Carter opposes confirmation of Bork

Press, 2 October 1987, Page 6

Carter opposes confirmation of Bork

NZPA-Reuter Washington The former President, Jimmy Carter, in unusually strong language, has urged the Senate to reject Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court, saying he found some of Judge Bork’s opinions on civil rights issues obnoxious. “I would like for the members of your committee to know that I am strongly opposed to Judge Bork’s confirmation as an' associate justice of the Supreme Court,” Mr Carter said in a letter on Wednesday to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joseph Biden. The letter was made public as hearings on Judge Bork ended.-

Mr Carter said he found it “particularly obnoxious” that Judge Bork had opposed such civil rights issues as public accommodation laws, affirmative action and abolishment of

poll taxes. “It is of deep concern to me that Judge Bork took public positions in opposition to these* advances in freedom for our minority citizens,” the former President said.

Judge Bork says he has changed his views on these issues but Mr Carter said he feared Judge Bork’s rulings would reflect his old attitudes if he became a member of the Supreme- Court

“He has almost invariably sided with the most powerful and authoritarian litigant in the cases before him,” Mr Carter added.

Meanwhile, President Reagan said on Wednesday that he was still optimistic that the Senate would confirm Judge Bork, despite a poll by Senator Alan Cranston, of California, on Tuesday which found 49 of the 100 senators against Bork, 40 for him and 11 undecided.