Manufacturers’ group backs Roberts on Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The largest U.S. industrial trade
association endorsed John Roberts, President Bush’s nominee for
the U.S. Supreme Court, and said on Wednesday business should
not sit on the sidelines and let social issues dominate the
confirmation process.

It was the first time the National Association of
Manufacturers had endorsed a Supreme Court candidate. But
another large national business organization, the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, has endorsed the last four Supreme Court nominees.

The Chamber has not yet weighed in on Roberts, a federal
appeals judge picked by Bush to replace retiring Justice Sandra
Day O’Connor.

“Studies show some 80 percent of a federal judge’s caseload
… is made up of issues that directly affect business and
manufacturing,” NAM President John Engler, a former Republican
governor of Michigan, told reporters.

Engler said Roberts’ record as a judge and attorney
indicated he would interpret the law as written and not
legislate from the bench.

The endorsement came as the Senate Judiciary Committee
prepared for confirmation hearings early next month and
Chairman Arlen Specter said he had been advised that the White
House would release a substantial volume of documents on
Roberts on Thursday.

Democrats were still pushing the White House to hand over
other documents from Roberts’ time as deputy solicitor general
in the first Bush administration, and they have objected to the
pace of the release of other material.

Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, in a letter to
committee Democrats backed the White House, saying it is fair
to withhold certain internal documents to “protect … the
deliberative process.” But he asked the White House to make
other documents available promptly, and no later than Aug. 22.

Democrats said they were concerned the administration was
checking documents for potential political liabilities before
handing them over to the committee.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he was “at
a loss to understand why White House political aides may have
had access to these vital documents” before senators, adding,
the “time for such a partisan review of the documents was
before” Roberts’ nomination.

Roberts meanwhile worked to sell himself on Capitol Hill,
meeting with Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

Nelson told reporters he questioned Roberts about identity
theft issues and local governments’ powers to take private
property for development to boost the economy.

In both cases, Nelson said, “I think what he clearly said
to me was that law expressed through legislative intent is
going to be one of the major markers that a Supreme Court would
look to.”