Consider Bork’s Merit, Not His Ideology, Reagan Asks

President Reagan strongly urged the Senate Wednesday to consider his nomination of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court on the basis of the candidate’s qualifications rather than ideology, apparently offering a preview of the strategy that the White House will follow in the expected fierce battle over the appointment.

Reagan, in his most extensive remarks on Bork since announcing the nomination on July 1, told a law enforcement group that “each senator must decide which criteria is right for casting this critical vote: qualifications or politics?”

White House officials believe that Bork’s supporters must try to keep the debate about the nomination focused on his experience as a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington and his qualities as a legal scholar, rather than on his conservative political beliefs or the course he might follow on specific issues that come before the court.

In the weeks before the Senate Judiciary Committee opens its confirmation hearings, “Judge Bork and the President ought to be able to lay out what the framework of the debate ought to look like, rather than just responding to the opposition,” a senior White House official said. “That’s why we’re trying to move back to the broader picture.”

The nomination of Bork has drawn wide attention because his appointment would give the Supreme Court a conservative majority.

Bork, whose views have been criticized by a variety of groups, including civil rights organizations and supporters of legal abortion, has a judicial record that shows him to be far more conservative than the typical Reagan appointee to top federal court seats, according to a study prepared for the Columbia University Law Review.

The study found also that he consistently has favored business challenges to federal regulations but regularly supported the government position in suits brought by public interest groups.

In outlining the White House approach, Reagan tried to prod the Senate into moving ahead with the matter. Although he did not accuse Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) of delaying the hearings, he urged speedy action so that the high court will have its full complement of nine justices when it begins its next term on Oct. 5.

“Judge Bork deserves to be evaluated on his merits. He deserves to be considered promptly,” Reagan said.

Quotes Justice Powell

In a speech to the National Law Enforcement Council, an organization representing law enforcement officers from around the country, the President cited a statement by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., whose retirement created the vacancy Bork was nominated to fill.

“Justice Powell has noted that, when the court is below full strength, it has an adverse effect on the court’s business,” Reagan said. “I hope the Senate will take note of this concern. One way or another, it should act on Judge Bork’s nomination before the court goes into session in October.”

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) said that, although he had made no decision on whether to vote for Bork, he would oppose any effort to delay the nomination in the Judiciary Committee. He said also that he hopes the Senate will not become so polarized over the issue “that this will become a litmus test of party loyalty.”

Last week, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said that the Senate was split 45 to 45 on the nomination, with 10 members undecided. White House officials say they have no count, but Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr., a former Senate majority leader, told the law enforcement officers before Reagan arrived that he was optimistic about Bork’s prospects for confirmation.

Throughout his address to the law enforcement group in the Executive Office Building next door to the White House, the President stressed the quality of Bork’s work, saying that his nominee has had “a remarkable legal career.”

The judge is “among the best in his field . . . one of the preeminent legal scholars of our time . . . widely acclaimed for his intellectual power and his fairness,” Reagan said.

Indeed, the President said, “no man in America and few in our history have been as qualified to sit on the Supreme Court as Robert Bork.”

Reagan sought to bolster his argument by quoting Lloyd Cutler, Jimmy Carter’s White House counsel, as saying the late Justice Felix Frankfurter once stated that “the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one’s personal pulls and one’s private views to the law.”

Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis D. Brandeis, Frankfurter, Potter Stewart and Powell rigorously observed this philosophy, Reagan said, “and Judge Bork’s articles and opinions confirm that he would be another.”

The President said: “If I could appoint a whole Supreme Court of Felix Frankfurters, I would. And I’ve taken a step with Robert Bork.”