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For Immediate Release: Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Contact: Ranit Schmelzer or Jenice Robinson, 202-588-5180, www.nwlc.org
NWLC: JOHN ROBERTS’ INVOLVEMENT IN BRAY CASE RAISES MANY CONCERNS, INCLUDING CONCERNS ABOUT HIS INTERPRETATIONS OF CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS
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“John Roberts’ role in the Bray case and the arguments he made are troubling for several reasons. Under his leadership, the Administration weighed in on the side of those who were using violence and massive blockades to bar access to health clinics and prevent women from exercising their Constitutional right to choose. The government was not a party to the case and did not need to get involved at all. It did not need to argue, as John Roberts did, against the application of federal civil rights laws to this reprehensible conduct. It did not need to make the argument – an astonishing argument to many of us – that targeting violence against women seeking abortion had nothing to do with discrimination toward women. The Administration could have condemned the violence and stayed out of the case, but under John Roberts’ leadership that was not the course it chose.
“It is also troubling that John Roberts defended the government’s position on the ground that it didn’t really matter if federal protection was lacking, because victims of violence and intimidation could seek relief in state courts. That position shows a remarkable lack of understanding of the real world. It was only federal injunctions, under federal civil rights laws that were stopping the blockades and violent demonstrations at clinics across the country. The state authorities were overwhelmed and simply unable to keep the peace.
“Finally, John Roberts’ narrow view of the 1871 civil rights law at issue in Bray is troubling because it was not an isolated case of John Roberts’ failure to interpret our civil rights laws as they were intended. It was part of a consistent pattern. Memos coming to light from his years in the Reagan Administration show him repeatedly trying to find ways to limit the reach of the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause as it applies to women, as well as Title IX and other critical civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination. In Bray, his position “ignored the obvious . . . congressional intent . . . to protect this Nation’s citizens from what amounts to the theft of their constitutional rights by organized and violent mobs across the country” – that’s how the dissenters described the majority ruling that adopted Roberts’ position.
“As Justice O’Connor put it in her dissent, this position failed to give the civil rights law ‘a sweep as broad as its language’ in accordance with the Court’s past precedents. But that was what John Roberts seems to have done time after time. The evidence coming in suggests that John Roberts would be a far cry from Sandra Day O’Connor on these issues of such central importance to women’s rights, their health, and their very lives, if he were confirmed to fill her seat on the Court.
“All of these concerns raise important questions about John Roberts’ approach to our federal civil rights protections that must be seriously examined in the confirmation process.
“The nation deserves an unvarnished look at John Roberts’ record – including the documents around the Bray case that the Administration has refused to release so far – and a full explanation by Judge Roberts of his views on these and other key legal issues in his Senate confirmation hearings. Americans’ precious rights, for decades to come, are hanging in the balance.”
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