MOVEON. ORG POLITICAL ACTION FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2005

CONTACT: Trevor Fitzgibbon,
Jessica Smith, Steve Smith
(202) 822-5200 exts. 255, 234, 243

MOVEON OPPOSES RIGHT WING CORPORATE LAWYER ROBERTS FOR SUPREME COURT

Members Launch National Campaign to Stop Roberts: Online Petition Drive, Hundreds of Events Nationwide, Ad Campaign

Statement by Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn.org Political Action

"In nominating John Roberts, the President has turned to a right wing corporate lawyer and ideologue for the nation's highest court.

Roberts has been associated with some of the most fringe and extreme views of the Republican Party for years. He has supported the "takings" philosophy of the extreme right, which calls for government to compensate polluters. He believes Roe should be "overturned," and won the case that gagged doctors so they could not even discuss abortion with their patients.

He opposed clean air rules and worked to help coal companies strip mine mountaintops. He tried to stop Congress from strengthening the Voting Rights Act. He worked to keep injured workers from receiving disability. And no wonder, he's regularly been associated with corporate, far right legal groups in America — the Washington Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the so-called National Legal Center for the Public Interest.

President Bush nominated this corporate lawyer to add to the right wing activist block of Scalia and Thomas. Instead of a mainstream jurist with a distinguished career as someone who protects the rights of the American people, Bush chose another right-wing crony.

MoveOn members across the country will hold petition events on Thursday to oppose the nomination of Judge John G. Robert Jr. to the US Supreme Court. The petition drive follows up over 1000 house parties held the weekend of July 8-10 where MoveOn members formed rapid response teams to prepare in case the President nominated an extremist to the Supreme Court.

Details of the ad campaign to be announced."