WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, on a glide path to Senate confirmation, promised on Thursday that he would be a chief justice who respects the law and not an ideologue as some Democrats said they fear. Urging senators to look at his two-year record as an appellate judge, Roberts said his 50 opinions would provide a sense of what type of judge he would be in what many expect will be decades on the high court.
"I don't think if you read those opinions, you'll say those are the opinions of an ideologue. That should convince you that I'm not an ideologue," Roberts said. "Look at my briefs and you'll conclude that's a person who respects the law."
Republicans were confident that Roberts would win the committee's majority approval next week and then Senate confirmation, with the backing of some moderate Democrats, before the Supreme Court term begins Oct. 3.
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reflected the party's reservations about approving the conservative judge who, at age 50, could shape the high court for at least a generation.
"This isn't just rolling the dice it's betting the whole house," Schumer said.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," said Feinstein, who added that she had one impression of Roberts after their private meeting last month but now found him to be "this very cautious, very precise man, young, obviously with staying power. ... I'm convinced you will be there, God willing, for 40 years. And that even concerns me more because it means that my vote means more."
Feinstein voted to confirm Roberts for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Schumer voted against him.
Frustrated Democrats tried to elicit a sense of John Roberts the man rather than the judge who was a political appointee in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and a multimillion-dollar lawyer in private practice
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., wondered whether Roberts would treat society's less fortunate the same way he would deal with the wealthy who often have better lawyers, better legal briefs and an advantage in the court system.
"If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, then the little guy's going to win in the court before me," Roberts said. "But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well then the big guy's going to win because my obligation is to the Constitution."
