Roberts Confirmed As Next Chief Justice by Senate

Judge John G. Roberts was confirmed by the Senate and will now be the next Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, replacing the late William Rehnquist. The final vote was 78-22 in favor of confirming Roberts.

All of the Republicans in the Senate voted for Roberts with the Democrats split nearly evenly on whether or not to confirm the 50-year-old conservative jurist.

Roberts and his wife, Jane, watched the vote on television in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. The new chief justice and his wife are scheduled to have lunch with President Bush and the first lady prior to the swearing-in ceremony which will take place Thursday afternoon. Justice John Paul Stevens will administer the oath to Roberts. This will allow Roberts to be seated as chief justice when the court's new session begins on Monday.

'With the confirmation of John Roberts, the Supreme Court will embark upon a new era in its history, the Roberts era,' said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee declared. 'And for many years to come, long after many of us have left public service, the Roberts court will be deliberating on some of the most difficult and fundamental questions of U.S. law.'

Roberts is the youngest chief justice to be confirmed since John Marshall in 1801. Marshall was 45 at the time of his confirmation, Roberts is 50.

Attention in the Senate now turns to who the president will nominate to take over the seat from retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts was initially to take O'Connor's seat but was nominated as the next chief justice after Rehnquist's death last month.

Democrats have already warned the president not to make the next nominee too controversial. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) told reporters, 'While this nomination did not warrant an attempt to block the nominee on the floor of the Senate, the next one might.'