GINSBURG’S TESTIMONY DISPUTES BIDEN’S CLAIM
During his questions to Judge Roberts, Sen. Biden just excoriated the judge for refusing to answer the same questions that Justice Ginsburg answered. Judge Roberts explained that Justice Ginsburg sometimes answered questions about issues that might come before the Court because she had already written on those issues and therefore had already expressed a view.
Sen. Biden then stated that he would ask Judge Roberts about a question that Ginsburg had answered but not written on: whether or not she agreed with Justice Powell’s opinion in Moore v. City of East Cleveland. Judge Roberts respectfully declined to answer because it could come back be the Court.
Biden then suggested that Roberts was violating the Ginsburg standard because Ginsburg had not written on the Moore case. But that’s inaccurate, as Justice Ginsburg herself explained (in her testimony before Sen. Biden’s committee):
“In taking the position I have in all of my writings on this subject, I must associate myself with Justice Powell’s statements; otherwise, I could not have written what I did.” (Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, pg. 271)