Orrin Hatch: “last week the Judiciary Committee gave its solid, bipartisan recommendation that the Senate confirm John G. Roberts…”

“last week the Judiciary Committee gave its solid, bipartisan recommendation that the Senate confirm John G. Roberts, Jr., to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senate should follow that recommendation with a substantial bipartisan vote supporting this exceptional nominee. As the Los Angeles Times put it when endorsing Judge Roberts, anything short of an overwhelming vote would be an indictment of petty partisanship. I think Judge Roberts is the most analyzed and evaluated Supreme Court nominee in history. The American Bar Association, whose rating my Democratic colleagues once hailed as the gold standard for evaluating judicial nominees, completed two exhaustive reviews. Each time the ABA unanimously gave Judge Roberts its highest well-qualified rating. The ABA, by the way, includes in its criterion of judicial temperament such important qualities as compassion, openmindedness, freedom from bias, and commitment to equal justice under law. Judge Roberts spent almost 20 hours before the Judiciary Committee while Senators asked him 673 questions. Senators then asked him 243 more questions in writing. Judge Roberts provided nearly 3,000 pages to the Judiciary Committee, including his published articles, congressional testimony, transcripts from interviews, speeches, and panel discussions and material related to the dozens of cases that he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.…”