Washington – Chief justice nominee John Roberts finessed questions from liberal and conservative senators alike on Tuesday, harvesting their support while declining to say how he would rule on abortion and other contentious issues on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Roberts told pro-abortion-rights senators that core Supreme Court rulings upholding those rights are “entitled to respect” as “settled” precedents.
“Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness,” Roberts said. “I do agree with that.
“It is not enough that you may think the prior decision was wrongly decided,” he added.
The judge, a conservative Roman Catholic, promised not to let his own religious or philosophical beliefs play a role in his rulings on the relationship between church and state, abortion and other matters.
“I look to the law books,” Roberts said. “I don’t look to the Bible.”
Roberts, noting that he would have to render judgments on abortion cases in the months ahead if confirmed by the full Senate, rebuffed attempts by several senators to get him to declare how he would vote if asked to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 case that guaranteed women a right to abortion.
“I do think it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent,” Roberts said. Yet, “there are situations when that’s a price that has to be paid.”
Roberts’ comments on abortion typified a day of questioning in which, aided by Republicans on the committee, he smoothly parried Democratic critiques.
The committee’s questioning continues today.
The 50-year-old judge came across as reasonable, modest and likable Tuesday. Several times, he slipped in wisecracks that got senators and spectators laughing.
Conservatives expressed joy at his performance, and even some of his critics commended him.
“I have been pleasantly surprised by some of your answers today,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
“It is like pitching to Ken Griffey,” said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., describing the Democrats’ difficulty in tossing questions at Roberts.
The Democrats did place Roberts on the spot a couple of times. In one spirited exchange, Biden jousted with Roberts over his unwillingness to answer questions about specific cases.
“He’s filibustering,” Biden complained.
“That’s a bad word, senator,” Roberts shot back.
“That’s if we do it to you,” said Biden. “Go ahead and continue to not answer.”
Later, Schumer put the judge on the defensive in an exchange about the Endangered Species Act and Congress’ broad authority to regulate business and industry under the Constitution’s commerce clause.
But Roberts kept his cool, and with Republicans holding a commanding majority in the Senate, the nomination seemed soundly on track at the end of the first day of questioning.
“He demonstrated a clear command of the law. … We also saw a glimpse of his humor,” said Ed Gillespie, who has been appointed by the Bush administration to help shepherd the nomination through the Senate.
Indeed, by midafternoon, some Democratic senators were asking Roberts to remember their favorite legal causes in the months ahead, because, as Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., predicted: “Now you will be the principal decision-maker.”
Liberal groups that oppose the nomination said they were not mollified by Roberts’ answers on abortion, which were still “extremely problematic,” said Nan Aron, who heads the Alliance for Justice.
Throughout the long day, Roberts frustrated the attempts of liberal champions such as Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to paint him as a right-wing ideologue.
Roberts declared his belief in a constitutional right of privacy that protects sexual practices from government intrusion.
Asked about his work on behalf of a gay-rights group in a case that overturned Colorado’s anti-gay-rights Amendment 2, Roberts said he would not have worked on such a case “if there had been something morally objectionable” in the cause.
“I do not have an over-arching judicial philosophy,” Roberts said. “I have no agenda.”
And when Kennedy and other Democratic senators read aloud the conservative, sometimes caustic stands Roberts took when working as a lawyer in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, the judge said they were merely the work of an eager young attorney representing his client.
At one point, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., criticized the judge for excessively deferring to presidential power, but Roberts defused the confrontation by noting how the late Justice Robert Jackson, whom he called a personal hero, promoted an expansive view of presidential authority when serving as attorney general, then took a different view after being appointed to the Supreme Court.
“Are you sending us a message?” Leahy asked with a smile.
“Yesterday he talked about baseball,” said Ralph Neas, president of liberal People for the American Way, referring to Roberts’ opening statement Monday. “Today he played dodgeball.”
