Senate panel gives its OK to Roberts Democrats split on judge; full chamber to vote next week By Finlay Lewis COPLEY NEWS SERVICE September 23, 2005 WASHINGTON – Judge John Roberts won bipartisan backing from the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, as the panel's Democrats divided over his nomination by President Bush to be the next chief justice of the United States. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California cast one of the five Democratic votes against Roberts, saying the highly touted appellate court judge had failed to reassure her that he would not use his immense power on theSupreme Court to attempt to overturn women's right to abortions. Despite similar misgivings from other Democrats, the committee voted 13-5 to send the Roberts nomination to the full Senate, where he is seen as a cinch to win confirmation next week. Republicans hold a comfortable majority, and several other Democrats, mainly from states that Bush carried in last year's presidential election, are expected to cross over to support the 50-year-old jurist. He is in line to become the nation's 17th chief justice, succeeding William Rehnquist, who died last month. With the outcome virtually assured, senators from both parties yesterday appeared to be looking ahead to what may be the far more contentious nomination by Bush of a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote on the oft-divided court. Unlike Roberts, a conservative who is replacing a conservative, O'Connor's replacement could shift the balance of power on the court to the right. Bush has said he favors justices in the mold of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the most conservative members of the court. Feinstein, who indicated to reporters later that she seriously considered voting for Roberts at one point, said that the nominee had failed to assuage her misgivings during four days of testimony last week. "I realized this past week, after reading and rereading the transcripts ... that I knew as little about what Judge Roberts really thought after the hearings as I did before the hearings," Feinstein said. Advertisement Roberts, acclaimed by Democrats and Republicans alike as one of the most impressive legal minds ever to be nominated to the high court, declined to answer a number of questions during the hearings, saying they raised issues he might confront on the court. That produced frustration among some Democrats as he was closely interrogated about memos that he wrote as a young legal adviser in the Reagan administration and later as deputy solicitor general under President George H. W. Bush. He has been sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia since 2003. Democrats complained that some of the memos expressed skepticism or outright opposition to the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade giving women a right to seek an abortion; to affirmative action; and to women's rights. Civil rights groups remain concerned about his positions arguing for a limited approach to enforcing the 1965 Voting Rights Act when it was up for renewal in the early 1980s. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who voted against Roberts, observed, "Judge Roberts was such a good witness that everyone seemed to emerge from the hearing with a different view of what he actually said." Leading off the debate, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman and a longtime defender of the Roe decision, said he was satisfied by Roberts' assurances that he would give great weight to court precedent in deciding whether to overrule earlier decisions. Three of the committee's eight Democrats who voted for Roberts said they gave him the benefit of the doubt. One of them, Sen. Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin, in addressing next week's Senate vote said, "I will vote my hopes and not my fears, and I will vote to confirm him." Joining Kohl in supporting Roberts were Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and Russell Feingold, also of Wisconsin. Voting against Roberts along with Feinstein and Schumer were Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Joseph Biden of Delaware. Kohl said he voted as he did in part because Roberts will not "radically shift the balance of the court," as Rehnquist's replacement. Noting that Bush originally had picked Roberts to replace O'Connor prior to Rehnquist's death, Kohl added that it would have been more difficult to vote for Roberts if the chief justice's seat had not become vacant. As the lone woman on the committee, Feinstein made it clear that the Roe decision was of critical importance in view of her long-standing role as a defender of abortion rights. In her statement to the committee prior to the vote, she said that she wanted Roberts to give her "a reasonable sense of confidence that he would uphold certain essential legal rights and protections that Americans rely on." But she said that her decision to oppose Roberts grew out of his refusal to disavow decades-old memos that opposed those rights and, in a couple of cases, included "derogatory comments about women." "If Judge Roberts had provided different answers to these questions, he could have easily demonstrated to us that wisdom comes with age and a sense of his own autonomy," Feinstein said. "But he did neither." Late yesterday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., widely considered to be weighing a run for the presidency in 2008, announced that she will vote against the nomination. Clinton, in a written statement, said Roberts had failed to present his views "with enough clarity and specificity" during his Senate confirmation hearings last week. Many Senate Democrats have been debating whether a strong vote in opposition to Roberts would persuade Bush to nominate a moderate to replace O'Connor, whose pivotal vote on many 5-4 Supreme Court decisions tilted the balance away from the court's conservative wing. While Feinstein said she was not attempting to send a message to the White House, she added, "This country is very divided. I think the president is well advised to attempt to bring it together . . . People are very concerned about their rights. They are fearful that they are going to lose their rights." With floor debate likely to begin Monday, the Senate is expected to confirm Roberts later in the week so he can preside over the court when it begins its new term on Oct. 3. The Hearst News Service contributed to this report. »Next Story»