Conservatives defend Roberts's link to law group
Call effort to distance nominee 'a mistake'
WASHINGTON -- The White House's efforts to distance Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. from The Federalist Society came under fire from conservatives yesterday for creating a blemish on his candidacy where none existed, and for sending a signal that membership in the influential legal society was something to avoid.
In conference calls plotting strategy for his nomination, conservatives spoke angrily yesterday about the White House's decision to disassociate Roberts from the group. Many conservatives said the society should not be treated like a pariah, and questioned what would happen if the next Supreme Court nominee is a member.
Shannen Coffin, a Federalist Society member and former Justice Department official who has assumed a prominent role in defending Roberts, said that the White House's attempt to distance Roberts from the group ''was not well thought out" and that his involvement should be irrelevant.
''It's important that this doesn't become a litmus test, either for our political enemies or for the supporters of the president," Coffin said. ''If we start to tar nominees by association with a very academic and prestigious organization, we're making a mistake because we're stifling debate."
Last week, White House aides contacted news organizations that had reported that Roberts was a member of The Federalist Society and declared that he was not a member, even though he had occasionally delivered speeches at group events. Many media outlets, including the Globe, published corrections.
But over the weekend, a liberal group unearthed a Federalist Society leadership directory from 1997-98. It lists Roberts, then a partner in a Washington law firm, as having served on a steering committee for the group's District of Columbia chapter. Nonetheless, the White House insisted yesterday that there is no proof that Roberts ever paid the $50 annual dues that would technically make him a member. The society keeps its membership list confidential.
''He certainly had given speeches and had participated in events, but he certainly had no recollection of being a member, and that is still the case today," Dana Perrino, a spokeswoman for the White House, said yesterday.
Several Federalist Society members, including Coffin and the D.C. chapter's former president, former solicitor general Theodore Olson, said yesterday that dues collection in the 1990s was casual. The majority of the organization's funding came from private foundations, and there was not a bright line dividing participants who bothered to send in $50 and those who did not.
Conservative groups yesterday saw the unflattering focus on The Federalist Society as a self-inflicted wound after what had been a nearly flawless first week for Roberts's nomination. And some worried that the White House had created a stigma that could attach itself to many leading conservative lawyers.
The New York Times reported today that the Bush administration plans to release documents from Roberts's tenure in the White House counsel's office in the mid-1980s and his earlier job working for the attorney general, but will not make public papers covering the four years he spent as principal deputy solicitor general starting in 1989, according to two senior administration officials.
The Times said the decision fulfills a request for disclosure of the documents made yesterday by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold the confirmation hearings for Roberts, said Specter's spokesman, Bill Reynolds. But it falls short of the disclosure sought by Democrats, who have demanded access to files from Roberts's work in the solicitor general's office at the Justice Department from 1989 to 1993, under George H. W. Bush, the Times said.
Founded in 1982, The Federalist Society began as an association of conservative law professors and students, and quickly grew into a powerful network of lawyers during the Reagan administration and beyond. Since the 1980s, the group's conventions and debates have played a major role in shaping the conservative legal agenda.
Liberals have accused the 38,000-member society of trying to impose its agenda on the federal judiciary. But until the White House tried to distance Roberts from the group, no one in conservative politics had suggested there was anything problematic about being a part of it.
Manuel Miranda of the conservative Third Branch Conference said grass-roots leaders on his weekly conference call argued yesterday that the White House should not have tried to downplay Roberts's involvement with the society.
''Our feeling was that the White House should not be in the business of disassociating themselves or appearing to repudiate The Federalist Society," Miranda said. ''It's a bad idea because the next nominee could be a member, so what kind of message are you sending?"
Listed above Roberts in the steering committee directory is David Rivkin, a former associate White House counsel in the George H. W. Bush administration. Rivkin said he paid dues but does not know whether Roberts did. The steering committee met through conference calls, Rivkin said, and he does not remember whether Roberts participated. 