Judge Roberts' Senate Hearings

WARNING!!!

HE WILL change Roe vs Wade!!!! He is a dangerous man!! He is fooling them with his lies and smoothness!!!

WARNING!!!

HE WILL change Roe vs Wade!!!! He is a dangerous man!!

chris56789 wrote:

WARNING!!!

HE WILL change Roe vs Wade!!!! He is a dangerous man!!

To me, this is a positive ...I hope that he will change Roe v Wade, but don't think it will take lies, just the proper interpretation of the constitution.

Despite a few testy exchanges Tuesday, Roberts was able to deflect tough questions about his conservative philosophy and past rulings.

The court was saying there is this power, and it is up to the legislature to decide if this power is available. It leaves the ball in the legislature.

I should stay away from discussion of specific cases.

Earlier Tuesday, Roberts rejected views he expressed in a 1981 memo as a lawyer in the Reagan White House.

In the memo, he dismissed Roe v. Wade's holding that the right to abortion is grounded in what he termed "the so-called right to privacy."

"So they weren't necessarily your views then and they certainly aren't your views now?" Specter asked.

"I think that's fair, yes," Roberts replied.

Roberts also told Specter that he believes the right to privacy exists in the Constitution.

"The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways," Roberts said, citing the First, Third and Fourth amendments as well as 80 years of precedent.

When asked if the president could authorize torture of prisoners, in violation of international treaties, Roberts said, "No one is above the law."

Feinstein also asked Roberts about his statement in a memo from the Reagan administration questioning whether it was a good idea that housewives should become lawyers, a comment some have viewed as hostile to equal rights.

Roberts responded the statement was meant as a "lawyers' joke" and that he fully supports equal rights for women.

"It is to me, obvious in the memo that I wrote to Fred Fielding that it was about whether or not it's good to have more lawyers. Whether they were from homemakers, from plumbers, from artists or truck drivers had nothing to do with it," Roberts said.

"The notion that that was my view is totally inconsistent and rebutted by my life. I married a lawyer. I was raised with three sisters who work outside the home. I have a daughter for whom I will insist at every turn that she has equal citizenship rights with her brother."

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator Leahy, and members of the committee.

Let me begin by thank Senators Lugar and Warner and Bayh for their warm and generous introductions. And let me reiterate my thanks to the president for nominating me.

I'm humbled by his confidence and, if confirmed, I will do everything I can to be worthy of the high trust he has placed in me.

Let me also thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the committee for the many courtesies you've extended to me and my family over the past eight weeks.

I'm particularly grateful that members have been so accommodating in meeting with me personally. I have found those meetings very useful in better understanding the concerns of the committee as the committee undertakes its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.

I know that I would not be here today were it not for the sacrifices and help over the years of my family, who you met earlier today, friends, mentors, teachers and colleagues -- many of whom are here today.

Last week one of those mentors and friends, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was laid to rest. I talked last week with the nurses who helped care for him over the past year, and I was glad to hear from them that he was not a particularly good patient.

He chafed at the limitations they tried to impose.

His dedication to duty over the past year was an inspiration to me and, I know, to many others.

I will miss him.

My personal appreciation that I owe a great debt to others reinforces my view that a certain humility should characterize the judicial role.

Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them.

The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules.

But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.

And judges have to have the modesty to be open in the decisional process to the considered views of their colleagues on the bench.

Mr. Chairman, when I worked in the Department of Justice, in the office of the solicitor general, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme court.

I always found it very moving to stand before the justices and say, I speak for my country.

But it was after I left the department and began arguing cases against the United States that I fully appreciated the importance of the Supreme Court and our constitutional system.

Here was the United States, the most powerful entity in the world, aligned against my client. And, yet, all I had to do was convince the court that I was right on the law and the government was wrong and all that power and might would recede in deference to the rule of law.

That is a remarkable thing.

It is what we mean when we say that we are a government of laws and not of men. It is that rule of law that protects the rights and liberties of all Americans. It is the envy of the world. Because without the rule of law, any rights are meaningless.

President Ronald Reagan used to speak of the Soviet constitution, and he noted that it purported to grant wonderful rights of all sorts to people. But those rights were empty promises, because that system did not have an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law and enforce those rights. We do, because of the wisdom of our founders and the sacrifices of our heroes over the generations to make their vision a reality.

Mr. Chairman, I come before the committee with no agenda.

I have no platform.

Judges are not politicians who can promise to do certain things in exchange for votes.

I have no agenda, but I do have a commitment. If I am confirmed, I will confront every case with an open mind. I will fully and fairly analyze the legal arguments that are presented. I will be open to the considered views of my colleagues on the bench. And I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.

Senators Lugar and Bayh talked of my boyhood back home in Indiana. I think all of us retain, from the days of our youth, certain enduring images. For me those images are of the endless fields of Indiana, stretching to the horizon, punctuated only by an isolated silo or a barn. And as I grew older, those endless fields came to represent for me the limitless possibilities of our great land.

Growing up, I never imagined that I would be here, in this historic room, nominated to be the chief justice. But now that I am here, I recall those endless fields with their promise of infinite possibilities, and that memory inspires in me a very profound commitment.

If I am confirmed, I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, members of the committee.

I look forward to your questions.

[Roberts] told Schumer that he had read the transcripts of every recent Supreme Court nominee's confirmation hearings before him and not only is he following their precedent but he had answered more questions than anyone else.

"I think I have been more forthcoming than any of the other nominees," Roberts said in response to Schumer's criticism.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the future chief justice.