WASHINGTON — Judge John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush's choice for chief justice of the United States, said Monday that he aspired to a humble and limited role as leader of the Supreme Court, more akin to an umpire who calls the balls and strikes rather than the star player who is the center of attention.
"Justices and judges are servants of the law, not the other way around," Roberts told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire."
Roberts' comments came on the first day of his confirmation hearings before the Judiciary Committee. And his short, simple statement showed the qualities that made him a well-regarded advocate before the Supreme Court as a lawyer, both for the government during the administration of President George H.W. Bush and in private practice.
He spoke directly to the senators and without notes. And he used the baseball analogy to convey his view that the nation's highest court should play a more modest role in American government.
That echoed a theme that had been voiced by the committee's 10 Republican senators. They complained that the Supreme Court had become a "super-legislature" in recent decades, regularly deciding the most controversial political questions of the day. They said the hard political questions should be decided by elected officials, and Roberts indicated that he agreed with them.
A major divide among committee members became clear as several of the panel's eight Democrats said they intended to question Roberts sharply to discern his views on civil rights and abortion. Republicans, however, argued that court nominees should not be quizzed about specific issues or cases.
Although Monday's opening session took place in the grand hearing room in the Russell Building that was the site of earlier confrontations over the Supreme Court nominations of Robert H. Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991, it had none of the tension and acrimony of those battles.
At the hearing's start, Roberts and his wife, Jane, introduced their two children -- Josie, 5, and Jack, 4. Senators smiled at them like proud grandparents.
Even as Roberts spoke of a limited role for the court, he also stressed its crucial role in upholding individual rights against the power of the government -- a favorite theme of the Democrats and liberals.
