From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE NEXT JUSTICES
Shall We Dance?
A look at the players in the Roberts confirmation drama.
For lovers of ballet, the Senate Judiciary Committee's first day of hearings for John Roberts, beginning today at noon, will be easily recognizable: one danseur noble and 18 ballerinas fighting over a single tutu. When I previously described the Senate's confirmation process as a kabuki dance, a reader suggested the proper comparison is to a Japanese Noh play where the actors appear in grotesque masks. Pretty good. Of course, a puppet show, with various interest-group heads pulling the strings comes easily to mind. But let's just say that it is a simple play, complete with a cast of characters:
• Judge John Roberts. A man raised and educated in privilege, accomplished in the discipline of legal reasoning and argument, cool and comfortable in his skin. He draws on the support of family and friends, and from the deep well of his Catholic faith and schooling, which taught him to be ever conscious of the graces of his life.
• His companions. Judge Roberts will be introduced by Sen.s John Warner of Virginia and Dick Lugar and Evan Bayh of Indiana. Mr. Warner, who sponsored Judge Roberts's nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, believes that the telegenic Judge Roberts is his kind of conservative. Messrs. Lugar and Bayh are supporting a native son. For Judge Roberts, getting Mr. Bayh, a Democratic presidential candidate, to accompany him is a base hit. For Mr. Bayh, trying to increase his profile, it is a grand slam, even while he refuses to say how he will vote.
• Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The chairman rises on a stage for which he has waited a lifetime. Politically crippled by the memory of his betrayal in the Robert Bork confirmation, he now approaches his role hobbled by cancer, and yet with the admiration of his colleagues for the heroic effort he is making to live well. He will ask Judge Roberts about his views on judicial deference to Congress and take umbrage that the Rehnquist court struck down more than 30 acts of Congress, including many that he sponsored.
• Pat Leahy of Vermont. The ranking Democrat bears the hubris of winning elections in landslides in a liberal state. He will remind us that he was a prosecutor in earlier days (leaving out that it was in Vermont, and mostly of cow tippers). Mr. Leahy came to the Senate in the 1974 wave of post-Watergate populism, and he has remained a demagogue. He will find a way to connect Judge Roberts to Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war.
• Orrin Hatch of Utah. The former chairman is the most senior Republican in the Senate denied a chairmanship or leadership position by his colleagues and is under attack back home by a credible conservative challenger who points out that Mr. Hatch has authored hundreds of failed constitutional amendments and sponsored more legislation declared unconstitutional than any other Republican. Mr. Hatch will say little to Judge Roberts that he does not read from a staffer's hand.
• Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. When he is done with his opening statement, keyboards all over the country will start clicking. Kennedy's 10-minute opener will mark the high point of anti-Roberts vitriol. He will focus on Judge Roberts's "insensitivity" to civil rights, the women's rights and the struggle of the working poor. Each issue represents the three special interest-lobbies--trial lawyers, pro-abortion feminists, and big labor--that lionize Kennedy, and for which he has scuttled the national reach of the Democratic party.
• Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Unless he is angered by Mr. Kennedy, the mild-mannered farmer will not make any sparks and will ask Judge Roberts for his views on laws that he has sponsored.
• Joe Biden of Delaware. As I noted in a previous column, Mr. Biden has a lot to gain or lose from his role. He will ask Mr. Roberts about the commerce clause of the Constitution and be downright angry that the Supreme Court has dared to strike down some laws he has sponsored. Mr. Biden graduated near the bottom of his law school class, and he will show it in two ways: He will spend more time posing his questions than listening to the answers, and he will mention terms like "constitution in exile" as if he were a scholar.
• Jon Kyl of Arizona. The fourth-ranking Republican in the Senate leadership benefits from the best research staff in the Senate, and from a plainspoken honesty that matches his temperament. Look to him to respond to the harangues of Democratic colleagues.
• Herb Kohl of Wisconsin. The retail millionaire is a nice man with fine clothes. Neither a lawyer nor a hard partisan, he will appear uncomfortable asking Judge Roberts even softball questions.
• Mike DeWine of Ohio. If PBS and C-Span viewers do not get a sandwich during Mr. Kohl's speech, they will during Mr. DeWine's. But the senator surprises when he gets worked up, and he is still hurting back home with conservative constituents thinking of defeating him in 2006 for his role in the Gang of 14 compromise that avoided the nuclear option.
• Dianne Feinstein of California. The several billion women whom the former mayor of San Francisco claims to represent will be glued to the television as she takes Judge Roberts on for every sentence and grimace attributable to him on abortion rights and the abortion-clinic business. Ms. Feinstein's soft manner is the Democratic velvet hammer for making judicial nominees appear extremist and out of the mainstream.
• Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Within a few sentences the endearing Mr. Sessions will remind us that he too was a prosecutor, and we will easily surmise that he must have been a good one. If he is not playing defense as if he were the man in the crosshairs, Mr. Sessions will address his grievances over Supreme Court decisions on criminal procedure, capital punishment and sentencing guidelines. Mr. Sessions does not mince words, and will be restrained only by the fact that he follows a lady.
• Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Another would-be president, Mr. Feingold will play to his clean-politics strengths and focus on Judge Roberts's ethics. He will ask Judge Roberts if his role in the recently decided Hamdi detainee case was compromised by his dealings with the White House over his own elevation. Oh, and then there is campaign finance reform and the First Amendment.
• Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Mr. Graham will likely disappoint as he tries to be independent (read populist) just like John McCain. But he is passionate in his defenses, and as a member of the Armed Services Committee trying to rewrite the code of military justice, he is well placed to respond to Democrats who attempt to tarnish Judge Roberts with Bush policies on detainee rights.
• Chuck Schumer of New York. Mr. Schumer will start with the premise that everyone in the room is there to see him. He will most directly raise fears of conservative "judicial activism" turning back the clock. As in his 2003 hearings, Judge Roberts will frustrate Mr. Schumer most, and he'll enjoy doing it.
• John Cornyn of Texas. Mr. Cornyn also has excellent staff, is a constitutional scholar and former judge, and favors an aggressive defense. Look to Mr. Cornyn to shoot back at any Democratic misstatements and to lay out what is proper in questioning a nominee. He will take great pleasure in following Mr. Schumer, and the pairing may be one of the more memorable parts of the hearings.
• Dick Durbin of Illinois. As I have written, Mr. Durbin is both the most insipid and the most ruthless member of the committee, if not the whole Senate. What he says and asks will not be important. What is important is what his purpose is. Invariably his purpose is to make the nominee sinister and untrustworthy, and of course out of the mainstream.
• Sam Brownback of Kansas. A rising star with social conservatives, Mr. Brownback is expected to speak truth to power and respond to some of the more outrageous displays by his Democratic colleagues. He will focus on Judge Roberts's views on social issues that matter to Mr. Brownback's base and to his presidential prospects.
• Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. What Mr. Coburn will say and what he will ask is entirely unpredictable, except that Roe v. Wade is a certain target. A medical doctor, Mr. Coburn skyrocketed to leadership in the House of Representative but then kept his term limits promise and, after a break, returned but to the Senate. He is perhaps the most fearless Senate Republican, and perhaps the most conservative. He has the advantage of being new to the committee and not wedded to its reindeer games.
And then of course, there are the reporters.
Mr. Miranda, former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is founder and chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of grassroots organizations following judicial issues. His column will appear daily during the Roberts hearing.
