his confirmation to the D.C. Circuit.

Click the links below to jump to a specific topic:

Reproductive Freedom

Religious Liberty

Free Speech

Federalism, "States Rights," and the Environment

Individual Rights

Access to Justice

Protecting the Federal Treasury


More @ http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.897925/k.7742/A_Look_at_John_Roberts.htm

And if you haven't yet signed them...

DU Activist Corps, July 21, 2005 -- Supreme Court Petitions: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x19442