July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Despite his mild manner and Midwestern charm, the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court is a seismic event that threatens to deepen the nation's red-blue divide.

Instead of choosing a consensus candidate to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, President George W. Bush has opted for a conservative thoroughbred who, if confirmed, will likely swing the court sharply to the right on many critical issues. It's a worrisome prospect.

There's no doubt Roberts has a brilliant legal mind. Twice Harvard-educated, he has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court and since 2003 has served on the powerful federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. But a Supreme Court nominee must be evaluated on more than legal intellect.

Because he would sit with life tenure on the nation's highest court, it's fair and essential to ask how he would interpret the Constitution and its basic values. Americans deserve real answers to this question, and it should be the central focus of the Senate confirmation process.

Roberts's Record

What we already know from Roberts's record is cause for concern. His legal career is studded with activities unfriendly to civil rights, abortion rights, and the environment.

Last year, for example, he wrote an opinion rejecting the civil rights claims of 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth, who was arrested, searched, handcuffed, booked, and detained by police for eating a single french fry in a subway station in violation of D.C. law. Although an adult committing the same infraction would have received only a citation under D.C. law, Roberts said the police's treatment of Hedgepeth served the ``goal of promoting parental awareness and involvement with children who commit delinquent acts.''

In 2003, he wrote an opinion urging his court to consider overruling its own precedent to hold that an Endangered Species Act regulation exceeded Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.

In addition to weakening key environmental laws, Roberts's theory of limited federal power would potentially undermine bedrock civil rights laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His theory was so extreme that it was all but rejected by the Supreme Court in a recent decision upholding federal power to ban medicinal uses of home-grown marijuana.

Reagan, Bush Advocate

As a high-ranking lawyer in the Justice Department in the first Bush administration, Roberts successfully argued a 1990 Supreme Court case restricting the ability of citizens to sue the government to enforce environmental laws.

In another 1990 case, he co-wrote a brief contending that a federal law criminalizing flag-burning did not violate the First Amendment. The Supreme Court rejected that view.

Roberts also co-wrote the government's brief in a 1991 case where the Supreme Court upheld regulations banning federally funded health clinics from providing abortion-related counseling. Although Roe v. Wade's guarantee of a woman's right to choose abortion was not at issue in the case, Roberts's brief argued: ``We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled.'' The Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe in 1992.

As a young lawyer in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration, Roberts participated in efforts to oppose school desegregation, to prevent employers from using affirmative action to remedy past discrimination, and to defeat a bipartisan consensus to expand voting rights protections.

`Political Deputy'

Some have said that the views Roberts took as a government attorney cannot be attributed to Roberts himself because he was representing a client, the U.S. government. This is unpersuasive for two reasons.

First, Roberts didn't serve in a capacity where he simply took orders from his superiors. In the first Bush administration, he was the principal deputy solicitor general --a position known in Washington as the ``political deputy.'' Roberts was chosen for that role to help develop, shape, and define the government's position in Supreme Court cases, not to parrot positions decided by others. He was a legal policy maker, not a line attorney.

Second, and more fundamentally, the positions Roberts has defended in the government and now as a judge cohere with other aspects of his background to suggest that he would be a resolutely conservative justice if confirmed.

On a Mission

Before becoming a judge, he belonged to the Republican National Lawyers' Association and the National Legal Center for the Public Interest, whose mission is to promote (among other things) ``free enterprise,'' ``private ownership of property,'' and ``limited government.'' These are code words for an ideological agenda hostile to environmental, workplace, and consumer protections.

Even as a law student, before clerking for conservative stalwart William Rehnquist, the Supreme Court's chief justice, Roberts wrote two law review articles urging a more active judicial role to protect private property and contracts from worker protections, land use ordinances, and economic regulation. He argued that courts should go beyond a strict construction of the Constitution's text.

With remarkable consistency throughout his career, Roberts has applied his legal talent to further the cause of the far right. His activities and positions fit the profile of a social, political, and economic conservative and, importantly, not a judicial conservative. His record suggests that he has a vision for American law -- a right-wing vision antagonistic to important rights and protections we currently enjoy -- and that he is not afraid to flex judicial muscles to achieve it.

I may be wrong, and I hope I am. But we won't know unless Roberts tells the Senate and the American people in the weeks ahead his honest and considered beliefs about the Constitution he is sworn to uphold.

Last Updated: July 22, 2005 00:11 EDT