Washington – The Senate convenes the first confirmation hearing for a chief-justice nominee in nearly two decades today, starting a week of admonitions and questions for John Roberts certain to probe deeply into the conservative views of a man who could shape the court’s direction for decades.
The Judiciary Committee’s 10 Republicans and eight Democrats will focus on Roberts, 50, an appellate-court judge and President Bush’s choice to succeed the late William Rehnquist, starting with opening statements.
Analysts from both parties say the Judiciary Committee’s toughest questions – and Roberts’ likeliest risk of a slip – will center on a few issues that have dominated liberal-conservative judicial debates for years. Many will touch on the balance of power among Congress, the executive branch and the courts. Others will seize more familiar issues: abortion rights, voting rights and questions of balancing environmental protections against jobs and property development.
And in the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, concerns about treatment of poor people and minorities could heavily influence the thrust of some of the questioning.
“Americans will have the opportunity for the first time to hear Judge Roberts’ views on the major issues,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the committee’s most senior member, said in an interview.
Katrina’s devastation underscores the hearing’s importance, he said.
“What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out, and those people who were impoverished died,” Kennedy said.
The question for Roberts, he said, is whether he stands for “a fairer, more just nation” or will use “narrow, stingy interpretations of the law to frustrate progress.”
Roberts, largely unknown outside legal circles two months ago, was Bush’s choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Before his confirmation hearing could start, however, Chief Justice Rehnquist died of cancer Sept. 3. Bush quickly nominated Roberts to succeed his former boss and mentor, and urged the full Senate to vote on his confirmation by month’s end.
Roberts has been practicing for the hearing for weeks in front of panels of colleagues posing as committee members. But in many ways, friends say, he has been preparing for this week his entire life: dazzling his classmates at Harvard Law School, enthusiastically toiling as a government lawyer under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and serving since 2003 as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Many Senate Democrats privately predict he will win confirmation comfortably, barring an unforeseen bombshell.
But the ride won’t be free. In his years as a young lawyer in the Justice Department, White House and solicitor general’s office, Roberts advocated conservative judicial philosophies in hundreds of memos and letters. Many, but not all, of those memos have been released, providing insights into his thinking and beliefs.
Hearings timetable
Tentative schedule for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts’ confirmation hearings:
Today: Senate Judiciary Committee convenes at 10 a.m. MDT; opening statements
Tuesday: 7:30 a.m. MDT; questioning in rounds of 30 minutes each
Wednesday: 7:30 a.m. MDT, questioning in rounds of 20 minutes each; closed session to discuss Roberts’ FBI report
Thursday: 7:30 a.m. MDT, witnesses including the American Bar Association on its “well qualified” rating of Roberts and 30 others – 15 invited by Republicans and 15 invited by Democrats
Sept. 26: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says this is the latest date he expects to start final debate in the full Senate, with a final vote no later than Sept. 30
Oct. 3: Supreme Court begins its new term
Television coverage
Court TV: Live coverage
Fox News Channel: Roberts’ opening statement live, further coverage as developments dictate
CNN: Expanded “The Situation Room” for the hearings and other news
MSNBC, broadcast networks: Reports as warranted
