
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 21, 1993                   TAG: 9307210170
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

COURT PICK REJECTS IDEOLOGICAL

Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Clinton's nominee to the Supreme Court, on Tuesday told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would be neither a conservative nor a liberal on the court, but someone who ruled cautiously.

She would not reach out to write broad principles into the law, she said.

In her opening statement on the first day of hearings on the nomination, Ginsburg sought to set a clear boundary on what kind of questions she was willing to answer. She said she would not discuss specific cases or issues that might come before her.

"It would be wrong for me to say or preview in this legislative chamber how I would cast my vote on questions the Supreme Court may be called upon to decide," she said. "A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process."

Although such unwillingness to engage in specifics has frustrated and annoyed some senators in the past, it was clear Tuesday that it will make no difference for Ginsburg, who seems bound to win Senate approval easily.

If confirmed, Ginsburg, 60, a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, would become the first justice placed on the court by a Democrat in 26 years.

Ginsburg noted with approval that in a case last year, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right to abortion. But she pointedly declined to say whether she believed it was a fundamental right, a category that would mean it would be difficult for states to enact restrictions on abortion.

Ginsburg also defended her view, as expressed in law reviews and speeches, that Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that first found a constitutional right to abortion, went too far, too fast.

Had the court not set down so detailed a scheme prescribing the way states may regulate abortion in each of the three trimesters of pregnancy, there would not have been so much controversy, she said.

She speculated that state legislatures would have gradually enacted laws that would have been more enduring than Roe.

by CNB