Redstate.org and AP both reporting Dubya's SCOTUS pick is John Roberts.

[flpoljunkie]

Roberts is the Surprise

By: Erick · Section: SCOTUS

White House source calls back and says "Don't go beyond Roberts. He's it."

Thanks for confusing me.

John Roberts will be the President's nominee for the United States Supreme Court.

http://www.redstate.org

[flpoljunkie]

1. Judge John Roberts bio, considered part of Washington "establishment"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070100756.html



John G. Roberts, 50, has long been considered one of the Republicans' heavyweights amid the largely Democratic Washington legal establishment. Roberts was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003 by President George W. Bush. (He was also nominated by the first President Bush, but never received a Senate vote). Previously, he practiced law at D.C.'s Hogan & Hartson from 1986-1989 and 1993-2003. Between 1989 and 1993, he was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the first Bush administration, helping formulate the administration's position in Supreme Court cases. During the Reagan administration, he served as an aide to Attorney General William French Smith from 1981-1982 and as a an aide to White House Counsel Fred Fielding from 1982-1986.

With impeccable credentials -- Roberts attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School, clerked for Justice William H. Rehnquist on the Supreme Court and has argued frequently before the court -- the question marks about Roberts have always been ideological. While his Republican party loyalties are undoubted, earning him the opposition of liberal advocacy groups, he is not a "movement conservative," and some on the party's right-wing doubt his commitment to their cause. His paper record is thin: as Deputy Solicitor General in 1990, he argued in favor of a government regulation that banned abortion-related counseling by federally-funded family planning programs. A line in his brief noted the Bush administration's belief that Roe v. Wade should be overruled.

As a judge on the D.C. Circuit, Roberts voted with two colleagues to uphold the arrest and detention of a twelve-year old girl for eating french fries on the Metro train, though his opinion noted that "o one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation." In another case, Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion that suggested Congress might lack the power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to regulate the treatment of a certain species of wildlife.

-- Charles Lane

[flpoljunkie]

2. Roberts not a "movement" conservative acc'd to this bio from WaPo above.

[flpoljunkie]

3. Clinton officials wrote support letters for Roberts to be on Appeals Court

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071900138.html

Roberts' nomination to the appellate court attracted support from both sites of the ideological spectrum. Some 126 members of the District of Columbia Bar, including officials of the Clinton administration, signed a letter urging his confirmation. The letter said Roberts was one of the "very best and most highly respected appellate lawyers in the nation" and that his reputation as a "brilliant writer and oral advocate" was well deserved.