On Tuesday afternoon, a White House staffer called the Rev. Ted Haggard in Colorado Springs to share the news that John G. Roberts Jr. would be President Bush’s choice for the Supreme Court.
The administration official, Haggard said, briefly laid out the nominee’s credentials and emphasized Roberts “had a high view of the Constitution.”
Haggard, who hadn’t heard of Roberts before the call, said he responded immediately that “we were supportive and would do anything we can to help.”
“The president demonstrated one more time he’s a man of his word and he’s a man of conviction,” said Haggard, who as president of the National Association of Evangelicals is sought out by politicians eager to take the pulse of evangelical Christians. “There’ll be some give and take, but I’m confident he will be confirmed.”
Roberts’ nomination was applauded by evangelical activists who saw Bush’s re-election as central to their long-held wish of seating a conservative on the nation’s highest court who would rule in their favor on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Though few were ready to offer detailed critiques of Roberts’ judicial record, the feeling was that Bush had stuck to his campaign pledge to appoint a “strict constructionist” in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Some emphasized Roberts’ personal warmth and noted that he is not as immediately polarizing as other candidates.
“He clearly fulfills the president’s promise to pick someone who is faithful to the Constitution and to the limited role of a judge to interpret the law,” said Jan LaRue, chief legal counsel for Concerned Women for America, a conservative evangelical group. “This man’s credentials are impeccable. He’s brilliant. He is very warm and engaging, and his humility will serve him well at his hearing and with the American people.”
The Rev. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics and public policy commission, said Bush has kept his pledge to nominate “strict, original-intent jurists who would perform their proper role of interpreting the Constitution and acting as neutral judicial umpires – instead of trying to fix the game by tailoring the decision to the side that doesn’t offend their personal sense of right or wrong.”
Unusually quiet on Tuesday night was Focus on the Family, the powerful Colorado Springs- based evangelical ministry that has been girding for this moment for years. A spokesman said the group probably would wait until today to comment.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson will join other evangelical leaders in Nashville, Tenn., on Aug. 14 for a simulcast television program titled “Justice Sunday II – God Save the United States and This Honorable Court,” a sequel to a similar event staged in the spring. Dobson has said he fully expected Bush to keep his promise about picking someone similar to Thomas and Scalia.
Haggard, meanwhile, said his group will leave the mobilizing to others. But the National Association of Evangelicals will jump into action if it appears Democrats will attempt a filibuster to block an up-or-down vote on Roberts, Haggard said.
“I don’t want a minority in the Senate to keep the rest of the senators from exercising their responsibilities,” he said.
Staff writer Eric Gorski can be reached at 303-820-1698 or egorski@denverpost.com.
