Nominee John G. Roberts Jr.

Here's his career:

• 1976, BA from Harvard
• 1979, Law degree from Harvard
• 1979-1980, Clerked for Henry Friendly on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals
• 1980-1981, Clerked for Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court.
• 1981-1982, Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General
• 1982-1986, Associate Counsel to the President
• 1986-1989 Associate Hogan & Hartson law firm
• 1989-1993 Principal Deputy Solicitor-General (argued ~30 cases before the Supreme Court)
• 1993-2001, Partner at Hogan & Harston
• 2001, Appointed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
• 2003, Confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit

He's only 50 years old, so he'll potentially be on the court a long time. But the average age of an appointed justice is 52.75 (since WWII it's a little higher at 53.88). Scalia, Thomas and Ginsburg all came from the important DC Circuit Court, where Roberts has been serving.

A little more disturbing is that he's only been a judge for 2 years. That still gives him more judicial experience than Rehnquist or Thomas when they were nominated, but less than all the others by 2-12 years. Rehnquist wasn't a judge at all, he was assistant Attorney General of the US for 2 years. Stevens was a federal judge for 5 years. O'Connor was a state judge for 6 years. Scalia was a federal judge for 4 years, Kennedy for 13. Souter was a state judge for 7 years and a federal judge for less than 6 months. Thomas was a federal judge for 1 year, Ginsburg for 13 years and Breyer for 14 years. Is it odd that the 3 most conservative justices (and now perhaps 4) all have the least judicial experience coming into the court?

With so little experience we don't have a long record to look at. Slate has some background info on him.

We know from a 1991 brief for Hodgson v. Minnesota that he opposes Roe having said "the Court's conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."

He seems weak on the separation of Church and State. In 1992 in Lee v Weisman he argued that public high-school graduation ceremonies could include religious ceremonies. The Supreme Court disagreed 5-4.
And he seems to have several times voted or argued against environmental regulation. In Rancho Viejo v. Nortion, 2003 he found that the interstate commerce clause didn't give the federal government the power to create the Endangered Species Act. I just saw an episode on Penn & Teller's Bullshit about the ESA, they were not impressed with it either.

I think some amendments are in order :)