Confirm Judge Roberts

The Centrist Coalition is proud to announce our support for the confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States. We believe that Judge Roberts has proven himself an able successor to Justice William H. Rehnquist, and we further believe that as Chief Justice, Judge Roberts will act as an impartial arbiter of the law, not as an ideologue trying to make the law fit a predetermined position.

Judge Roberts has undergone a lengthy and strenuous confirmation process, which included multiple days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He answered each question put to him by the Committee's members intelligently, clearly, and thoughtfully, and he did not commit himself to positions on issues that could come before the Court at a later time.

We agree with the Washington Post editorial of September 18, which notes that Roberts possesses "professional qualifications of the highest caliber, a modest conception of the judicial function, a strong belief in the stability of precedent, adherence to judicial philosophy, even where the results are not politically comfortable, and an appreciation that fidelity to the text of the Constitution need not mean cramped interpretations of language that was written for a changing society."

From the moment the ink was dry on Justice O'Connor's retirement letter back in June, interest groups on the left and right began pushing for a fight over her successor. Somehow, the president managed to buck the contentious trend, found himself a good, decent, intelligent, fair, and judicious candidate — and then nominated him to the Court. Judge Roberts acquitted himself admirably before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he deserves a wide, bipartisan vote of support for his confirmation.

Now that Judge Roberts' nomination is to the Court's center chair, however, the president faces a renewed challenge: finding another nominee of Roberts' caliber to succeed Justice O'Connor. We at the Centrist Coalition hope that the president will continue the trend he began with the Roberts choice, and nominate a candidate with similar qualifications and judicial temperament to fill the remaining vacancy on the Court.