Prayers for Roberts
Comment Prayers for Roberts When he went on national TV to announce his nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, President Bush was smirkier than ever. He acted like he'd just dealt...
...Roberts also "joined a scathing denunciation of abortion-clinic bombers and urged Reagan to stay out of an effort to post tributes to God in Kentucky schools," Knight Ridder reported...
...Supreme Court," the Herald said...
...They undoubtedly reassured themselves that he was a sturdy warrior in their cause, one who would not tireorstray,asDavid Souter and Anthony Kennedy and O'Connor herself did...
...Representative Robert Wexler "John Roberts was a key member of a rightwing policy team that waged a comprehensive assault on fundamental constitutional rights...
...In between serving his Republican masters, Roberts worked at Hogan & Hartson in Washington, where he represented one corporate interest after another...
...He also has been active in the Republican National Lawyers Association...
...He also served "as legal consultant, lawsuit editor, and prep coach for arguments before the nation's highest court," the Herald reported...
...Roberts is a member of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest, whose mission statement stresses its commitment to "free enterprise," "private ownership of property," "limited government," and a "balanced use of private and public resources...
...When it comes to ideology, these guys know what they're doing...
...Some liberals and progressives are secretly sighing, "It could have been worse...
...Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, Lou Sheldon, Tony Perkins, and Beverly LaHaye all gave Roberts their blessing...
...The Court agreed...
...While Roberts has been on both sides of some business issues, as he argued against Microsoft in one instance and against developers in Lake Tahoe in another, almost all of his work was in defense of corporate interests...
...Judge Roberts worked to ensure that George Bush would become President-regardless of what the courts might decide...
...And, while he denied being a member of the Federalist Society, it turned out that he was listed in a Federalist Society directory as being on its Washington Lawyers Steering Committee...
...He actually played a behind-the-scenes role in the legal maneuvering in Florida in2000 after the voting booths closed...
...He vows, anyway, to respect precedent and decide each case on its merits, rather than impose an overarching philosophy...
...Senate Democrats have sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requesting information on sixteen cases Roberts was involved in as deputy solicitor general under President Bush the elder...
...There is the possibility that the Lord may be hard of hearing and that Roberts will not turn out to be as rightwing as Robertson and his brethren and sistren believe...
...Another glimmer is the fact that Roberts represented homeless people who were suing the government because their benefits were being cut, and that he even assisted a defendant in a death penalty case...
...So far the Administration has invoked attorney-client privilege to avoid providing documents of Roberts's work in the solicitor general's office...
...Lee v. Weisman (1992)-Starr, with Roberts on board, failed to convince the Court that it was OK to have clergy offering prayers at official public school ceremonies...
...Cheney also joked-or it was his idea of a joke-that he was appearing at the Federalist Society as "your token nonlawyer...
...According to The Miami Herald, Roberts "came to Tallahassee to advise the state's Republican administration as it was trying to prevent a Democratic end-run that the GOP feared might give the election to Al Gore...
...He was largely successful...
...That's slim solace...
...Robertson also saw the hand of God at work...
...Both Cruz and Theodore Olson said Roberts helped Olson "in a dress rehearsal to prepare the Bush legal team for the U.S...
...Roberts's pronounced love of the law is providing an additional reed for some to lean on...
...Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools (1992)-The solicitor general's office, with Roberts's participation, unsuccessfully argued that a female student who suffered sexual harassment could not receive damage awards under Title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimination in public schools...
...His client was the President of the United States acting in his official capacity...
...In two landmark cases, Roberts has argued that the rights of the state of Alaska supercede the sovereignty and subsistence rights guaranteed to Native peoples by the federal government," said Luci Beach, a member of the steering committee of the Gwich'in tribe...
...Freeman v. Pitts (1992)-Starr argued, again with Roberts's assistance, that a Georgia public school need not make further attempts at desegregation...
...Two years ago, I felt an urgent need for people to unite and pray for change in the Supreme Court...
...Looking around the room, I'd guess that a year ago, about half of you were down in Florida...
...depicted as 'judicial activism' a lower court's order requiring a sign-language interpreter for a hearing-impaired public school student who had already been given a hearing aid and tutors...
...Not that I have anything against lawyers...
...Of course, some people of goodwill held out hopes for Clarence Thomas, and look where that got us...
...And God heard those prayers...
...If he means that, then the hackery of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas may eventually grate on him...
...Withrow v. Williams (1993)-Roberts convinced the Court that a murder suspect who was threatened with being locked up and then made incriminating comments did not have his Miranda rights violated even though the police gave him his Miranda warning only after his comments...
...A year later, he moved over to the White House as associate counsel to the President, where he served until 1986...
...It's unlikely that Roberts will ever wipe that smirk off the President's face...
...The public deserves to know what Roberts has to say about all of these matters, and how he will treat similar issues that come up when and if he is sitting on the other side of the Supreme Court bench...
...He acted like he'd just dealt himself four aces from the bottom of the deck while no one was looking...
...This was typical of Roberts at the time...
...And it was in this capacity that Roberts argued that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, among other reactionary positions...
...Here he was understudy to none other than Kenneth Starr...
...He served on the legal team for the Bush-Quayle ticketin1988 and the Bush-Cheney ticketin2000, andhealso coughed up $1,000 for Bush-Cheney that year...
...But there is a remote chance that Roberts, if confirmed, will not turn out to be God's gift to the right...
...Roberts flew down to Tallahassee to meet with Governor Jeb Bush "to share what he believed the governor's responsibilities were under federal law," said the governor's spokesman, Jacob DiPietre...
...There, at least on the busing issue, Roberts was to the right of even Theodore Olson (who led George W. Bush's 2000 legal team...
...With the likelihood of multiple vacancies on the court, you and I are witnessing the direct result of prayer and intercession," he said, after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her resignation...
...Roberts spoke before the Federalist Society as recently as October 30, 2003...
...He also represented Toyota in a 2002 case that he won at the Supreme Court, which decided to limit the scope of the ADA, making it much more difficult for persons with disabilities to seek redress...
...Many of the landmark cases mentioned in the letter concern profound matters of policy on abortion, privacy, civil rights, school desegregation, and due process...
...Roberts was brought in specifically to prep the plaintiffs' team in how to address the moderate and conservative justices...
...Had that happened, Gore would have had more electoral votes than Bush, the Herald noted, so Roberts gave advice on how to thwart such a move...
...Allinall, it's hardtobelieve that Bush would pick someone who would not reliably advance his rightwing agenda...
...Roberts's work for the Bush campaign came free of charge...
...The Democrats had considered a maneuver that would have prevented Florida from sending its list of official electors to the Electoral College on time...
...Practically from the day he left Harvard Law School, Roberts donated almost all of his brain to the Republican Party and to corporate interests...
...Fox News immediately hailed the choice, with one correspondent quoting a conservative who called Roberts a "hundred percenter"-a staunch rightwinger down the line...
...Kind of like preferring Orrin Hatch to Jesse Helms...
...U.S...
...Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell (1991)-Starr, with Roberts in tow, and acting in an amicus capacity, successfully argued for limiting the busing requirements of school districts...
...The decision was 5 to 4. Voinovich v. Quilter (1993)-The solicitor general's office, with Roberts's participation, got the Court to agree unanimously that a redistricting scheme that allegedly diluted the power of minority voters did not violate the Voting Rights Act...
...Roberts was in Tallahassee for "a week to ten days," according to Ted Cruz, a Bush aide at the time who recruited Roberts for the job...
...In 1984, Olson was assistant attorney general, and Olson did not believe the Reagan Administration should endorse rightwing legislation that would have prohibited judges from ordering busing to desegregate schools, according to an article in The Washington Post...
...Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, the triumvirate of ideological purity, personally vetted Roberts as far back as May 3, long before O'Connor's resignation, and they huddled with him on subsequent occasions...
...The particular cases here, and their importance to all citizens, show how specious that claim is...
...Roberts signed briefs in about eighty-one cases, seventy-eight of which were argued before the Supreme Court, the Democrats pointed out, and his office was involved in hundreds more cases during his tenure there...
...Roberts argued for restrictions on the rights of prisoners to litigate their grievances...
...When he was just twenty-six, he began work as a special assistant to Reagan's Attorney General William French Smith...
...Rust v. Sullivan (1991)-In this case, Roberts persuaded the Court to uphold the prohibition on using federal funds in family planning clinics where abortions were performed...
...But they certainly have grounds for hope...
...And now he is being rewarded for that partisan service by being appointed to the nation's highest court...
...From 1989 to 1993, he was Bush I's deputy solicitor general, where he helped formulate the Administration's legal positions and then advocated them before the Supreme Court...
...That's partly because many of them have already...
...Nan Aron, the Alliance for Justice...
...Ralph Neas, People for the American Way "Judge Roberts is not a stealth nominee because the President's inner circle knows his views well...
...Tens of thousands of people responded to this massive prayer offensive and cried out to the Lord to change the court...
...But Roberts argued in favor of the legislation, saying that Congress could prohibit school busing on the claim that it "promotes segregation rather than remedying it, by precipitating white flight...
...Roberts has always been a partisan...
...Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)-Roberts's boss, Solicitor General Ken Starr, urged the Court to uphold various Pennsylvania restrictions on the right to an abortion...
...He represented mining companies in at least two cases: one, defending their practice of mountaintop removal, and the other, supporting their effort to slap criminal contempt fines on striking workers...
...And he urged the Administration not to "intervene on behalf of female inmates in a sex discrimination case...
...In John G. Roberts Jr., many of the corporate chieftains who helped put President Bush in the White House see a Supreme Court nominee with whom they can do business," wrote Paul Adams of the Baltimore Sun...
...He also advocated "a narrow interpretation of Title IX, the landmark law that bars sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletic programs," the Post reported...
...And Roberts argued two cases for the state of Alaska against the rights of Native Americans...
...But that's not all Roberts did...
...and argued for wider latitude for prosecutors and police to question suspects out of the presence of their attorneys...
...The nomination of Judge John G. Roberts is an answer to the prayers of millions of Americans," announced the Reverend Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council...
...Herrera v. Collins (1993)-Roberts signed on to the brief from the solicitor general's office that successfully argued that a convicted murderer who furnished evidence of actual innocence ten years later was not entitled to a federal rehearing before execution...
...One glimmer of hope is the role Roberts played, while at Hogan & Hartson, in the 1996 Romer v. Evans case...
...As an aside, Vice President Dick Cheney praised Roberts in a speech at the Federalist Society on November 15, 2001, when Roberts was up for appellate judge...
...But his assistance went well beyond that...
...He was a significant backstage player in the legal policy debates of the early Reagan Administration," The Washington Post reported in another piece...
...We asked our partners and viewers to pray for God to intervene and restore righteousness and justice in our land...
...Roberts joined other members of the firm in giving pro bono legal advice to the plaintiffs, who ultimately succeeded in overturning a homophobic provision of the Colorado constitution that had denied civil rights protections to gays...
Vol. 69 • September 2005 • No. 9
