Seven Democratic women senators have developed an innovative approach to bringing the grassroots into this process. They've set up a website to collect questions from you to ask during the hearings, and they will personally deliver your questions to the entire Judiciary Committee. This is a great chance to weigh-in directly and make sure the issues you care about most are given the attention they require. You can post the questions you want John Roberts to answer online at:
http://www.democrats.gov/askroberts
Initial press reports about Roberts mostly rehashed White House spin about his likable personality. But over the last several weeks momentum has been building in the case against Roberts. He's been caught falsely denying his active membership in the far-right Federalist Society1 and hiding his work as a corporate lobbyist doing things like blocking honest labeling requirements for skin care products.2 Over 50,000 pages of information released from his time as a political appointee in the Reagan administration have shed even more light on his efforts to thwart fair treatment for women, minorities and the disabled.3 Meanwhile, the White House is refusing to turn over public records on Roberts' time as Deputy Solicitor General in the first Bush administration.4
Just this morning, People for the American Way, a major civil rights and civil liberties advocacy group, joined the dozens of organizations officially opposing Roberts' nomination. Their new report gives an excellent overview of the ways Roberts threatens basic civil rights, privacy, the environment and workers. Here's an excerpt from the executive summary:
John Roberts has spent much of the past two decades in political and legal positions of great influence. The public record that has been revealed over recent weeks demonstrates that Roberts has consistently advocated positions that would undermine Americans' fundamental rights and liberties under the Constitution and federal law. The confirmation of John Roberts to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would bring dramatic change, move the Supreme Court significantly to the right, and shift the balance of the court to the great and lasting detriment of Americans and the constitutional principles and legal safeguards that protect their families and communities. We urge senators to vote against his confirmation.
You can read the entire report at:
http://www.SaveTheCourt.org/opposition-report
Bush is hoping to deceive the country by sneaking this far-right nominee through on a flood of rhetoric while hiding the facts. The Senate hearings are our best opportunity to make sure that doesn't happen by putting the issues plainly in front of the American people—but only if our senators rise to the occasion. Posting a question for Roberts is a great way to show that we are counting on our representatives to get the facts out, and that we care about getting to the truth.
Your questions can focus on any issue you want in plain language, like:
Will Roberts protect Congress' constitutional authority to fight discrimination?
Does Roberts believe the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy?
Will Roberts protect our First Amendment rights like free speech and separation of church and state over right-wing ideology?
Please take a minute to post whatever questions you most want to ask during the upcoming hearings to ensure the American people get the facts we deserve.
http://www.democrats.gov/askroberts
Thanks for all that you do,
—Ben, Tanya, Marika, Adam and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team Wednesday, August 24th 2005
P.S. Below is the executive summary of the new PFAW report:
Executive Summary of the People For the American Way Report in Opposition to 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. Among the aspects of Roberts' record documented in this report:
Roberts supported a restrictive interpretation of the scope of civil rights laws banning gender discrimination in publicly funded school programs, including athletics, a position that would have restricted the reach and enforcement of other important civil rights laws as well.
Roberts played an important role in an unsuccessful Reagan Administration effort to make it harder to prove violations of the Voting Rights Act.
Roberts referred dismissively to the "so-called 'right to privacy;'" his record strongly suggests that he does not believe that the Constitution guarantees or protects a right to privacy, a position that threatens reproductive choice, gay rights, and families' medical decision-making. He signed a brief on behalf of the first Bush Administration arguing that "[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
Roberts' record indicates he would allow government endorsement of and favoritism towards religion. His confirmation could open the door to a range of activities that threaten religious liberty, including coercive religious practices in public schools.
Roberts took the position that Congress could constitutionally strip the Supreme Court of the authority to rule on cases regarding school prayer, abortion, and other issues, a position to the right of that advanced by Theodore Olson and adopted by the Reagan administration.
Roberts criticized the Supreme Court for overturning a Texas law designed to keep undocumented immigrant children from getting a public education.
While in the White House, Roberts urged that the administration should "go slowly" on proposed fair housing legislation, claiming that such legislation represented "government intrusion."
As a judge Roberts has signaled that he subscribes to the ideas of the new "federalism" that would limit the federal government's power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to act on behalf of the common good. In Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, Roberts issued a troubling dissent from a decision upholding the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act. Roberts's dissent suggested that Congress lacked the power under the Commerce Clause to protect endangered species in this case. The consequences of such a radical view, if held by a Supreme Court majority, would extend far beyond the Endangered Species Act to whole areas of Congressional authority, including such longstanding programs as Medicare and Social Security.
Roberts has written that affirmative action programs were bound to fail because they required "recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates"; and as deputy Solicitor General he unsuccessfully opposed a federal government agency's affirmative action program designed to diversify media ownership.
The White House has broken with precedent and unfortunately continues to deny the Senate access to key documents from Roberts' time as second-in-command to Ken Starr in the solicitor general's office in the Bush I Administration. In the absence of such documents, we must assume that the views expressed in the briefs Roberts signed during his tenure are in fact his own.
Conclusion
John Roberts has spent much of the past two decades in political and legal positions of great influence. The public record that has been revealed over recent weeks demonstrates that Roberts has consistently advocated positions that would undermine Americans' fundamental rights and liberties under the Constitution and federal law. The confirmation of John Roberts to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would bring dramatic change, move the Supreme Court significantly to the right, and shift the balance of the court to the great and lasting detriment of Americans and the constitutional principles and legal safeguards that protect their families and communities. We urge senators to vote against his confirmation.
Sources:
1 The Washington Post, "Roberts Listed in Federalist Society '97-98 Directory," July 25th 2005http://www.moveon.org/r?r=812
2 The Los Angeles Times, "Nominee Admits he Registered as Lobbyist" August 4th 2005http://www.moveon.org/r?r=849
3 The Washington Post, "Roberts Charter Member of the Reagan Vanguard" August 1st 2005 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=848
4 Fox News, "DNC Files FOIA Request for Roberts Documents" August 22nd 2005http://www.moveon.org/r?r=847
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTIONNot authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
