Tuesday, August 16, 2005

More on John Roberts...

There are plenty of reasons to oppose John Roberts' nomination and one does not have to risk alienating the centrists like the NARAL advertisments did. It remains to be seen whether or not the Democrats will be able to educate the public on Robert's past positions, but there is definitely some material to work with.

Roberts criticized equal pay decision

`Comparable worth' theory ridiculed

WASHINGTON -- As a young lawyer in the Reagan White House, Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts Jr. helped shape the debate on some of the era's most controversial issues, including abortion and school prayer. And he held nothing back when analyzing the revolutionary theory of "comparable worth," a proposal to pay women the same salaries as men even when they were in different jobs.

Link

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

As if we need more proof that he's a paternalistic jerk. Besdies, NARAL had me at "strict constructinoist."

I should not be surprised that Roberts is one of the many who cannot see beyond the "women have babies and so don't work as hard as men" canard to ask himself who set up the standards to judge the worth of their contributions to begin with (or rather, what gender did).

I can't quite get a good hate on for Roberts, but I do think an educated man should know better. I'd have no problem with him as appellate court judge (he can't do that much harm; SCOTUS precedent is binding on him, and en banc review is available to litigants), but I don't want him or anyone who shares his views anywhere near the high court.

August 17, 2005  
Blogger Jezebella said...

Mr. Roberts proposes that the economy, not state mandates, should determine the worth of an employee (and thereby implies that the economy does not think much of female workers). The problem is that the public sector is not a capitalist market...it is a bureaucratic organization that operates a monopoly in which normal economic behavior (i.e. perfect competition) is stifled and prohibited. A capitalist economy does not function within a bureacracy, so the only force that can determine wages and worth are the top bureaucrats. Mr. Roberts needs to quit touting economic principles which do not apply and simply admit that he is a chauvenist jerk.

August 17, 2005  
Blogger torporindy said...

Lawgeekgurl, I agree. Keep him on the DC Circuit. The problem for the Democrats is that the Senate affirmed him unanimously just a couple of years ago. The Senate Republicans are going to ask what's wrong with him now? But as you stated, there are corrective measures for him at the lower appellate level.

This is why I feared Bush's election in 2004. There wasn't much we can do about the war at that point. We were hoodwinked as well as Congress, but our lives are going to be affected for a long time by Bush's appointees.

Jezebella -- Hear, hear!

August 17, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Top,

What's wrong with him now is that he's not seeking appointment to the appellate court, where his review and authority is limited - he's seeking appointment to the high court, where they say "precedent? what's that?"

Once again we suffer from the fact that the public at large neither knows nor cares what the scope of judicial authority is on the supreme court; they'd rather just get sound bites about judicial activism.

August 17, 2005  
Blogger torporindy said...

Haha, Gigi. What Republican is?

August 24, 2005  

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