DNC: Is John Roberts Committed to Basic Rights?

[Rose Siding]

As the Senate Judiciary Committee begins confirmation hearings for John Roberts, serious questions remain about Roberts's record and his commitment to the basic rights that all Americans enjoy.

DNC Chairman Gov. Howard Dean, along with more than 80,000 supporters, recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Justice Department seeking all of John Roberts's writings on 16 key cases that he worked on while serving as Deputy Solicitor General in the administration of former President Bush.

Those 16 key cases cover some of our most basic freedoms: civil rights, the right to privacy, the right to protect our environment, access to justice, and more. John Roberts must answer questions about his record raised by the 16 cases.

You can learn more about Roberts record on these cases and the important issues at stake below....

http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/09/foia.php

There's an excellent tool at the link that displays Roberts' position on each of those four areas, and answers the posed question with a resounding "NO" in each instance. For example...

Opportunity and Civil Rights

Metro Broadcasting v FCC (1990)
Roberts argued against letting the FCC use affirmative action in distributing broadcast licenses. This case was a rare instance of the Solicitor General stepping in to block an action of the federal government to increase opportunity.

Board of Education of Oklahoma City v Dowell (1991)
In a brief signed by John Roberts, the Solicitor General's office argued against a court ruling that ordered a school district to prevent racial segregation. Roberts's brief opposed the efforts of African American families to argue that Oklahoma schools would become segregated again.

Freeman v Pitts (1992)
Roberts signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court decision that required a Georgia school district to ensure its schools were fully desegregated.

Lee v Weisman (1992)
Roberts filed a Supreme Court brief arguing that a school district should be permitted to invite clergy to lead public prayers at a graduation ceremony.

Voinovich v Quilter (1993)
Roberts co-authored a brief supporting an Ohio redistricting plan that minority voters said violated the Voting Rights Act by concentrating minority voters in a small number of districts.

[blossomstar]

1. another "unqualified" Bush appointee... doesn't anyone get it yet?

or is the whole world high on something and not thinking?

[AirAmFan]

2. 'Were the decisionmaking of one of your colleagues impaired by DRUG USE --

-- according to your own personal observation of the Justice's behavior on and off the bench -- WHAT would you do?

Would this stance on potential drug use by one of your colleagues inform your official USSC opininions regarding enforcement of laws against drug use by ordinary Americans?'

In a spectacular way, this question might expose Roberts's -- and Republicans' in general -- hypocrisy on criminalization of drug use, which has led the US to the highest incarceration rate in the world. Higher than China or Saudi Arabia, with an eight-to-one overall racial disparity against African-Americans. For young African-Americans' life chances, one of the biggest risks is prosecution and long incarceration for the same thing suburbanites do with impunity (do you watch 'Weeds'?).

Most people don't know that during the period Roberts clerked for Rehnquist, Rehnquist had been suffering severe drug impairment for many years. John Dean, of Watergate fame, wrote a column on this issue four years ago, archived at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20010720.html :

"By 1981, journalists covering the Supreme Court did notice that the highly articulate Rehnquist was having increasing difficulty asking questions from the bench. Reporters who engaged in private conversations with Rehnquist noted that he clearly had 'significant difficulty talking.' But none wrote about it.

It was not until Justice Rehnquist ended up in the hospital in January 1982, and it was learned that the Justice had been "seeing things and hearing things that other people didn't see or hear," did reporters say anything. Even when he was elevated to chief justice, Rehnquist's health records remained sealed during his confirmation hearings. More than this, the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed in advance not to ask him any questions about his health. He did testify about the cloak of secrecy regarding the health of justices, but not about his own condition."

(See also a current DU thread on this issue, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2081938 ).

I'd like to see Ted Kennedy ask nominee Roberts questions like these, if only to set another couple of traps that might help keep the Court from toppling decisively to the Scalia side of things, or to help split the Republican fundie base away from its Wall Street wing on drug issues. Rehnquist's name need not be used, but some in the media would fill in the details for the average Fox News viewer (the National Enquirer?).