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Manufacturers' group backs Roberts on Supreme Court

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 August 2005, 14:17 CDT

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."

Source: REUTERS

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