News Intelligence Analysis
James Dobson Endorses Judge Roberts: Why?
By Katherine Yurica
Posted July 23, 2005
Ordinarily Judge Roberts’ wife’s job ought to be off limits in the search for information that might shed light on Judge Roberts’qualifications and judicial beliefs and possible prejudices. From all sides, Judge Roberts appears to be an ideal nominee. He is highly intelligent and a truly educated man. What’s wrong with him then and why should the Senate Judiciary Committee probe deeper?
The answer is: Judge Roberts is fully endorsed by none-other-than “tough- love-beat- them-while-their-young—political advocate Dr. James Dobson. In fact Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, is planning a nationwide simulcast from Nashville to promote Roberts in August. It was Dobson who helped to whip up the Terri Schiavo case to national proportions with screaming advocates and dominionists accusing judges of “murdering” the woman. It is Dobson who has 6,000 worldwide radio facilities carrying his weekly radio broadcast.
Dobson led a “Justice Sunday” simulcast from Louisville, Kentucky in the spring to get churchgoers and churches riled up throughout the country to call their Senators and demand a yes or no vote on every judicial appointee of the Bush administration.
But Dobson is accustomed to throwing his political weight around. He warned the White House, that if an anti-abortion judge was not named by the President to the Supreme Court, Republicans would pay for it dearly at the polls in the next election. It appears that James Dobson knows something about John G. Roberts that the Democrats don’t know!
Was Dobson told something by the White House? Has Judge Roberts and his wife supported Dobson’s “ministry”? Have they contributed to Dobson? Probably not.
Enter Mrs. Roberts. Jane Roberts married John G. Roberts in 1996 when they were both 41. The New York Times has reported that Jane Sullivan Roberts, a Roman Catholic lawyer was a supporter of “Feminists for Life,” an anti-abortion group. Mrs. Roberts served on the board for four years and provided legal services pro bono.
In addition to Jane Roberts’ anti-abortion beliefs and work, it’s informative to understand that her legal background is not just “corporate” in nature; she has been in the forefront of outsourcing transactions. According to Roberts’ law firm, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw and Pittman, Mrs. Roberts has had extensive experience in representing clients in the “buying and selling of space-related goods and services, including companies involved in the development of multi-billion dollar global and regional satellite systems.”
Mrs. Roberts went part-time in 2003 to help attorneys in the firm to develop practice milestones to enhance their careers. This move may have corresponded with her husband’s appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. If so, does it telegraph the couples’ understanding that Judge Roberts was on the short list for appointment at the first opening to the Supreme Court?
Jane Roberts had been a partner in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw and Pittman’s Global Technology Group. Her career was fast paced and demanding. She focused on IT sourcing and procurement of satellite systems.
Significantly, the law firm has worked on many of the largest and most complicated sourcing transactions in both the public and commercial sectors. All told, the firm handled more than 500 sourcing transactions valued in excess of $400 billion and the firm has become the world’s preeminent sourcing architect. The firm’s expertise was utilized in 2000 in the largest public sector outsourcing program in the world in the Commonwealth of Australia.
It should also be pointed out that Jane Roberts worked for Shaw Pittman before it merged its Global Sourcing group with Pillsbury Winthrop in 2005. She was involved in large international commercial arbitrations involving nuclear power plants before the International Chamber of Commerce. She also litigated before Australian Courts with the Arthur Robinson & Heddenwicks law firm.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman has a practice in “Government Contracts Law” and in “Iraq Reconstruction.” Government Contract Law is not a small corner of the law. As the largest federal agency, the Department of Defense buys over $250 billion in goods and services each year. To get a piece of this action, typically law firms play the revolving door game: Pillsbury Winthrop stated it this way on their web page in 2003: The firm works with key U.S. government agencies, including OPIC, the U.S. Export Import Bank, USAID and the Trade and Development Agency (TDA). “A number of our colleagues have served, and former colleagues currently serve, in leading positions in these agencies.”
Write up some questions for Judge Roberts:
Does he foresee nation governments yielding
governmental powers to corporate marketing states as Phillip
Bobbitt predicts in his book The Shield of Achilles? Is
that okay?
How does he feel about Australia’s
public sector outsourcing to the private sector?
Does he believe that the government has
the right to intrude into its citizens’ bodies?
Is he an economic liberal?
Is he aware that the Bible does not consider
an unborn fetus a human being?
Is he aware that to cause a miscarriage in the Bible in a pregnant woman by a blow, was punishable by money damages and was not a criminal offense?
Katherine Yurica is a news intelligence analyst. She was educated at East Los Angeles College, the University of Southern California and the USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los Angeles County and as a news correspondent for Christianity Today plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is the author of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica Report.
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