Newsday - Judge John Roberts: His Views Still a Mystery

BY TOM BRUNE AND JOHN RILEY
WASHINGTON BUREAU

July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- In 1991, John Roberts argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the landmark Roe v. Wade case that established abortion rights was "wrongly decided" and without support "in the text, structure or history of the Constitution."

It was a bold claim, especially since the case he was arguing as a deputy solicitor for the first Bush administration did not involve that question, but was about a regulation barring federally funded clinics from providing abortion counseling.

But just as the Supreme Court sidestepped that touchy issue in its final ruling, so has Roberts, repeatedly refusing over the years to publicly discuss his personal views on abortion, saying back then he was just doing the work of a lawyer for his client.

Roberts, 50, is a consummate lawyer, Republican stalwart and Washington insider, who has sidestepped divulging his philosophy on many issues on the cultural divide - abortion, civil rights, the environment.

He brings to the table a classic establishment lawyer's resume - a high school football captain and president of his class, a top graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law, a clerk for then-Justice William Rehnquist, a White House and Justice Department lawyer under the Reagan and Bush I administrations, and time at a white-shoe law firm.

He has represented major corporations, but also done pro bono work for welfare recipients in Washington, D.C.

After Bush announced his nomination, Roberts said he was humbled and expressed gratitude to his parents and three sisters. He also acknowledged his wife, Jane, and two children, Josie and Jack, who were at the White House last night.

In a sense, he is a stealth candidate who has pleased the right and concerned the left.

Conservative activist Jay Sekulow said he fulfilled the right's wish for a nominee like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Roberts is a member of the conservative legal group, the Federal Society, and helped the Republican legal team that won Bush v. Gore, which made George W. Bush president in 2000.

But he can be hard to pin down, as some key Democrats complained two years ago when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Bush's nomination of him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Pressed by Democrats on the 1991 arguments against Roe, Roberts replied, "I do not believe it is proper to infer a lawyer's personal views from the positions that lawyers may advocate on behalf of a client in litigation."

Despite his record as an attorney in the 1991 case and other cases that appear to liberals as attacks on abortion rights, some experts doubt he'll overturn Roe.

"This is someone who has spent his entire professional life, ever since he clerked for Rehnquist 25 years ago, within the world of the Supreme Court," said legal historian David Garrow of Emory University in Atlanta. "He may not be pro-abortion, but this is not someone whose resume should lead anyone to think he's going to overturn Roe v. Wade."

Women's rights groups, such as Planned Parenthood Federation, expressed a concerned view after the announcement.

But when he came up two years ago, the Alliance for Justice - the main liberal left coalition on the federal judiciary - attacked Roberts for having "an extremist ideology."

Confirmed in 2003, Roberts hasn't had time to make much of a mark. But some cases signalled a conservative bent.

And, in a 2004 case, he adopted a deferential posture toward presidential power that could be critical in war-on-terror cases. At the behest of the Bush administration, he voted to block prisoners of war from the first Iraq war from collecting a $1-billion judgment won in U.S. courts against the new government installed by the U.S.

He also supported the Bush administration in a case challenging Vice President Dick Cheney's attempt to keep records of his secret energy task force secret.