Roberts’ Republican report card

After 11 years in government service and 10 years at one of Washington’s largest law firms, Roberts has earned a reputation as a brilliant litigator who argues passionately for his clients’ positions.

The question the Senate will debate as it decides whether to elevate him to the Supreme Court is which of those positions are also his own.

As a long-standing member of the Republican National Lawyers Association who gave Republican governor Jeb Bush private legal advice during the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, Roberts’ political loyalties are plain. As a former clerk to then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist, a protege of former solicitor general Kenneth Starr and a member of the Federalist Society, his conservative credentials are solid.

However, Roberts’ short time on the bench, coupled with the relative paucity of his writings, leaves critics and potential supporters with little by which to judge how he will vote on the Supreme Court. In his confirmation hearings for a federal judgeship in April 2003, Roberts maintained that he always separates his personal beliefs from his duty to follow the law—including Roe v. Wade, which he described as a long-settled precedent.

‘‘The positions a lawyer presents on behalf of a client should not be ascribed to that lawyer,’’ he said at the time.

Roberts’ journey to the federal bench did not leave him unscathed. He never came up for a vote the first time he was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit by the first President Bush. And his nomination to the same court by the second President Bush was opposed by the liberals.

Many suspect that the conservative positions he advocated in the Reagan administration were no different from the positions he would advocate on the court. —LAT-WP