[Mb-civic] Sifting Old, New Writings For Roberts's Philosophy - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Sifting Old, New Writings For Roberts's Philosophy

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page A01

John G. Roberts Jr. was keen to correct a proposed letter for President 
Ronald Reagan's signature that said the federal courts have "earned and 
enjoyed the confidence of the American people . . . for [their] 
impartiality, independence, and fairness."

Then a young White House lawyer, Roberts wrote in 1983 that in reality 
"the federal judiciary has been viewed by the American people with 
active distrust from the very beginning." Other writings by Roberts from 
this period suggest he might just as well have added: "particularly by me."

Just 28 years old, Roberts was part of a cadre of young conservatives 
attracted to work in Washington with the ambition of righting what they 
considered to be a series of judicial errors under liberal governance 
that had helped set the country on a political course they didn't like.

Now President Bush's nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the 
Supreme Court, Roberts's past writings are being mined for signals about 
his philosophy and how he might rule on cases before the nation's 
highest court. Last week, the bulk of more than 50,000 pages of 
documents from Roberts's tenure in two government jobs was released. The 
documents, dating from 1981 to 1986, offer the most complete view of 
Roberts's thoughts from that period and are the deepest record available 
of his political and legal thinking.

A successful son of the American establishment, Roberts is a top 
graduate of a private midwestern boarding school and one of the nation's 
premier Ivy League universities and sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia Circuit. But his early political unease 
embraced a broad sweep of American social policy.

On topics such as civil rights, judicial procedure, criminal justice and 
the role of religion in public life, the papers show Roberts not only 
embraced the political ideals of the conservative administration for 
which he worked, but occasionally advocated even more conservative 
solutions than his colleagues.

Behind it all was a deep resentment, shared by many legal conservatives 
at the time, of what they regarded as the judiciary branch's intrusion 
into social affairs best left to politicians. On affirmative action, 
school busing, public school prayer and many other matters, Roberts and 
many others in the administration viewed the courts, particularly at the 
federal level, as out of step with public sentiment, at least as 
expressed by its majority will.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001325.html?referrer=email
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