TAKE DIRECT ACTION AGAINST BU$H'S SCOTUS NOMINEE JOHN ROBERTS

[greenpagan]

TAKE DIRECT ACTION: Oppose the Confirmation of Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts

The record of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts demonstrates that his confirmation to the nation's highest court would undermine Americans' rights and freedoms and limit the role of the federal courts in upholding them. People For the American Way calls on the Senate to reject John Roberts' nomination.

The opinions he has issued during his short tenure on the federal bench, the documents from his tenure in senior positions in the Reagan Administration, and what we know of Roberts' tenure as principal deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration, combine to make a compelling case against confirmation.

For much of the past 25 years, Roberts worked to impede or undermine progress toward realizing the Constitution's promise of equal justice under law. He has been an active participant in efforts to advance a legal and judicial ideology grounded in a narrow view of constitutional rights and a restricted role for the federal courts in protecting and enforcing them. As a federal judge, he has indicated support for an approach to the Constitution that would undermine the authority of Congress to take action for the common good in areas such as environmental protection.

As special assistant to the Attorney General in the Reagan Administration, and later as a key legal strategist in the Reagan White House counsel's office, Roberts was an aggressive participant in the administration's attempts to restrict fundamental constitutional and civil rights. In fact, Roberts often came down to the right of ultraconservative legal luminaries, including Robert Bork, William Bradford Reynolds, and Ted Olson. He supported the legality of radical proposals to strip the courts of jurisdiction over certain school desegregation remedies, abortion, and school prayer. He denigrated what he referred to as the “so-called” right to privacy, resisted attempts to fully restore the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act, and worked against measures aimed at increasing gender equity. As the Washington Post has reported, at times he was “derisive, using words such as 'purported' and 'perceived' to describe discrimination against women.”

When Roberts became top deputy to solicitor general Kenneth W. Starr in 1989, he continued to advance a right-wing agenda. He urged the Court to limit the remedies women could seek when their rights under Title IX were violated. And he asked the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying it has “no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution.”

In his limited time as a federal appeals court judge, Roberts has shown enormous deference to the executive branch, with a broad and expansive view of presidential power that threatens the system of checks and balances. A key dissent by Roberts suggests that he has embraced the ideology of a legal and political movement that seeks to weaken Congress' ability to protect Americans' rights and interests, potentially threatening decades of progress made since the New Deal in safeguarding air, water, and public health, and protecting individual rights and liberties.

http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.999993/k.B6E1/Opposition_Report.htm

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1. John Roberts is a Pat Robertson Republican.

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