President Stands By His High Court Choices : Reagan Slams ‘Politics’ Over Rehnquist

President Reagan predicted Saturday that the “superb legal qualifications” of his conservative Supreme Court nominees will assure their confirmations in the Senate. He promised to appoint “more judges like them” to the federal bench.

In his weekly radio address, the President charged that “political posturing” lay behind the extended interrogation of William H. Rehnquist, his choice to succeed retiring Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, by Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Appeals Court Judge Antonin Scalia, whom Reagan named to fill the associate justice position now held by Rehnquist, received gentler treatment in hearings last week.

The committee has scheduled voting on both nominations for Thursday, but no action by the full Senate is expected until after Labor Day.

‘Certain Approach’

Both men “embody a certain approach to the law that, as your President, I consider it my duty to endorse--indeed, to insist upon,” Reagan said in his talk from the Oval Office, delivered just before he left the White House for a urological examination at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Reagan recalled past campaign speeches in which he charged that “too many judges were taking upon themselves the prerogatives of elected officials,” and were “using the courts to strike down laws that displeased them politically and philosophically.”

Reagan said that he had “argued the need for judges who would interpret law, not make it,” and observed that “this upsets those who disagree with me politically.”

“I have a lurking suspicion that politics had more than a little to do with some of the tactics used against Justice Rehnquist,” Reagan said, “but I’m confident that, mindful of their superb legal qualifications, the Senate will confirm Justice Rehnquist and Judge Scalia. And I can assure you that we will appoint more judges like them to the federal bench.”

Without naming names, Reagan noted that “one Democratic senator announced he would vote against Justice Rehnquist even before the hearing started.” Such a comment was made by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a leader of the opposition to Rehnquist.

Cites ‘Political Posturing’

When the hearings ended, Reagan said, “The hysterical charges of cover-up and stonewalling were revealed for what they were--political posturing.”

Reagan said he had allowed the committee to see documents that Rehnquist prepared as a Justice Department official during the Richard M. Nixon Administration in order to squelch “unfounded charges” against his nominee for chief justice.

He did not mention his decision to waive a claim of executive privilege that could have blocked release of the papers, but said he was “sorry to have to release these documents,” and that he did it so that his nominees would not “enter upon their responsibilities under any cloud.”