John Robert's Nomination Battle Heats Up

[Nbadan]

Conservative memos
BY TOM BRUNE
WASHINGTON BUREAU
August 19, 2005

WASHINGTON - In internal White House memos written in the 1980s, John G. Roberts often showed his conservative edge, offering critical assessments of government programs for women and minorities, making jokes about Hispanics and discussing how to "defund the left."

Though the Supreme Court nominee offered straight legal advice, and sometimes savvy political suggestions, he also expressed partisan views in the 35,000 pages released yesterday from his years as White House associate counsel from 1982 to 1986.

In some memos, for example, he made jokes about Hispanics and women. For a 1983 Reagan interview in Spanish Today, he said, "I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos."

He also joked in 1982 about Kickapoo Indians, saying "a group of them made Newsweek by choosing to live in squalid conditions beneath the International Bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas, rather than their Mexican homeland."

In a 1984 memo advising on how to respond to an eccentric letter to his boss, Fred Fielding, asking if all property had been placed in a public trust, Roberts began, "One Ramon L. Rivera of Los Angeles (where else?) ... "

And in a 1985 memo about a corporate scholarship program for women, Roberts said, "Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

Some of his sharpest criticism was aimed at a project headed by Elizabeth Dole, now a Republican senator, that compiled efforts to boost the equality of women in all the states.

In 1983 Roberts wrote that many proposals were "highly objectionable," including a Florida plan to charge lower tuition to women because they have less earning potential and "a staggeringly pernicious law codifying the anti-capitalist notion of 'comparable worth.'"

Discussing a rule change on government funding of nonprofits, Roberts worried the proposal was too broad: "It is possible to 'defund the left' without alienating TRW and Boeing, but the proposals, if enacted, could do both."

The do ents also showed the breadth of issues that Roberts addressed, from advising a narrow line to avoid Neutrality Act violations in raising money for the Nicaraguan contras to suggesting a 15-year limit on federal judges' terms, instead of life tenures as they have now.

Tom Bruin, Newsday

In 1983, John Roberts supported a national ID card. So why did he support a national ID card? He said such a program might help counter the the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."

Hummm... I wonder what 'social fabric' Mr. Roberts is talking about?

[Vashner]

He already has the required votes.... There will be no battle.
Bush won this one ... go ahead and waste time worrying about it.. it won't help unless
you amend the cons ution. And that ain't gonna happen either.

[clubalien]

"Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

I don't think turning housewives into lawyers is a good thing

[Spurminator]

Feels pretty cold to me... I doubt there will be much fuss over questionable views someone had in their twenties.

[MannyIsGod]

I actually like this guy. To a degree anyhow.

[Extra Stout]

"Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

Well, yeah. Some might question whether encouraging anyone to become lawyers contributes to the common good.