More than any other senator (thus far), Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter has pushed Judge Roberts to answer questions about matters that are coming before the court. Whereas yesterday Senator Schumer pushed for answers about doctrines at issue last term, Specter pushed for answers on an issue — the “congruence and proportionality test” used by the Court to evaluate statutes enacted under section 5 of the 14th Amendment — that is central to a case already docketed for the Court this term. Even worse, the issue directly implicates the Court’s review of federal enactments. In other words, Specter was asking Roberts to tell the Senate how he, as a justice, would view the Senate’s own acts. Now that Specter has pushed this far, one can expect Senate Democrats to try and push even farther.