On the subject of SCOTUS Nominees...
This is an interesting read.
Cruz later criticized Roberts, but it was too late.
Read who brought him on board the Bush team.
Read the praise he had for him during the nomination process.
See if you recognize any catch phrases in there. These are the exact terms Cruz uses to describe himself, and my inclination is to consider the terms probably about as accurate.
Constitutional Expert / John Roberts / Really?
http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-is-bashing-john-roberts-after-years-of-praising-him-2015-6
Roberts is a Conservative judge, everybody loved his nomination. How were we to know he was corrupt?
Cruz later criticized Roberts, but it was too late.
Read who brought him on board the Bush team.
Read the praise he had for him during the nomination process.
See if you recognize any catch phrases in there. These are the exact terms Cruz uses to describe himself, and my inclination is to consider the terms probably about as accurate.
Constitutional Expert / John Roberts / Really?
Here’s a glowing article CRuz wrote about Roberts’ nomination, back in 2005....CRuz glowingly references Prof Lawrence Tribe, as well......
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/214989/print
The Right Stuff
John Roberts should be a quick confirm.
By Ted Cruz — July 20, 2005
In 1995, while clerking for Chief Justice William Rehnquist, I and my two fellow law clerks asked the chief whom he thought was the best Supreme Court lawyer currently practicing. The chief replied, with a twinkle in his eye, that he thought he could probably get a majority of his colleagues to agree that John Roberts was the best Supreme Court advocate in the nation.
This week, the president announced his intention to nominate John Roberts to be a Supreme Court justice.
His nomination has been met with widespread praise, from left and right. Nevertheless, there are some who have raised complaints that his two years on the bench provide insufficient record for them to assess (and attack) his jurisprudence.
That complaint misses the mark for three reasons. First, his judicial record would have stretched 14 years, had Senate Democrats not delayed its consideration twice, in 1991 and again in 2001. When his nomination did finally make it to the Senate floor, in 2003, he was confirmed by unanimous consent.
Second, many distinguished jurists, such as Chief Justices William Rehnquist and Earl Warren and Justices O’Connor, Souter, and Thomas, similarly had very limited experience on the federal bench prior to ascending to the Court.
And third, although two years on the bench provides a limited number of opinions, he has a far longer record that is relevant: his professional career as a Supreme Court litigator.
At the outset, Judge Roberts is brilliant. A summa cum laude Harvard graduate, Roberts began by clerking for two giants of the bench, Judge Henry Friendly, and Chief Justice Rehnquist.
He then argued 39 cases before the Court, more than all but a handful of lawyers ever. And he has earned a reputation as a balanced, scholarly advocate.
>Snip<
In November of 2000, I had spent the past year and half as domestic-policy adviser on the Bush campaign, and was part of the team assembling the lawyers to help litigate Bush v. Gore. We needed the very best lawyers in the country, and I called John and asked him to help. Within hours, he was on a plane to Florida.
Humble and soft-spoken, he was happy to be behind the scenes, writing and editing the president’s Supreme Court briefs. Midway through the recount, on November 28, John started heading out to return to D.C. Distraught, I asked where he was going-we were in the middle of enormous legal battle. Quickly, he replied, “I know, but I’ve got a Supreme Court argument tomorrow morning.”
He flew back to D.C. Tuesday night, argued a complicated trademark case Wednesday morning, and returned immediately to Florida to continue helping us represent the president.
Few, if any, other lawyers could have accomplished such a feat.
Judge Roberts is a lawyers’ lawyer. And that matters immensely, especially for the U.S. Supreme Court.
>Snip<
The mainstay of Supreme Court justices’ work consists of complex, non-ideological cases, where rigorous analysis of precedent is at a premium.
With judicial nominees, the charge of “judicial activism” is much bandied about. Depending upon one’s perspective, what precisely constitutes activism is subject to debate. The simplest definition is whether a judge will substitute his own personal policy views for the clear dictates of the law.
>Snip<
As his opposing counsel, Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe, observed, “I like [John Roberts] a lot. I even liked him when he defeated me in [Rust], 5-4.”
As an individual, John Roberts is undoubtedly a principled conservative, as is the president who appointed him. He clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist, worked in the Reagan White House, and served as the principal deputy solicitor general in President George H.W. Bush’s Justice Department.
But, as a jurist, Judge Roberts’s approach will be that of his entire career: carefully, faithfully applying the Constitution and legal precedent.
He is a mainstream judge, respected across the ideological spectrum. Thus, he’s earned praise from liberal icons such as Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe, and Chicago Law Professor Cass Sunstein, as well as from Clinton Solicitors General Walter Dellinger and Seth Waxman, and Carter and Clinton Counsel Lloyd Cutler, the latter two of whom both described Roberts as a man of “unquestioned integrity and fair-mindedness.”
As Professor Tribe observed Tuesday night, “[i]t is clear that in the absence of some serious objection that is not now visible . . . he is very likely to be confirmed.”
The Senate should confirm him swiftly.
-Ted Cruz is the solicitor general of Texas.