Roguish Lawyer
07-19-2005, 18:02
According to Drudge anyway. Here is background on him from an earlier article. I've edited out the part about another potential nominee.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601049_pf.html
Similar Appeal; Different Styles
Two Judges Seen as Potential Supreme Court Nominees Share Conservatives' Approval
By Charles Lane and Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 17, 2005; A04
John G. Roberts Jr. and J. Michael Luttig have both marched up through the Republican ranks, from Supreme Court clerkships to White House jobs to the federal bench.
Now the two area judges -- Roberts sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Luttig is a Tysons Corner-based member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit -- have emerged on President Bush's short list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court, according to lawyers familiar with the administration's deliberations.
Conservative activists in the Republican base view both as far more acceptable than Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who has become a top contender for the court, and have begun to promote the pair. But even though both judges are conservative -- and close friends -- they present a distinctly different choice in style and temperament that could influence their selection and say a great deal about how Bush wants to shape the court.
In his years as a lawyer, Roberts, 50, proved himself an affable and measured member of the Washington legal establishment. But his short tenure on the bench has meant fewer written opinions that can be parsed for his philosophy.
Luttig, 51, is edgier, painting his ideas in bold intellectual strokes. He has left a long paper trail that liberal critics will try to mine to fight his appointment.
The difference between the two men is a bit like the difference between the two conservative justices they served -- the easygoing William H. Rehnquist, for whom Roberts clerked in 1980 before Rehnquist became chief justice, and the combative Antonin Scalia, for whom Luttig clerked on the D.C. Circuit in 1982, and who is still a close friend.
"Roberts is known as a much more judicious person. . . . Luttig would get certain people really jazzed up," said a former administration official who, like other lawyers contacted for this article, declined to be named for fear of appearing to take sides. "For conservatives, Luttig is more exciting -- because he is more excitable."
Such intangibles might not matter when it comes to how either man would vote on the court. But they could affect their confirmation chances were either nominated. Robert H. Bork's 1987 bid failed, in part, because he seemed dour in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Scalia, in contrast, turned on his personal charm to help win unanimous confirmation in 1986.
The White House has been examining the records of many possible nominees, and Bush has said he is open to considering candidates who are not judges. But many conservatives continue to promote Luttig and Roberts, and say they are at the top of the administration's list.
[Luttig section deleted]
Roberts grew up in Long Beach, Ind., and attended a private school in nearby LaPorte before going on to Harvard and Harvard Law School. He clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York, and later for Rehnquist, who was then an associate justice.
After that, he worked as a special assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith and as an aide to White House counsel Fred Fielding -- who also mentored Luttig -- during the Reagan administration.
Roberts joined the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson in 1986, then went into President George H.W. Bush's administration, arguing cases before the Supreme Court as Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr's principal deputy. He was nominated to the D.C. Circuit in 1992, but the appointment died when Bill Clinton succeeded Bush as president. Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson, where he headed the firm's appellate practice and frequently argued before the Supreme Court. President Bush nominated him to the D.C. Circuit two years ago.
Two opinions by Luttig and Roberts from 2003 illustrate their contrasting styles.
[Luttig section deleted]
When the D.C. Circuit refused to reconsider a three-judge panel's ruling protecting a rare California toad under the Endangered Species Act, Roberts dissented -- gently.
"To be fair," he wrote, the panel "faithfully applied" the circuit court's precedent, but a rehearing would "afford the opportunity to consider alternative grounds for sustaining application of the Act that may be more consistent with Supreme Court precedent."
Of the two, Roberts spent more time practicing law in Washington, where he has networked with many Democrats. When Roberts was nominated for the D.C. Circuit in 2003, Clinton's former solicitor general, Seth P. Waxman, called Roberts an "exceptionally well-qualified appellate advocate."
"He is a Washington lawyer, a conservative, not an ideologue," said Stuart H. Newberger, a lawyer and self-described liberal Democrat who has argued cases against Roberts.
He put in his time advising the Bush legal team in Florida during the battle over the 2000 presidential election and has often argued conservative positions before the court -- but they can be attributed to clients, not necessarily to him.
That includes a brief he wrote for President George H.W. Bush's administration in a 1991 abortion case, in which he observed that "we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
Roberts won the case -- Rust v. Sullivan -- in which the Supreme Court agreed with the administration that the government could require doctors and clinics receiving federal funds to avoid talking to patients about abortion.
[Luttig section deleted]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601049_pf.html
Similar Appeal; Different Styles
Two Judges Seen as Potential Supreme Court Nominees Share Conservatives' Approval
By Charles Lane and Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 17, 2005; A04
John G. Roberts Jr. and J. Michael Luttig have both marched up through the Republican ranks, from Supreme Court clerkships to White House jobs to the federal bench.
Now the two area judges -- Roberts sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; Luttig is a Tysons Corner-based member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit -- have emerged on President Bush's short list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court, according to lawyers familiar with the administration's deliberations.
Conservative activists in the Republican base view both as far more acceptable than Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who has become a top contender for the court, and have begun to promote the pair. But even though both judges are conservative -- and close friends -- they present a distinctly different choice in style and temperament that could influence their selection and say a great deal about how Bush wants to shape the court.
In his years as a lawyer, Roberts, 50, proved himself an affable and measured member of the Washington legal establishment. But his short tenure on the bench has meant fewer written opinions that can be parsed for his philosophy.
Luttig, 51, is edgier, painting his ideas in bold intellectual strokes. He has left a long paper trail that liberal critics will try to mine to fight his appointment.
The difference between the two men is a bit like the difference between the two conservative justices they served -- the easygoing William H. Rehnquist, for whom Roberts clerked in 1980 before Rehnquist became chief justice, and the combative Antonin Scalia, for whom Luttig clerked on the D.C. Circuit in 1982, and who is still a close friend.
"Roberts is known as a much more judicious person. . . . Luttig would get certain people really jazzed up," said a former administration official who, like other lawyers contacted for this article, declined to be named for fear of appearing to take sides. "For conservatives, Luttig is more exciting -- because he is more excitable."
Such intangibles might not matter when it comes to how either man would vote on the court. But they could affect their confirmation chances were either nominated. Robert H. Bork's 1987 bid failed, in part, because he seemed dour in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Scalia, in contrast, turned on his personal charm to help win unanimous confirmation in 1986.
The White House has been examining the records of many possible nominees, and Bush has said he is open to considering candidates who are not judges. But many conservatives continue to promote Luttig and Roberts, and say they are at the top of the administration's list.
[Luttig section deleted]
Roberts grew up in Long Beach, Ind., and attended a private school in nearby LaPorte before going on to Harvard and Harvard Law School. He clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York, and later for Rehnquist, who was then an associate justice.
After that, he worked as a special assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith and as an aide to White House counsel Fred Fielding -- who also mentored Luttig -- during the Reagan administration.
Roberts joined the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson in 1986, then went into President George H.W. Bush's administration, arguing cases before the Supreme Court as Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr's principal deputy. He was nominated to the D.C. Circuit in 1992, but the appointment died when Bill Clinton succeeded Bush as president. Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson, where he headed the firm's appellate practice and frequently argued before the Supreme Court. President Bush nominated him to the D.C. Circuit two years ago.
Two opinions by Luttig and Roberts from 2003 illustrate their contrasting styles.
[Luttig section deleted]
When the D.C. Circuit refused to reconsider a three-judge panel's ruling protecting a rare California toad under the Endangered Species Act, Roberts dissented -- gently.
"To be fair," he wrote, the panel "faithfully applied" the circuit court's precedent, but a rehearing would "afford the opportunity to consider alternative grounds for sustaining application of the Act that may be more consistent with Supreme Court precedent."
Of the two, Roberts spent more time practicing law in Washington, where he has networked with many Democrats. When Roberts was nominated for the D.C. Circuit in 2003, Clinton's former solicitor general, Seth P. Waxman, called Roberts an "exceptionally well-qualified appellate advocate."
"He is a Washington lawyer, a conservative, not an ideologue," said Stuart H. Newberger, a lawyer and self-described liberal Democrat who has argued cases against Roberts.
He put in his time advising the Bush legal team in Florida during the battle over the 2000 presidential election and has often argued conservative positions before the court -- but they can be attributed to clients, not necessarily to him.
That includes a brief he wrote for President George H.W. Bush's administration in a 1991 abortion case, in which he observed that "we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
Roberts won the case -- Rust v. Sullivan -- in which the Supreme Court agreed with the administration that the government could require doctors and clinics receiving federal funds to avoid talking to patients about abortion.
[Luttig section deleted]