Petition against Roberts

MoveOn.org has sponsored a petition opposing the Roberts nomination. Complementing Elise's post below on Roberts' attitude toward abortion, MoveOn lists other flaws with the nominee:

John Roberts has little experience as a judge - he was only appointed in 2003. But he's got a lot of experience as a corporate lobbyist and lawyer, consistently favoring wealthy corporations over regular Americans. Here's a list of some of the things that make Roberts the wrong pick for the Supreme Court:

* Wrong on environmental protection: Roberts appears to want to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act, and in papers he wrote while in law school he supported far-right legal theories about "takings" which would make it almost impossible for the government to enforce most environmental legislation.
* Wrong on civil rights: Roberts worked to keep Congress from defending parts of the Voting Rights Act.
* Wrong on human rights: As a appeals court judge, Roberts ruled that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to some prisoners of war.
* Wrong on our right to religious freedom: Roberts argued that schools should be able to impose religious speech on attendees.
* Wrong on women's rights: Roberts wrote that "Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled." He also weighed in on behalf of Operation Rescue, a violent anti-abortion group, in a federal case.

President Bush could have chosen many fair-minded and independent jurists to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, he chose a corporate partisan loved by Bush's right-wing base but out of step with the rest of the country.