Souter Wins Bar Group’s Highest Rating : Judiciary: ABA panel, in a unanimous vote, says the Supreme Court nominee is ‘well-qualified.’ But it’s less a prize than a pitfall avoided.

Judge David H. Souter cleared a hurdle toward winning a seat on the Supreme Court Tuesday as the American Bar Assn. pronounced him “well-qualified” by his competence, integrity and judicial temperament.

A 15-member ABA committee unanimously voted to give him the highest of three possible ratings after evaluating his legal work and interviewing attorneys who know him.

Still, for Supreme Court nominees, receiving the ABA’s top rating is less of a prize won than a pitfall avoided.

Anything less than a unanimous well-qualified rating spells trouble for a high court nominee. For the last 20 years, all successful nominees have won unanimous approval from the ABA.

In 1987, Judge Robert H. Bork also received an official “well-qualified” rating, but five of the 15 committee members dissented. That fact was cited repeatedly by critics of the embattled nominee.

Unlike the Bork nomination, President Bush’s choice of Souter has not met with intense, vocal opposition. Nonetheless, Senate Democrats say they intend to press the 50-year-old New Hampshire judge to spell out his views before they will vote to confirm him.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its hearings on Souter on Sept. 13.

President Bush, pleased by the news from the ABA, “looks forward to a speedy confirmation” of Souter, according to White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater. “Hopefully, he’ll be in place for the new court,” which will begin its fall term on Oct. 1.

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh said the ABA action shows that the President “has selected a man of superb intellect and qualifications.”

But Arthur J. Kropp, president of People for the American Way, said the ABA’s decision “comes as no surprise” because “Souter’s technical qualifications were never in question.” He urged the Senate committee members to press Souter to disclose his views on civil rights, abortion, religion and other constitutional issues.

The ABA committee passes judgment on the “professional competence, integrity and judicial temperament” of all nominees to the federal bench, but it scrupulously avoids considering the nominee’s legal philosophy and political opinions. Panels of law professors from Stanford and Northwestern universities reviewed Souter’s opinions as a New Hampshire judge, and a panel of lawyers interviewed Souter and other judges and attorneys who know him.

The committee simply issued a one-sentence letter from its chairman, Ralph E. Lancaster Jr. of Portland, Me., saying that “this committee has unanimously concluded that Judge David H. Souter is ‘well-qualified’ for appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

In recent years, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy also received unanimous “well qualified” ratings from the ABA.