Roberts for Chief Justice
on Sep 5, 2005 at 8:37 am
Circuit Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., well on his way to becoming an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, will instead be nominated to be Chief Justice, President Bush announced on Monday. The swift switch in the wake of the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist may mean that a new Chief could lead the Court at or near the opening of the new Term Oct. 3. That was part of the President’s objective.
Bush made the announcement early in the day in the Oval Office at the White House, with Roberts at his side. Roberts commented: “I am very much aware that if I am confirmed I would succeed a man I deeply respect and admire, a man who has been very kind to me for 25 years.” Roberts was once a Rehnquist law clerk.
News organizations reported that the President and Roberts had met at the White House Sunday evening, and that Bush told Roberts of his decision when the judge arrived at the White House Monday morning. White House press secretary Scott McClellan was quoted as saying that the President for some time had felt that Roberts “had the qualities to lead the Court.”
Although the selection of Roberts for Chief was a bit of a surprise, the bigger surprise was that the President did not wait until after funeral services for Rehnquist, scheduled for Wednesday. Apparently, the White House concluded that, more than protocol, the need for speed was paramount.
Some observers have speculated that Bush all along had been considering Roberts for the Chief Justiceship, before there were any vacancies on the Court. He had been interviewed months ago for a possible seat. The Chief Justice’s battle with thyroid cancer had led to the widespread expectation that Rehnquist would be the first to leave the Court. The first vacancy, though, came with the announced retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Bush moved to put Roberts in line for her seat to assure him a place on the Court.
Before Rehnquist’s death on Saturday night, Roberts had been expected to gain Senate approval to become an Associate Justice. He has been courting members of the Senate for weeks, routinely making a positive impression. A lengthy list of liberal organizations have come out in opposition, but their combined efforts did not appear to be making much headway, particularly with more conservative Democrats in the Senate. Their opposition is based largely on a series of memoes Roberts had written in the early and mid 1980s as a Justice Department or White House attorney. The liberal groups saw in those memoes what they considered to be a disturbing pattern of stubborn resistance to the expansion of civil rights. Their opposition no doubt will carry over to his nomination to lead the Court.
Those memoes, on the other hand, have encouraged conservative organizations to believe that Roberts, on the Court, will be a solid member of the most conservative bloc, perhaps voting regularly with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. These groups lost no time on Monday morning congratulating Bush on deciding to nominate Roberts as the Chief.
In technical terms, the President apparently will have to withdraw Roberts’ nomination as an Associate Justice, and send up a new nomination to be the Chief Justice. No doubt the White House and Senate Republican leaders will argue that this new nomination does not require any more extended review than had already been planned for Roberts as an Associate. Democrats, on the other hand, may attempt to argue for more time to evaluate this new development.
As of early Monday, there was no word from the Senate Judiciary Committee on any change in plans to hold a hearing for Roberts starting Tuesday. There had been some talk on Sunday night about delaying the start of those hearings until after Rehnquist’s funeral. That was never announced officially.
