Executive Session

EXECUTIVE SESSION

NOMINATION OF JOHN G. ROBERTS, JR., TO BE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES--Resumed

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I would like to comment a bit on the nomination of Judge Roberts. I wish to make a political observation. This is certainly a political body, and the nomination process has politics to it. That is not a bad thing. That is to be expected.

From a Republican point of view, this is an easy vote. We are inclined to support a President when he is in power making a nomination. But that is not always the case, that every Republican votes for every nominee. I expect that will be the case here. Most of us on our side of the aisle are pleased with the nominee, someone of extraordinary intelligence and legal abilities and seems to be an all around good guy who has served his country well in every capacity that he has been called upon to serve. We will all vote en masse. It is an easy vote for us.

To our Democratic colleagues, it is not so easy. Any time you are in the minority, and the Court being an important part of American life and politics, there is a lot of pressure on my Democratic colleagues to say no for different reasons by special interest groups on the left. We certainly have them on the right. Our day will come. If there is ever a Democratic nominee, we will face the same pressure.

I would like to compliment my Democratic colleagues. Every one has taken the process seriously. There will be a healthy number of Democratic votes for Judge Roberts. To those who have decided to vote for him, history will judge you well. You have based your votes on the qualifications test. You have seen in Judge Roberts someone who loves the law more than politics. Over time, history will judge you well. One of the highlights of the Bush administration will be the selection of Judge Roberts to be the Chief Justice of the United States.

For those who vote no, to a person everyone has struggled with it, thought about it, cast your vote. Generally speaking, the debate in committee and in the Chamber has lived up to the best traditions of the Senate. A few months ago, we were at each other's throats, about to blow up the place. There is plenty of blame to go around, but we have sort of broken that cycle. We have had a confirmation process that is in the best tradition of the Senate. We will go forward, and I hope he gets a healthy number of votes. It looks as if he will.

One thing I wanted to take some time to discuss is some of the reasoning given to vote no and make a cautionary tale about some of the suggestions why a ``no'' vote would be appropriate. There seems to be some suggestion that if he does not have an allegiance to a particular line of cases, particularly the right of privacy cases centering around Roe v. Wade, that you can't vote for him. That one case or that line of legal reasoning is so important that without some commitment on his part to uphold Roe v. Wade or the concept of Roe v. Wade, a ``no'' vote would be in order. I would argue that could be applied on our side. Most of us are pro-life. I would say 90 percent of the Republican caucus is pro-life. Probably 90 percent of the Democratic caucus is pro-choice. The country is pretty evenly divided. If we have a litmus test about Roe v. Wade or any other case, that is not doing the judiciary a good service because you are putting a judge in a bad spot.

Senator Harkin mentioned the Americans with Disabilities Act, something he should be very proud of. He fought hard to make it part of law, and we are a better Nation for it. There are some cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act that will come before the Court. Senator Harkin did not think that he could vote yes because he wasn't assured that Judge Roberts would uphold the Americans with Disabilities Act in a way that he felt comfortable with in that States have been exempted from the act. We are all dealing with that issue.

The only thing I can say about a guarantee with Judge Roberts, if you are a conservative and would like to see certain Court decisions reversed, if you are a liberal and would like to see certain decisions sustained, the one thing I can promise you about Judge Roberts is he is going to make his decision based on the facts, the briefs, the record in the particular case, and the arguments made by litigants. If he overturns a precedent of the Court, he will apply the four-part test that has been the historical analysis of how to overturn a standing precedent. He is going to do it in a businesslike fashion. He is going to apply the rule of law. If you are looking for an outcome-determinative judge, someone who is going to see things your way before they get your vote, you are going to be disappointed. To be honest, the law is better off for those answers. He is not the only one to refuse to bargain his way on the Court.

Justice Marshall was asked by Senator McClellan: Do you subscribe to the philosophy expressed by a majority of the Court in Miranda?

That is a major league constitutional case in our Nation's history where police officers have to inform a criminal defendant of certain rights they possess under the Constitution. That was a big deal. When Justice Marshall was coming along, that case had not been long decided. He said: I cannot answer your question because there are many cases pending that are variations on Miranda that I will have to pass on if I were confirmed.

Senator McClellan: Do you disagree with the Miranda philosophy?

Justice Marshall: I am not saying whether I disagree or not, because I am going to be called to pass on it.

Senator McClellan: You cannot make any comment on any decision that has been made in the past?

Justice Marshall answered: I would say that on decisions that are certain to be reexamined in the Court, it would be improper for me to comment on them in advance.

I couldn't say it better. This idea that Judge Roberts has been evasive, that he will not give you a detailed answer of how he will decide the concept of the right of privacy or how he might rule on interstate commerce clause cases that will certainly come before the Court, he is doing exactly what Justice Marshall did when he was in the confirmation process. He was not going to bargain his way on the Court.

Justice Ginsburg gave a very famous quote: I am not going to give you hints, any previews, no advisory opinions about matters that I believe will be coming before the Court.

If that is your test, that you have to have a guarantee in your mind that a certain line of cases or a legal concept will be upheld or stricken down, Judge Roberts is never going to satisfy you. It is good for the country that he not try to do that, just as Justice Marshall avoided that dilemma.

This is a question by Senator Kohl to Justice Souter: What was your opinion in 1973 on Roe v. Wade?

Justice Souter: Well, with respect, Senator, I am going to ask you to let me draw the line there, because I do not think I could get into opinions of 1973.

Senator Leahy: You do not have the same sense, to whatever degree you consider privacy in Griswold settled--which is the ability to engage in birth control practices--to whatever extent that is, you do not have in your own mind the same sense of settlement on Roe v. Wade; is that correct?

Justice Souter: Well, with respect, sir, I think that is a question that I should not answer. Because I think to get into that kind of comparison is to start down the road on an analysis of one of the strands of thought upon which the Roe v. Wade decision either would or would not stand. So with respect, I will ask not to be asked to answer that question.

He said it better than I read it. Bottom line is, he is telling Senator Leahy and Senator Kohl that if you start asking me to compare one case with another that has viable legal concepts, that could be a foreshadowing of how I might rule on matters before the Court, and you are putting me in a bad spot and I like not to do that. I can talk about Griswold, but if you ask me to say am I settled about Roe v. Wade as I am Griswold, then you are basically getting a preview how I might rule on a Roe v. Wade-type scenario.

So the idea that Judge Roberts did not want to make such comparisons with the interstate commerce clause is not unknown to the confirmation process. Justice Souter did not want to go down that road with the right of privacy.

Judge Roberts was asked probing, hard, clever questions to try to get him to tip his hand. I think what he said was the right answer: I will follow the rule of law. There is a process of how to overturn a case. There is a process of how to decide a case. That process is, you look at the facts, you look at the record, you listen to the arguments of the litigants, and you don't prejudge. I think that will serve the country well.

The other concept that is coming into play is what burden does the nominee have, what deference should the Senate give to the President, what is the standard for confirmation. I have always believed that the idea that the President's nominee should be given deference by the Senate is a longstanding concept in our country. I am not the only one who believes that.

There is a lot of information out there from our Democratic friends who have gone down that same road and have come to the same conclusion. There are prominent law professors out there who have suggested that there is a presumption of a nomination by the President that the Senate should give great deference to the Presidential nominee and that our advise-and-consent role does not replace the judgment of the President but simply to see if the person is qualified, has the character and integrity and will wear the robe in the way that is consistent with being a judge and not turn it into power grab.

Professor Michael Gerhardt, who has advised our Democratic friends about the confirmation process established now and in the past, says:

The Constitution establishes a presumption of confirmation that works to the advantage of the President and his nominee.

He also said:

The presumption of confirmation embodied in the Constitution generally puts the onus on those interested in impeding a nomination to mobilize opposition to it.

So the general idea that the President should be given deference, in Professor Gerhardt's opinion, is accepted in terms of the practice of the Senate.

Senator Biden, on past nominations, has said: First, as a Member of the Senate, I am not choosing a nominee for the Court. That is the prerogative of the President of the United States and we, Members of the Senate, are simply reviewing the decision he has made. Second: Our review, I believe, must operate within certain limits. We are attempting to answer some of the following questions: First, does the nominee have the intellectual capacity, confidence, and temperament to be a Supreme Court Justice? Second, is the nominee of good moral character and free of conflict of interest that would compromise her ability--in this case it was Justice Ginsburg--to faithfully and objectively perform her role as a member of the Supreme Court? Third, will the nominee faithfully uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States of America? We are not attempting to determine whether the nominee will address with all of us--being the Senate--every pressing social or legal issue of the day. Indeed, if that were the test, no one would pass this committee, much less the full Senate.

I could not agree with Senator Biden more. If that is the test, we are OK. If it becomes some subjective test where you have to adopt our view of a particular line of legal reasoning, then I think you have undermined the role of the President, I think you put the Judiciary at a great disadvantage, and I think you will be starting down a road that will not pay great dividends for the Senate.

I argue that whatever votes you cast, let's not create standards that will come back to haunt the judiciary. Let's not put people in a bind, in trying to get on the Court, by making decisions or answering questions that will compromise their integrity and violate their judicial ethics to get votes.

I do not think anybody is intentionally trying to do that, but there are some disturbing comments about what the standard should be. There have been a couple of occasions on the Judiciary Committee where people have looked at Judge Roberts and said: Convince me, the burden is on you to convince me you will not do the following or you will do the following. I don't think that is helpful.

There have been some occasions in the committee where people have acknowledged the great intellect of Judge Roberts. His preparation for the job is not in question. I said in committee: If you question his intellect, people are going to question yours. He is a genius. There is no way of getting around that. He is one of the greatest legal minds in the history of the country, and I think he will be a historic choice by the President.

People have suggested: I don't know if he has the real-world experience; I know about your brain, but I don't know about your heart. I suggest it is dangerous for us in the Senate to begin judging other people's hearts. That gets to be a slippery slope.

Senator Wyden's statement, I thought, was dead on point. He understands the deference the body gives to the President. He pointed out, in fact, that Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer, two Clinton nominees, received 87 votes and 96 votes, respectively. If you start applying heart tests, I can tell you that gets to be so subjective and so political, and I think it is dangerous for the judiciary and not healthy for the Senate.

One of the issues Justice Ginsburg wrote about was the idea that prostitution should be a legal activity because to restrict women from engaging in prostitution is basically restricting a woman's right to engage in commerce.

You can agree or disagree, but from my point of view, looking at the world as I know it to be as a former prosecutor and former defense attorney who has had some experience in criminal law, if I am using the heart test or the real-world experience test, I would argue that from the experiences I have seen as a criminal defense lawyer and as a criminal prosecutor, that prostitution is hell for women; that if you really understood the life of a prostitute, it would not be a good business endeavor to uphold. It would be something we would want to deter.

That is my view based on life as I know it, having been involved in the criminal law business for 20-something years.

She said she supported the idea of Federal funding for abortion. If you wanted to try to question someone's heart from a pro-life perspective, I think it would be pretty tough to take taxpayers' dollars and use them for a procedure that millions of Americans find morally wrong.

So if we start going down the road of whether we believe a person before us has the right heart or the right real-world experiences, then you are taking the objective qualification, intellect, and character test, not an ideologue--which I think is an appropriate thing--and you are beginning to put subjective elements in it that will not be good for the judiciary and will not be good for the Senate. I can assure you, if we started looking at those type of tests for Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer, who was a Democratic staffer, if we started looking at their philosophy or trying to judge their heart or having their value system equate with ours to the point we feel comfortable, then they would not have gotten nearly the votes they did because it is clear to me that not too long ago Republicans, during the Clinton administration, overlooked all the differences they had with Ginsburg and voted for her 96 to 3 and overlooked all the differences they had with Justice Breyer and gave him 87 votes. It is clear to me that Democrats and President Bush 1's administration overlooked all the differences they had with Justice Scalia, and he got 98 votes.

It has been mentioned that the President has politicized this process, and there have been all kinds of veiled and direct threats about the next nominee: If you pick so and so, you are going to get a fight. If you pick Priscilla Owen, if you pick Janice Rogers Brown, you are going to get a fight, bringing back the specter of the filibuster.

What did the President do when he ran in his campaign? He talked about the Supreme Court and how important it was to him. He said, basically: If I am the President of the United States, on my watch, I am going to nominate well-qualified, strict constructionists to the Court with no litmus test, who will interpret the law and not become legislators themselves. He showed praise and admiration for Scalia and Thomas.

I would argue that something is wrong with the Senate if they can vote for someone 98 to 0 and say, If you pick someone like him, they are out of the mainstream and desiring a filibuster. How can you go from 98 to 0, someone similar to the person a decade later, and you filibuster? I would argue that if you do that, it is more about politics than it is about qualifications.

I hope we don't do that because the one thing I can assure you, knowing the President reasonably well, is that he is going to fulfill his campaign promise. He is going to send over to this body a well-qualified, strict constructionist, and to expect anything else, you ignored the last two elections. We are not going to sit on the sidelines and watch the election be overturned because of political pressure from the left. That is not going to happen.

I do expect the President to listen, as he did before he nominated Judge Roberts. I expect him to consult, as he did before he nominated Judge Roberts. I was very pleased and proud of his pick. I am encouraging the President to listen to our Democratic colleagues, listen to us all. But the most encouragement I could give the President is: Fulfill your campaign promise. Do what you said you would do when you ran for President. Send us over a well-qualified, strict constructionist conservative with no litmus test attached. If you do that, then you will have done a good service for the American people because you got elected twice telling them what you are going to do.

I have about 5 minutes, and I will let my other colleagues speak.

There were a couple of other comments about concerns with this nominee. It goes back to the memos. This nominee worked for the Reagan administration. He was in his midtwenties, and that has gotten to be a bad thing. Working for Ronald Reagan, I think, is a good thing. Justice Breyer was a Democratic staffer. No one held that against him. He worked for the Democratic side of the aisle in the Senate, and I don't remember anyone suggesting that was a bad thing.

Presidents pick people they know and with whom they are comfortable. Clinton was comfortable with Ginsburg, the executive general council for the ACLU, someone we would not have picked. He was comfortable with Justice Breyer, a former Democratic staffer, someone this President would not pick. This President picked someone who worked for his dad, President Bush 1, and Ronald Reagan.

There is an argument out there that adopting the Reagan position on extending the Civil Rights Act in toto, without a change, that would lead to a reverse discrimination test called ``proportionality'' and is out of the mainstream. Ronald Reagan won 49 States. If you can win 49 States and be out of the mainstream, I would argue the person saying you are out of the mainstream is out of the mainstream. If you picked someone similar to Scalia and that would justify a filibuster and the guy got 98 votes, there is a disconnect going on here.

One of the memos that is in question is a memo that Judge Roberts wrote about the Reagan administration's decision to grant amnesty, for lack of a better word, to illegal aliens in this country. He was writing a memo to suggest how the President should respond to an inquiry by Spanish Today, a Latino, Hispanic newspaper. He talked about the idea that it would be well received in the Hispanic community to grant amnesty. And he said to the effect that Spanish Today would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos.

Somehow that one phrase has been suggested that this young man, working for the Reagan administration, committed some kind of a wrong that would deny him the ability to be fairly considered for the Supreme Court 20-something years later. I argue, No. 1, that if you read his writings in terms of what he was talking about, it was not meant to be slanderous, it was not meant to be a derogatory remark--he answered the question fully--that it was not meant to be that way at all. That was a commonly used term in the White House, the term ``amigos,'' and he made a correct observation: that certain Hispanic groups did welcome President Reagan's decision.

Bottom line is, if we are going to take a phrase that a person wrote when they were 26, and that is going to be a reason to vote no, woe be to anybody else coming before this committee. I would not want that to be the standard for me.

He never apologized because he did not think he had anything to apologize about. So this is much ado, in my opinion, about nothing. You have read his writings. He used Latin, French, and Spanish terms all over the place. He is kind of a witty guy. You may not like his sense of humor, but I think it is given sometimes in that vein. The idea about, you know, more homemakers becoming lawyers, who said we need more homemakers than lawyers--and I think a lot of people agree with that, and his wife happens to be an attorney, by the way--taking these phrases out of context and not looking at life in total is not fair. Not one person came before this body or the committee to say Judge Roberts has lived his life in any way, shape, or form to demean any group in America or individual. It is quite the opposite. He has received praise from everybody he has worked with on both sides of the aisle because he is basically a very good man. So I hope we will not make that the standard in the future.

Final thoughts. The vote is not in question in terms of confirmation. The process is in question. And that to me is as important as the vote total. The President is going to get another pick. That is the way it has happened. He has had a lot of things happen on his watch historic in nature. Whatever you think about President Bush, whether you like him or not, he has had to deal with some major league events. Let me tell you, some will go down good and not so good in history. That is the life of a President. But one thing I can say for certain is that his decision to make John Roberts Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court will go down well in history. It will be one of the greatest things he has done as President of the United States because he has picked one of the most uniquely qualified men in American history to serve on a Court that needs all the unity it can find, and this guy will be a consensus builder. The next one is coming and it is coming soon. There is all kind of jockeying already about what the President should do and what he should not do. I hope and pray we will remember the best traditions of the Senate, that we will listen to the Joe Bidens of the past, when he informed us that our role is to give deference to the Presidential nominee, look at their character, intelligence, and qualifications; that we will remember what Senator Kennedy said about Justice Marshall: it is not your job, we shouldn't hold someone's political philosophy against them. We should look at who they are and what kind of judge they would be, would they be fair.

So as the next pick is about to be made, the Senate can fight if we want to or we can recognize that elections matter, we can judge the nominees based on their qualifications, integrity, and character, whether they are going to wear the robe in some improper fashion, or we can start putting political tests on the Presidency that will come back to haunt everybody and every party. If you want someone such as O'Connor--President Clinton did not think 1 minute about replacing Justice White with Justice Ginsburg. No one asked him to think about that. This idea that you have to have an ideological match is something new. What is old and stood the test of time is that Presidents get to pick once they win, and our job is to make sure they pick wisely in terms of character, integrity, and qualification. And if we will stick to that test and not substitute our political philosophy for that of the President and not require a political allegiance of the nominee to our way of thinking about a particular line of cases or a particular concept in law, but judge the entire person, we will have served the country well. If we get into the mud and start fighting each other over the second pick, because some people don't like how the election turned out, then we will set a trend that will come back to haunt this body, haunt all future Presidents, and we will be worse off as a nation.

With that, I am going to end with the idea I am optimistic that we will not go down that road, we will give the next nominee the respect and deference this nominee has, and we will vote our conscience, and the vote will come and the vote will go. And the worst thing we could do is politicize the judiciary any more than it has been politicized. If you are selected to be on the Supreme Court, there will be millions of dollars to run you down and destroy your life, and that is going to happen on both sides of the aisle if we do not watch it. The best thing the Senate can do is use this opportunity to stand up to those people who want to run down somebody and ruin their life unfairly, because our day will come as Republicans. If we can unite around the idea we are not going to let special interest groups take over the Senate, the country will be stronger.

With that, I yield the floor.

http://thomas.loc.gov/