By Carl Hulse
The New York Times
Washington – The Senate opened formal debate Monday on the nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the United States, as President Bush signaled that he was considering a woman or a member of a minority group to fill the Supreme Court seat of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who is retiring.
“I will put the person in to do the job,” Bush told reporters during an appearance at the Department of Energy. “But I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country.”
As the floor deliberations on Roberts began, there were no surprises, and Republicans and Democrats agreed that a vote should come no later than Thursday.
Lawmakers reiterated their reasoning on the nomination and emphasized the import and unique opportunity of voting on the lifetime appointment of a chief justice.
“This decision is among the top two that we’re called upon to make,” said Sen. Barbara Mikul ski, D-Md., who listed a vote to go to war as the other. She announced her opposition to Roberts, saying, “I have many doubts about the direction the Roberts court will take us.”
With Republicans solidly backing Roberts and Democrats divided, he has easily surpassed the threshold for confirmation. And Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, on Monday eliminated the prospect that Democrats might seek to stall the vote through any procedural effort, saying they would be ready to vote by Thursday.
“I think we could do that with ease,” Reid said on the Senate floor, suggesting the final vote could even come Wednesday.
Some Senate Democrats said opponents of Roberts recognized that his confirmation was assured and that there was no organized effort to raise roadblocks to the vote among lawmakers or the various interest groups that object to his rise to the high court.
The attention has turned instead to the imminent announcement of the identity of the nominee to fill the second vacancy to the court, said one senior Democratic official who did not want to be publicly identified discussing party strategy.
On Monday, Bush’s comments on diversity and filling a second Supreme Court slot focused new speculation on a number of women frequently mentioned as contenders.
Among them are Priscilla Owen, a federal appellate judge in Austin, Texas, and a longtime friend of the president and Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff; Janice Rogers Brown, a 2005 Bush appointee to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, who is African-American; Consuelo Callahan, a federal appellate judge in Sacramento, Calif., who is Hispanic; Karen Williams, a federal appellate judge in Orangeburg, S.C.; and Judge Alice Batchelder of the 6th Circuit.
One African-American frequently mentioned as a possibility is Larry Thompson, a former deputy attorney general who is the general counsel of Pepsico in Purchase, N.Y. Hispanics mentioned for the job include Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Judge Ricardo Hinojosa of U.S. District Court in Texas.
Republican strategists said Bush could announce his choice as early as this week, but only after the Senate votes on Roberts’ confirmation.
Bush hinted that he had not conducted a new round of interviews with finalists for his choice to succeed O’Connor, as he did with five finalists in July.
“I have interviewed people in the past and thought about people from all walks of life,” Bush told reporters. But the business at hand for the Senate on Monday was the vote on Roberts. In his remarks in support of the nomination, Sen.
Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, referred to the sharp division in his party on whether the nomination should be approved.
Democrats on the committee split, 5-3, against confirmation, with some suggesting that Roberts’ testimony left them uncertain of how he would decide cases in the area of privacy and civil rights, among others.
“I respect those who have come to different conclusions about this nomination,” Leahy said. “I readily acknowledge the unknowable at this moment. Perhaps they’re right and I’m wrong.
Only time will tell. But in my judgment, in my experience, especially in my conscience, I find it better to vote yes than no.” Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine who is also backing Roberts, said while she would have preferred that Roberts offer a “more direct and forceful refutation” of some of the memorandums he wrote earlier in his career, she found him to be a strong choice. “It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that John Roberts has the potential to become one of the pre-eminent chief justices in modern times,” she said.
Lawmakers and Senate aides say the next few days will allow senators to make their political cases on Roberts in floor speeches but that the outcome is virtually assured.
“The heavy lifting of this nomination took place within the committee,” said Reid, who is opposing the nomination.
