[Mb-civic] The Democrats' Supreme Conundrum - E. J. Dionne - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

The Democrats' Supreme Conundrum

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A17

Reports that Senate Democrats are deeply divided over how to deal with 
the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John Roberts both oversimplify 
what's happening and underestimate the conundrums the party faces.

Democrats are less divided than they are uncertain. They worry about 
doing too little to challenge Roberts, but they also doubt their 
capacity to stop his nomination.

Most Democrats are certain that Roberts is significantly more 
conservative than Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he would replace, 
and that he will push the court to the right. But they wonder whether 
that alone can justify a full-fledged fight against him, let alone a 
filibuster.

Democrats who have studied tapes of Roberts's past congressional 
testimony have concluded that the nominee is skilled at good-natured 
evasion. "If he performs as opaquely as he did the last time," said one 
Democratic staff member close to the process, "he'll probably have the 
support of the vast majority of Republicans, and Democrats won't have 
anything to hang on to."

Roberts is also helped by the goodwill he has courted over the years in 
the Washington legal establishment, which is wary of having his 
appointment blocked on ideological grounds. "It's as if he has been 
planning for this moment all his life," said one Washington lawyer. Said 
another: "There aren't enough hours in the day for anyone to have had as 
many lunches with Democratic lawyers as Roberts has."

Yet many Democrats are frustrated over the difficulty of establishing 
exactly what kind of conservative Roberts is -- or, in the case of 
liberal groups firmly opposed to his nomination, of proving that Roberts 
is still the conservative ideologue who emerges from his memos as a 
young Reagan administration official on matters such as civil rights, 
disability rights and the right to privacy. If trying to stop Roberts is 
a short-term political risk, letting him through without a fight might 
be a long-term risk to the judicial principles that liberals care about.

Roberts would not only immediately shift the balance on the court, he is 
also a potential nominee for chief justice, a post in which his 
political skills could allow him, in tandem with another Bush appointee, 
to create a powerful conservative court majority for a generation. If 
Democrats fail to amass enough votes against Roberts in this round, they 
will be in a weak position to challenge him as chief justice in the next.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082901446.html
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