Kennedy Cites Drive to Keep Bork Off Court

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) reiterated Sunday that he and other Democrats will make a major effort to block the confirmation of Judge Robert H. Bork of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as the next member of the Supreme Court.

“We are not prepared to sit by while a lame-duck President attempts to reach out beyond the end of his Administration to tilt the balance of the Supreme Court for the next generation,” Kennedy told several thousand people who had come to a “We the People Rally” sponsored by three community organizations at the Shrine Auditorium.

“Robert Bork is wrong on civil rights, wrong on equal rights for women, wrong on the First Amendment, wrong on one-man-one-vote, and Ronald Reagan is wrong to try to put him on the Supreme Court,” declared Kennedy, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans to hold hearings on Bork’s nomination to the high court in September.

Minority Audience

“Mr. Bork even opposed the great Civil Rights Act of 1964--the Public Accommodations law that requires motels and hotels to open their rooms to all Americans, regardless of their race, their color, their religion or their national origin,” Kennedy said to an audience composed primarily of minority group members. “If Robert Bork cannot find room for the blacks and Hispanics of this country, we do not have to find room for Robert Bork on the Supreme Court.”

Kennedy referred to an article Bork wrote for the New Republic in 1963 opposing civil rights bills that required owners of hotels and restaurants to serve blacks. At the time, Bork wrote that such a law would be “a departure from freedom of the individual to choose with whom he will deal.” However, in 1973, when he was appointed solicitor general of the United States, Bork told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had subsequently disavowed that position.