Washington – Chief justice nominee John Roberts recognizes the need to ensure opportunities for women and disadvantaged groups, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said Friday after meeting with the nominee.
In a nearly hour-long conversation Friday morning, Roberts and Salazar talked about affirmative action, civil rights, the death penalty, Western issues such as water rights, and what Salazar sees as the need for a less divided court.
Roberts has met with dozens of senators who will vote whether to confirm him as the Supreme Court’s chief. He met Thursday with Colorado’s other senator, Wayne Allard.
Salazar said he will reserve judgment on Roberts until after he appears at Senate Judiciary Committee hearings scheduled to begin Monday.
Salazar, a freshman Democrat, rose to prominence on the issue of court nominees when he became part of the “gang of 14” senators who united to block the Republican leadership’s attempt to eliminate judicial filibusters.
Liberal groups such as People for the American Way have characterized Roberts as anti-feminist, anti-environment and opposed to religious freedom.
Salazar said he had some concerns about Roberts’ writings from the 1980s dealing with women’s rights but noted that the opinions came from years ago and that people change over time.
He and other Democrats are pushing the White House for documents from 16 cases Roberts worked on when he worked at the solicitor general’s office in the 1990s.
Salazar and Roberts talked Friday about women’s rights in relationship to their daughters. Roberts has a 5-year-old daughter; Salazar has two teenage daughters.
“We talked about his personal views that my daughters and his daughter (have) relative to their future and his sense that they should have a future that was equal to any man,” Salazar said.
The conversation “did not specifically get into the question of abortion or reproductive rights,” Salazar said. He added that he thought it was important to look at Roberts’ writing from the 1990s to see his views on equality issues.
Salazar in the meeting emphasized the need for a more unified court. The former Colorado attorney general said he has been troubled by Supreme Court cases that are decided 5-4 with each of the justices writing their own concurring or dissenting opinion.
“He (Roberts) said he understood the concern, and (in) his work as a member of the D.C. Circuit (Court), he believes that they’ve been able to create the kind of collegiality in the D.C. Circuit to avoid that kind of divisiveness,” Salazar said. “He said he understood that that would be one of the things he would like to address as chief justice.”
Salazar talked about decisions such as Brown vs. Board of Education that were decided on 9-0 votes, how former Chief Justice Earl Warren worked to have unanimity and how that called for leadership he hoped Roberts would have.
Asked if Roberts has that leadership ability, Salazar said, “I think so. I’m going to (see) some more background work on what he has down on the D.C. Circuit.
“I think he has a good practical understanding of it, that when you issue a decision by the Supreme Court, that it has this ripple effect throughout the country.”
Salazar said he hoped President Bush would nominate a qualified woman or Hispanic for the other opening on the court, the seat being vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor.
