‘No record’ nominee hostile to all things progressive

President George W. Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court was said to have “no record” to speak of. But Judge John Roberts, it turns out, has a long record of hostility not only to women’s rights and civil rights, but to labor rights, environmental protection and separation of church and state. This corporate lawyer-turned advocate for the Reagan right-wing agenda authored a long string of reactionary, sexist, racist, anti-worker court briefs in years of loyal service to the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations.

While in private practice—in between defending Fortune 500 corporations against suits by injured workers, unions and environmental groups—Roberts did the dirty work of the Bush 2000 campaign in Florida, where he was the personal private counsel for Gov. Jeb Bush. More recently, according to the Wall Street Journal of July 20, “Judge Roberts helped hand the Bush administration a signal victory as part of a unanimous three-judge panel ruling that so-called enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no rights under the Gen eva Con ventions and can be prosecuted before military commissions that lack due process protections.”

In an attempt to further hide Roberts’ sordid record, the Bush administration announced it would not release some crucial documents written by the nominee while he was the Deputy Solicitor General under Kenneth Starr in the Bush Sr. administration. But a number of public interest, legal and women’s organizations have quickly posted important information about the Roberts record and cited cases where his legal briefs clearly reveal the character of his political thinking.

Roe v. Wade and choice targeted

The website of NARAL Pro-Choice America cited several examples of Roberts’ legal arguments against women’s reproductive rights as protected under Roe v. Wade, including a call to overturn Roe entirely.

“As Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Roberts argued in a 1991 brief before the U.S. Supreme Court that ‘[W]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled. … [T]he Court’s conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to abortion … finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.’”

In that same case of 1991, Rust v. Sullivan, Roberts appeared on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to argue for a gag rule to bar doctors working in family planning programs that received federal funds from even discussing abortion options with patients. This case not only further deprived women of their right to choose, but also targeted in particular the poor women who use publicly funded clinics.

According to NARAL, in 1993, “Roberts, again as Principal Deputy Solicitor General, argued for the United States in support of Operation Rescue and six other individuals who routinely blocked access to reproductive health care clinics, arguing that the protesters’ behavior did not amount to discrimination against women, even though only women could exercise the right to seek an abortion. … Here (Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic) the government chose to involve itself in a case in support of those who sought to deprive women of the right to choose through massive, often violent, blockades.”

Voting rights, civil rights attacked

During confirmation hearings for Judge Roberts to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2001, the Alliance for Justice wrote a 14-page report in opposition to the confirmation. They cited Roberts’ role in weakening the Voting Rights Act under the Reagan administration.

“After a 1980 Supreme Court decision, Mobile v. Bolden, dramatically weakened certain sections of the Voting Rights Act, Roberts was invol ved in the administration’s effort to prevent Congress from overturning the Supreme Court’s action. The Supreme Court had decided ... that plaintiffs claiming certain violations of the Voting Rights Act, such as minority vote dilution, had to prove that the discrimination was intentional rather than just having a discriminatory effect.” The former is obviously much harder to prove.

In 1990, in Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dow ell, Roberts co-authored the amicus brief, seeking to weaken the standard and limit the time-line for court-enforced desegregation decrees in the nation’s schools. (Moveon.org) Roberts argued in a number of cases for an expanded role for religion in the public schools, holding that the Supreme Court should allow prayers at public school graduations. (Lee v. Weisman, 1992)

Perhaps most infamous among Roberts’ cases is Hedgepeth v. Wash. Metro Area Transit Auth. (2004) According to the website of People for the American Way, this case grew out of an incident in which a 12-year-old girl in D.C. was arrested for eating a single French fry on the Metro during a “zero tolerance” crackdown by transit police. “The child was searched, handcuffed, her shoelaces were removed, she was taken away in a windowless police vehicle, fingerprinted, and held for three hours until she was released into her mother’s custody.”

The mother brought a civil rights action on behalf of the child. Judge Roberts affirmed the district court’s ruling against the mother, dismissing the serious concerns raised by the use of police power in the case.

While Roberts’ record on gay/lesbian rights has not been tested publicly, it is clear that the attack on privacy for women in Roe and his attempts to force prayers on public schools would translate into oppres sive anti-gay attitudes as well.

Anti-worker, anti-environmental

To round out the picture of this thoroughly reactionary nominee is Roberts’ choice of corporate clients and arguments against workers’ rights. He represented Toyota Motor Manufacturing in 2002 in its successful petition against a worker with carpal tunnel syndrome. He argued that she was not protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, even though she was fired for an injury acquired on the job.

In 2001 Roberts filed a “friend of the court” brief for the National Mining Association before the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that involved a West Virginia community hurt by the practice known as mountaintop removal mining. In 2002 he represented Fox Television, the network owned by Rupert Murdoch, in its challenge of governmental regulations. In 2004 Roberts supported developers trying to overturn a ruling protecting an endangered species of toad on the grounds that the protection did not involve interstate commerce.

Fightback needed

While Roberts’ record is universally reactionary, advocates of women’s rights are particularly concerned that a Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court could provide the swing vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would be a huge step backwards not only for women, but for all civil and workers’ rights.

Meanwhile, few Democrats in Congress have raised any concrete objections to Roberts’ record, and the Judiciary Committee may be poised to go through the motions of holding hearings to rubberstamp this Bush nominee. The only thing that can jolt the “representatives” in Congress to stand up to the Bush appointment process is a united struggle in the communities and in the streets to oppose this nomination.