What We All Feared In the Last Election

It wouldn't be so bad if William Rehnquist were retiring and being replaced with another right-winger, since Rehnquist was already the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor, however, was a centrist and usually the key swing vote, and now GWB has nominated John Roberts, another super conservative justice to take her place! It's especially appalling that Roberts would potentially be replacing the first female justice, given the recent reports that his record on women's rights has been pretty dismal.

See the excerpt below from an article published in today's Seattle Times.

Files show Roberts' views on women's issues in '80s

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee John Roberts consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House in the 1980s, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress. He concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable." And he said a controversial legal theory in vogue at the time — of directing employers to pay women equally to men for jobs of "comparable worth" — was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

Roberts' thoughts on what he called "perceived problems" of gender bias are contained in a vast batch of documents released yesterday, providing the clearest, most detailed mosaic that has emerged so far of the political views he has held on dozens of social and legal issues. Senators have said they plan to mine his past views on topics that could come before the high court when he begins confirmation hearings Sept. 6...