July 20 , 2005

Pryce Praises President’s Pick for Supreme Court

WASHINGTON , DC —Today, House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (R-OH) issued the following statement on the President’s nomination of Judge John Roberts, Jr. to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court:

“I am very pleased with the President’s pick for the high court. Judge John Roberts is a respected and highly experienced jurist. He possesses impartiality, integrity, and sound legal judgment. I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to give him a fair and swift confirmation.”

Judge Roberts was reported favorably out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 16-3, and confirmed by the Senate for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by unanimous consent in 2003.

Prior to his service on the D.C Circuit (often referred to as “the second highest court in the land” and the bench from which three current Supreme Court Justices came to the Court), Judge Roberts argued a remarkable 39 cases before the Supreme Court. Only a handful of the 180,000 members of the Supreme Court bar come close to that record of accomplishment.

Judge Roberts was graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard University in only three years. After graduating from Harvard Law School with high honors and serving as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Judge Roberts clerked for Judge Henry Friendly on the Second Circuit and later for Justice William Rehnquist at the Supreme Court.

After his clerkships, Judge Roberts served in the Department of Justice and later as Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan before going into private practice.

After three years in private practice, Judge Roberts returned to the Department of Justice as Principal Deputy Solicitor General, a position in which he briefed and argued a variety of cases before the Supreme Court.

Roberts, Jr., was born in Buffalo, New York, raised in Indiana and currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife Jane Sullivan Roberts and their two children.