Closing Remarks Of Senator Patrick Leahy,
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On The Nomination Of John G. Roberts, Jr.,
To Be Chief Justice Of The United States
Senate Floor
September 29, 2005

As we come to the conclusion of these confirmation proceedings I commend Senators on both sides of the aisle for taking the time and making the effort to actively participate in this process.  Few duties and few votes are as enduring and as consequential as deciding on a nomination for the premier jurist in our federal court system.  We have had 43 Presidents in our nation’s history, but only 16 Chief Justices of the United States. 

We have had full and fair hearings and a constructive debate.  This process has been a credit to the Senate and to the Judiciary Committee, and I commend especially Chairman Specter and all of the members of the Committee and their staffs for the detailed and sometimes grueling preparation that evaluating a Supreme Court nomination requires.    For two months, the Committee’s Democratic staff has labored dutifully and with professionalism and helped Senators in our review of this important nomination.  And their experience was duplicated by the hard-working Republican staff.

The minority party has a vital role in our system that often is less visible but is crucial just the same.  The minority sharpens the Senate’s and the public’s focus on issues that come before the Senate – or, sometimes, on unattended issues that deserve the Senate’s attention.  In these proceedings, we have helped sharpen the Senate’s focus on issues that matter most in the decision before us: that of confirming a new Chief Justice of the United States.

I want especially to commend the Senators on this side of the aisle for taking this responsibility so dutifully – for waiting to hear the evidence and to learn the particulars about this nomination and for not rushing to judgment.  Individual senators now have weighed the evidence and have come to their individual conclusions.  This will not be a lockstep vote on this side of the aisle.

I appreciate the thoughtful remarks by those who have decided to vote in favor of confirmation and by those who have decided to vote against.  I respect the decisions of Senators who have come to different conclusions on this nomination.  I know for many, including myself, it was a close question and a difficult decision.  I have said that each Senator must carefully weigh this matter and decide it for himself or herself.  We are, each of us, one vote out of 100, entrusted with protecting the rights of 280 million of our fellow citizens.  And what a somber and humbling responsibility we have in casting this vote.    

I was glad to hear the Republican Leader say earlier this week that a judge must jettison politics in order to be a fair jurist.  He is right.  I thought the remarks of the senior Senator from Maine were especially meaningful, and I appreciated that she was careful to include judicial philosophy among the criteria she considered on this nomination.  She is right. 

As the Senate considers a nomination, it is important to have more information, rather than less, about a nominee’s approach to the law and about his or her judicial philosophy.  For the American people, whose lives will be directly and indirectly affected by the decisions of a nominee, it is equally important that the Senate’s review process be fair, that it be transparent, and that it be thorough.  The hearings we conduct and the debates we hold are the best and only opportunity for the American people to hear from and learn about the person who could have significant influence over their constitutional protections and freedoms.  We owe the people we represent a vigorous and open review, including forthright answers to questions.   

My Vermont roots have always told me to go with my conscience, and that is what I have done in this decision.  Judge Roberts is a man of integrity.  For me, a vote to confirm requires faith that the words he spoke to the Judiciary Committee in the hearings and to me in our meetings have meaning.  I take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda and that he will “be his own man” as Chief Justice.  I take him at his word that he will steer the Court so it will serve as an appropriate check on potential abuses of presidential power – today, and tomorrow.  I hope that he will, and I trust that he will. 

As we close the debate on this nomination and move to a vote, we do so knowing that we soon will be considering another Supreme Court nominee here in the Senate.  Last week Chairman Specter and I, along with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate, met with the President.  I urged him to follow through with meaningful consultation.  I urged him to share with us his intentions and seek our advice on the next nomination before he acts.   

There could and should have been consultation with the Senate on the nomination of someone to serve as the 17^th Chief Justice of the United States.  There was not.  There could and should be meaningful consultation on the person to be named to succeed Justice O’Connor, for what has so often been the decisive vote on the Supreme Court.  The stakes for all Americans and for the Nation’s well-being are high as the President contemplates his second pick for a justice on the nation’s highest court, a choice that will fill a swing vote that could steer the Court’s direction for years to come. 

The President has an opportunity to work with us to unite this country around a nominee to succeed Justice O’ Connor.  Now more than ever, with Americans fighting and dying in Iraq every day, and hundreds of thousands of Americans displaced by disasters here at home, it is a time to unite rather than divide.  The Supreme Court belongs to all Americans, not to any faction.  For the sake of the Nation, I urge the President to live up to his original promise to be a uniter and not a divider.

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