A conservative with few hard edges

In nominating federal appeals-court judge John Roberts to the US Supreme Court, President Bush is laying the groundwork for a significant rightward shift at the nation's highest court.

The move seeks to establish a presidential legacy that could influence one of America's most respected institutions decades after George W. Bush has left the White House.

The Bush administration's conservative push at the high court would have been more sweeping, however, if the president had named a judicial clone of Justice Antonin Scalia or Justice Clarence Thomas, as he had promised during his campaigns. Instead, Roberts's record suggests his voting pattern would be closer to that of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a solid member of the court's conservative wing though not as doctrinaire as his two conservative colleagues.

But the replacement of centrist swing voter Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with someone likely to vote more consistently with the court's conservative bloc means that an entire range of 5-to-4 O'Connor precedents over the past two decades may soon be in jeopardy. They include abortion-rights restrictions - such as parental notification laws and bans on so-called "partial birth" abortions. Affirmative-action programs may also be at risk.

At the same time, Roberts appears to be a reliable vote in support of the high court's revival of states' rights. And last Friday, he was a member of the three-judge appeals-court panel in Washington, D.C., that upheld the president's wartime power to conduct terrorism tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

In selecting Roberts, Mr. Bush dipped into the very top of the conservative legal elite in the United States. Few candidates at age 50 have a résumé that can match Roberts's. And although he is a white male, rather than a woman or member of a racial minority, his personal story is not without compelling touches.

Captain of his high school football team, he worked summers in a steel mill to help pay his way through Harvard. After graduating magna cum laude at Harvard Law School, he clerked for federal appeals-court judge Henry Friendly. The following year, he clerked at the Supreme Court for Mr. Rehnquist, then an associate justice.

Roberts served in both the Reagan and the first Bush administrations - working for three years as principal deputy solicitor general, arguing the government's side in cases before the Supreme Court. In 1993, he left government service and became one of the nation's top appellate lawyers specializing in Supreme Court cases. Overall, he has argued 39 cases at the high court.

"He is a man of extraordinary accomplishment and ability. He has a good heart," Bush said of Roberts in his speech from the White House Tuesday night. "He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: experience, wisdom, fairness, and civility."

Roberts, who has served on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since June 2003, said in brief remarks that he has "a profound appreciation for the role of the court in our constitutional democracy and a deep regard for the court as an institution."

He added, "I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don't think it was just from the nerves."

Roberts's sterling résumé and calm, friendly demeanor will make him a difficult target for liberal advocacy groups and certain Democratic senators who are poised for a confirmation battle.

Moments after the Roberts announcement, a barrage of critical statements were released questioning his position on various issues. People for the American Way distributed a 10-page report calling his record "disturbing." NARAL Pro-Choice America delivered three pages charging that Roberts is hostile to reproductive rights.

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