Washington – President Bush nominated John Roberts on Monday as the 17th chief justice of the United States, promoting his nominee for associate justice to lead the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary even before being confirmed for the first assignment.
Moving swiftly even as he copes with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Bush announced his decision two days after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and 48 days after picking Roberts to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. In elevating Roberts, Bush chose the candidate most likely to be confirmed in short order by the Senate, which was already poised to ratify the appeals court judge for O’Connor’s seat.
The move could ensure Bush’s influence on the judiciary long after his presidency ends. In the past half-century, only two other presidents have had the opportunity to name a chief justice.
A former Rehnquist clerk, Roberts shares a philosophical outlook with the man he would succeed and, at age 50, would be the youngest chief justice since John Marshall was appointed in 1801, potentially giving him decades to shape the court’s direction.
Since O’Connor agreed to remain until her successor is confirmed, the move means the court could open its next term Oct. 3 with nine justices sitting.
But Bush now must find someone else to replace O’Connor, in some ways an even more consequential choice because she cast the swing vote on issues such as affirmative action, abortion and the death penalty for many years.
“It is in the interest of the court and the country to have a chief justice on the bench on the first full day of the fall term,” Bush said in the Oval Office before flying to the Gulf Coast for a second time to inspect relief efforts. “The Senate is well along in the process of considering Judge Roberts’s qualifications. They know his record and his fidelity to the law. I’m confident that the Senate can complete hearings and confirm him as chief justice within a month.”
Roberts, who appeared at Bush’s side, seemed mindful that he would replace his mentor rather than join him on the court.
“I am honored and humbled by the confidence that the president has shown in me,” he said. “And I’m very much aware that if I am confirmed, I would succeed a man I deeply respect and admire, a man who has been very kind to me for 25 years.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been scheduled to open hearings on Roberts’ confirmation to O’Connor’s seat today, decided Monday to postpone the process probably until next Monday in deference to Rehn quist, who will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday.
The same liberal groups that opposed Roberts for associate justice declared him even more unfit for chief. “His views are very much out of sync with civil rights, women’s rights, privacy,” said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice. “Certainly reviewing so many of those memos and briefs and papers he authored makes one wonder whether he understands how the law affects ordinary people.”
Several Senate Democrats argued Roberts should receive greater scrutiny for chief justice. “The stakes are higher, and the Senate’s advice and consent responsibility is even more important,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. He added, “The Senate must be vigilant in considering this nomination.” But there was no indication that the nomination faces any significant threat.
“He will be an excellent chief,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. “I still expect Judge Roberts to be confirmed before the Supreme Court starts its new term on Oct. 3.”
Bush always had Roberts in mind for the next chief justice, aides said Monday. Roberts was first secretly interviewed for a Supreme Court slot in April in anticipation that Rehnquist, who had thyroid cancer, would retire or die. When O’Connor surprised the White House by announcing her retirement in July and Rehnquist declared that he was not stepping down, Bush decided to appoint Roberts to O’Connor’s seat.
Even then, aides said Monday, the president intended to elevate Roberts to chief justice whenever the job came open. “This had been something in the back of the president’s mind in case such a scenario came into being, if the chief justice had retired,” said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. “The president, when he met with (Roberts), knew he was a natural born leader.”
While the chief justice has no more votes than his eight brethren, he presides over their conferences, sets the initial agenda for considering cases and, when in the majority, assigns which justice will write a ruling, defining the extent of its reach.
The chief justice also wields a variety of administrative and policy powers not only over the high court but the broader federal judiciary and has a number of unique responsibilities, such as presiding over presidential impeachment trials and appointing the court that reviews secret wiretaps by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Most chief justices have been appointed from outside the Supreme Court, but in the past century, they typically had long tenures on lower courts or had served as governors, Cabinet secretaries and, in one case, president (William Howard Taft.) With just two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Roberts boasts no such credentials.
But Roberts has the advantage of being well known to the justices, having argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court.
Raised in Indiana, Roberts graduated first in his class at Harvard Law School, clerked for Rehn quist, worked as a lawyer in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department and White House, and served as principal deputy solicitor general under Kenneth Starr in the George H.W. Bush administration.
Documents released from his government service in the past few weeks revealed Roberts to be a strong conservative with a sharp pen opposed to many affirmative action programs, open to more religion in public arenas and deeply skeptical of what he called the “so-called right to privacy” that undergirds abortion and other rights established by the Supreme Court.
