A liberal law professor Senator Leahy won’t want as a witness

Here’s what the distinguished constitutional law scholar Kenneth Karst had to say in response to a query about Judge Roberts from a member of the ABA’s committee on the federal judiciary:

Thanks for your letter asking for my views on the nomination of Judge Roberts to the Supreme Court. Alas, I have nothing useful to say about his history. I don’t know Judge Roberts, nor have I seen him in action as an attorney or a judge. All I know about him, I have read in the press.
However, ignorance rarely prevents one from having a view, and I do have one. I am one of those liberal law academics whom Justice Scalia sometimes blames for the Supreme Court’s straying from the True Path. Even so, I believe the Senate should confirm Judge Roberts’s nomination. By all accounts, he is a first-rate lawyer, who listens carefully to arguments, even when they go against his initial inclinations. He seems to me to be a true conservative, who sees the judicial role as one in which courts conserve. I don’t expect to agree with all his decisions, even on matters of intense controversy. I should compare him to the second Justice Harlan–with whom I often disagreed, but whom I still consider an excellent Justice.
Even though I have nothing to offer except opinion, I am grateful that you had me on your list, and I wish you and your ABA colleagues well in your deliberations.

Via The Volokh Conspiracy.

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