HIGHLIGHTS
Roberts' Confirmation Hearings Conclude
On Sept. 15, the Senate Judiciary Committee concluded hearings on the nomination of John Roberts to be the next chief justice of the United States. The week's hearings have presented a conservative, well-spoken, politically attractive nominee, a judge with impeccable credentials and powerful supporters. But he still left some Democrats on the committee uncertain about his views on critical issues, mostly because he refused to comment on issues he said might come before the Supreme Court.

A lot of questions were left unanswered, "which was very frustrating to the Democrats," say Pete Williams of NBC News, "and yet they found themselves hesitating about whether to vote against him." There's universal feeling in that committee that he is intellectually equipped to do the job of chief justice. And many of the Democrats appeared to conclude that he is less a doctrinaire conservative than he appeared to be as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration.

For his part, Judge Roberts resisted all ideological labels. "...if you'd looked at what I've done since I took the judicial oath, that should convince you that I'm not an ideologue and you and I agree that that's not the sort of person we want on the Supreme Court," say Roberts in answering Sen. Schumer (D-NY)'s question of what kind of judge he will be.

Bush picks Roberts to succeed Rehnquist

Chief Justice William Rehnquist who had been battling thyroid cancer died Sept. 3 at his home. Two days later, President Bush elevated John Roberts's nomination, from associate justice on the Supreme Court to chief justice.

"... it's fitting that a great chief justice be followed in office by a person who shared his deep reverence for the Constitution, his profound respect for the Supreme Court, and his complete devotion to the cause of justice, " said President Bush on the nomination.

Roberts's confirmation hearing is slated to begin at noon on Monday, Sept. 12.

Roberts's Records

On July 19, President Bush nominated federal appeals judge John G. Roberts Jr. to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The name was a surprise to many. As the confirmation process unfolds, Washington Week panelists assess the records of Judge Roberts.

The Los Angeles Times reported on August 4th that John G. Roberts, who has been lauded by his supporters as a staunch conservative, helped supervise a case that went before the high court in support of protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation. But does it mean that he supports gay rights? "I don't think we can read that into it," says Jeanne Cummings of the Wall Street Journal. "Does it mean that he's as hostile towards them as some in the conservative community might be? Probably not." "This is the oddest thing," says Cummings, "because he's such a mystery. And there's such a thin record on him that every little thing people grab onto and they try to just pour through it and try to figure out: What does it tell us about him?"

Meanwhile, newly released documents from Roberts' service in the Reagan administration showed a young lawyer brimming with conservative enthusiasm. "It takes us a little further away from the idea that he's just sort of a careful, quiet, self-effacing legal craftsman," says Pete Williams of NBC News. "And you do get an impression here that he was not perhaps a doctrinaire conservative, but someone who civil rights groups say was very driven to push the attorney general, his boss at the time, toward having a very narrow view on civil rights."

Democrats have demanded more documents from Roberts's work in the solicitor general's office in the first Bush administration. The White House, arguing the information is privileged, turned down the request.

ALSO ADDRESSED
Sandra Day O'Connor's legacy
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor submitted her resignation to President Bush on July 1. In the letter, she says, "It has been a great privilege, indeed, to have served on the court." O'Connor, in her 24 years on the Court, has often tipped the balance in important cases.

"I think she is a decisive person," says Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times. "She just has a jurisprudential style that I think is quite different from many of the others. She doesn't come at something with an idee fixe. Her decisions tend to be very fact-bound. She looks at the facts and she looks at the law and she tries to reconcile the two of them in some framework of common sense."

When appointed to the Court, Justice O'Connor was seen as a staunch conservative, but now she is considered a moderate. The court has shifted to the right in the past 20 years, but "more than that," says, Greenhouse, "she certainly has changed her views over time." When she came on the court, she suggested that she would take an opportunity if it presented itself to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But in 1992, she voted with the 5-to-4 majority in 1992 in the Planned Parenthood case that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade. "Now something happened in the space of about--less than 10 years there and I think what happened was she really had occasion for the first time to kind of dig in and think about it and figure out what she really thought," says Greenhouse.