Topic: Senator Lugar, Presenter
Senator: Lugar
Date: SEPTEMBER 12, 2005
Contents
SPECTER: We now move to the presenters -- Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh and Senator Warner -- and then the administration of the oath to Judge Roberts, and then Judge Roberts' opening statement.
Welcome, Senator Lugar, as the senior presenter, elected in 1976, Indiana's senior senator.
We have allotted five minutes each to the presenters.
And, Senator Lugar, you are now recognized.
LUGAR: Mr. Chairman, let me first ask that a copy of my full statement appear in the committee record.
SPECTER: Without objection, your full statement will be made a part of the record.
LUGAR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's a genuine privilege and pleasure to appear before you, Senator Leahy and my other distinguished colleagues who serve on this important committee.
I'm pleased to introduce the president's nominee to serve as the 109th justice of the Supreme Court and the 17th chief justice of the United States, John D. Roberts Jr.
Judge Roberts was born in Buffalo, New York, but moved at age 8 to Indiana. The Roberts family settled in Long Beach, a small Hoosier community, on the shores of Lake Michigan.
John attended local schools there in nearby LaPorte and, in 1973, graduated first in his high school class of 22, having also excelled in numerous extracurricular activities, including co-captaining the football team despite his self-described status as a slow-footed halfback.
LUGAR: I know committee members will understand my observing that our state takes a certain pride of its own nomination by the president to lead the nation's highest court.
Simply put, John Roberts is a brilliant lawyer, a jurist with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in public service. This exceptional blend of professional and personal qualifications is especially important now, given the further responsibilities Judge Roberts has been called upon to assume on the passing of the chief justice.
I know Judge Roberts is keenly and humbly aware of the large shoes he has now been asked to fill, the more so since the late chief justice was his own initial boss when he arrived in Washington a quarter century ago.
All Americans can be grateful that Judge Roberts not only learned, but has lived, the lessons taught by his mentor and his role model. In my judgment, he is supremely qualified to carry forward the tradition of fair, principled and collegial leadership that so distinguished the man for whom he once worked and has now been nominated to replace.
Under the judicial confirmation standards that prevailed throughout most of our history, my remarks could appropriately end at this point, and the committee and the Senate as a whole should proceed to consider Judge Roberts' nomination in light of his outstanding qualifications.
Indeed, nominees almost never testified in such hearings before 1955, and the last Supreme Court justice from Indiana, Sherman Minton, was confirmed without controversy, despite declining even to appear before the committee following his nomination by President Truman.
I am not troubled by the fact that the committee hearings, including testimony by Supreme Court nominees, now seems firmly established as a part of the confirmation process. These proceedings serve a vital role in our deliberations and are a vivid course in living history for all Americans.
But it's important we write that history well. Today's Supreme Court regularly faces issues of enormous public import and attendant controversy. Many are deeply decisive, with well-funded, well- organized advocacy groups passionately committed to one or the other side and for whom the central, well-nigh exclusive focus is who wins.
LUGAR: Media coverage in the Information Age, whether on talk radio or countless cable outlets featuring talking heads for each side, fuels both the controversy and the resultant tendency to see the Supreme Court as a kind of political branch of last resort.
When a court vacancy occurs, the confirmation process takes on the trappings of a political campaign, replete with interest group television ads that often reflect the same oversimplifications and distortions that are disturbing even in campaign for offices that are in fact political.
All of this may be understandable. It remains in my view a fundamental departure from the vision of the courts and their proper role that animated those who crafted our Constitution.
The founders were at pains to emphasize the difference between the political branches, the executive and the legislative, and the judiciary. They were concerned about the potential dangers if passionate interest-driven political divisions, which Madison famously called the mischiefs of faction, influenced their design of our entire governmental structure.
But they were especially concerned that such mischiefs not permeate those who would sit on the bench. Otherwise, they warned, the pestilential breath of faction may poison the fountains of justice and would stifle the voice both of law and of equity.
I believe that each of us in the Senate bears a special responsibility to prevent that from occurring. The primary focus of these hearings and our substantive debate and vote on the floor will be Judge Roberts and his qualifications.
But another focus will be whether the Senate, in discharging the solemn advice-and-consent duty conferred by the Constitution, is faithful to the trust the founders placed in us.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and all members of the committee for your courtesy in allowing me to introduce Judge John G. Roberts Jr., a distinguished son of Indiana, whom I believe will prove to be an outstanding chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
I thank you very much.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Lugar.
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