‘No record’ nominee hostile to all things progressive
By
Naomi Cohen
Published Jul 29, 2005 7:08 PM
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.
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