Reply #7: High Court Battle Opens Today [View All]

[buzzsaw_23]

High court battle opens today
Bush, Dems both hope to gain from Roberts hearings

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Monday, September 12, 2005
 
Washington -- When John Roberts takes his seat today in a historic Senate hearing room, it will be to win confirmation as the 17th chief justice of the United States -- to replace his former mentor who died nine days ago -- rather than as a junior associate justice to fill the seat of retiring centrist Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The Democrats the 50-year-old nominee faces on the Senate Judiciary Committee will be freshly energized, not just to grill him, but to bend the White House to their will on a second Supreme Court vacancy now newly open.

And the Republican president who nominated him has seen his political strength sapped by a violent hurricane that may leave Roberts as his best hope for a second-term legacy.

The odds in Washington are high that Roberts, an appellate court judge, will be confirmed, given his sterling legal credentials, soothing personality and shortage of political bombshells from his past. With Republicans holding a comfortable 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, nothing short of a filibuster that would wreak havoc in the body can stop him.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/12/MNG2REMAIG1.DTL