Washington – A divided Democratic caucus on Wednesday assured Supreme Court nominee John Roberts of a comfortable, bipartisan Senate confirmation as the nation’s 17th chief justice, the youngest in 200 years.
Many say they would have chosen someone else for the position, yet 21 Senate Democrats agreed he has “a brilliant legal mind,” and they will be among the 76 senators – more than three-fourths of the 100-member Senate – who say they plan to vote to confirm the 50-year- old Roberts as the successor to the late William Rehnquist.
Democrats are uniting, however, in sending the White House a warning not to nominate a conservative ideologue to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. President Bush is expected to nominate O’Connor’s replacement soon after Roberts is sworn in as chief justice.
“While this nomination did not warrant an attempt to block the nominee on the floor of the Senate, the next one might,” said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He was out front on filibusters of Bush’s lower-court judicial nominees and is one of the 21 Democrats who have announced their opposition to Roberts.
Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas is one of the 21 Democrats who have announced support for Roberts, yet he too cautioned the White House on the upcoming pick, saying, “If Bush nominates another conservative activist judge, there will be problems in the Senate.”
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., condemned talk of blocking Bush’s next Supreme Court pick but also urged the White House to nominate “in the mold of Judge Roberts,” who has gone through the Senate relatively unscathed from the day Bush nominated him for the nation’s 109th Supreme Court justice.
“If the president can find someone in Judge Roberts’ mold, I think by putting up that nominee, he disarmed his opponents,” Specter said.
