7-22-05, 10:03 am

Just one day after the President’s announcement of his nomination of Judge John Roberts to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, grassroots activists opposed to Roberts’ confirmation launched the Stop John Roberts campaign.

'President Bush had an opportunity to reach across party lines and select a nominee that could protect the rights of all Americans. Instead, he picked a radical conservative ideologue, and we will work with grassroots activists around the country to ensure that John Roberts is not confirmed by the United States Senate,' said Aaron Ament, a co-founder of Protect Our Court.

This effort to block Roberts’ confirmation is affiliated with a broader campaign known as Protect Our Court, which also mobilized as part of the successful effort to grind the confirmation of controversial UN ambassador nominee John Bolton to a halt. Stop John Bolton mobilized against Bolton’s confirmation because of Bolton’s opposition to the existence of the UN, his unstable personality traits that make him an unfit diplomat, his abuse of classified government information to retaliate against opponents of the administration's policies, and his role in personally abusing staff who did not agree with his extreme views.

Critics of Bush’s selection of Roberts are both wary of Roberts’ very limited experience as a federal judge and his long experience with working for partisan Republican organizations.

Roberts served under Reagan in the White House’s legal counsel section and was promoted to deputy solicitor general in George H. W. Bush’s administration where he delivered some of his most controversial opinions.

During his service under President George H. W. Bush as deputy solicitor general, Roberts wrote legal briefs that argued for overturning Roe v. Wade and poking holes in the separation of church and state, objecting to legal positions that have deep roots in US society.

In fact, in the 1991 case of Rust v. Sullivan, while serving as deputy solicitor general, Roberts wrote a brief on the case expressing hostility to a woman’s right to choose and the right to privacy enshrined in the Roe v. Wade decision.

While this particular case had nothing to do with the merits of Roe v. Wade, Roberts chose to describe Roe v. Wade as 'wrongly decided and should be overruled.'

In another abortion related case, Roberts defended the right of anti-choice groups like Operation Rescue to harass women entering clinics, now a federal crime upheld by the Supreme Court. On the issue of the separation of church and state, Roberts authored a brief arguing that a public school could sponsor prayer at school functions such as graduations because students could choose not to attend graduation ceremonies, making it a non-coerced religious activity. The Supreme Court rejected this argument saying that it 'turns the First Amendment on its head' because it forces a (minor) student to choose between attending a major life event and religious beliefs.

But Roberts is a loyal Republican partisan as well. He has donated thousands to George W. Bush’s campaigns and was involved in the Republican legal campaign to take the election in Florida after the 2000 vote.

He is also a loyal ideologue of the right as his membership in the arch-conservative Federalist Society indicates. The Federalist Society is an organization of lawyers and judges who are actively working to influence the appointment of federal judges. They want to radically alter the legal system and roll back civil rights and women’s reproductive rights and to establish a legal order based on right-wing values that undermine the basic premises of the Bill of Rights. Prominent Federalist Society members include John Ashcroft, Antonin Scalia, and Kenneth Starr.

The basic philosophy of the organization is known as 'states rights' which is usually a cover for overturning federal protections of civil rights and other laws designed to protect the broad Constitutional concept of 'equal protection under the law' assigned to the federal government as its direct responsibility.

Colleagues of Roberts who share his states rights views have openly advocated not renewing the Voting Rights Act, overturning the Violence Against Women Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Endangered Species Act, federal hate crimes laws, affirmative action policies, Title IX funding, and similar federal protections against discrimination.

While Roberts has hidden much direct public discussion of his views on these matters, there can be little doubt that he pays his dues to the Federalist Society for a reason.

To learn more about Roberts the stealth candidate and to sign a petition expressing your opposition to his confirmation, go to .



Contact Leo Walsh at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.