Topic: Positions Taken as a Young Lawyer That You Would Not Take Today?
Senator: Kohl
Date: SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
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KOHL: Judge, since your nomination, literally -- as you know -- tens of thousands of pages of your writings as a young White House aide have been released and looked at very carefully.
In some of these writings, you took very pointed positions, as we discussed -- some political, some constitutional and some that have raised eyebrows.
I also think about myself when I was in my 20s and then when I was at the age which you are now and who I have become today and how I have changed, matured, and hopefully grown as I have gotten older.
I'm sure when you've had a chance to review some of your old work as part of this process, that there are things that you wrote back then that make you cringe perhaps today.
Are there positions you took back then as a 20-something lawyer that you would not take today?
Can you give us a couple of examples of positions that you took then that, as you have grown and developed and as are now sitting before us to be the chief justice of the United States of America, that you are today not the person that you were back when you were at 20-something?
ROBERTS: Well, we've talked about the term limits for judges. More generally, as I look at all of these documents -- and the numbers, somebody said 80,000 pages; it's a little daunting -- I don't know that there are particular issues. I mean, you have to remember this is 23, 22, 24 years ago.
In many of these cases, not only have I changed, the law has changed dramatically in more than two decades. You know, I'm sure -- and again, of the many that have been released, I will say that it's really only a handful that have attracted attention for one reason or another.
And I do think if you look at the whole body of work that I would hope people would leave that with a favorable impression.
Certainly, there are many areas where it appears that I knew a lot more when I was 25 than I think I know now when I'm 50. I had a lot of different experiences in the intervening period that give you valuable perspective.
In that intervening period, for example, I left the government, went out in the private sector, litigated a lot of cases against the government.
You do get a different view of things when you're on the other side. I think that's extremely valuable.
I hope, as you suggest, I've grown as a person over that period as well. And that also gives you some perspective. And that type of a perspective might cause somebody to moderate their tone with respect to some issues, and in some areas, and I'm sure that's the case.
I certainly wouldn't write everything today as I wrote it back then, but I don't think any of us would do things or write things today as we did when we were 25 and had all the answers.
KOHL: I thank you, Judge Roberts.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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