THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday the filibuster compromise he recently helped broker should ease John Roberts’ road to the Supreme Court, but he adds that special-interest groups are still trying to derail the nomination.

“When we did the compromise, there were a lot of disappointed people out there who were going to make millions of dollars getting into the ‘judge war,’” the Seneca Republican said after a 20-minute meeting with Roberts in the senator’s Washington office.

“And what we did was pull the rug out from under them.”

In May, Graham signed on to a bipartisan pact that would allow Democrats to filibuster President Bush’s judicial nominees only under “extraordinary circumstances.” In return, Republicans promised not to abolish the filibuster for judicial nominees.

Since the agreement, the Senate has confirmed six federal judges.

Graham said he and Roberts talked about the balance the nominee must strike during his confirmation hearings — revealing his judicial philosophy but avoiding any indication as to how he would vote on particular cases.

Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Democrats likely would honor the “extraordinary circumstances” agreement in that they would not quash Roberts on account of his qualifications.

But he mentioned a more subtle “process filibuster” — Roberts’ opponents would try to stall and eventually quash his nomination by demanding documents to which Graham says they have no right.

“I don’t want the process manipulated in a way to justify delay,” Graham said.

Graham’s comments go to the heart of a dispute now raging between Senate Democrats and the White House over which of Roberts’ past legal writings should be released.

More than 75,000 pages of Roberts’ work in President Reagan’s White House counsel’s office will be turned over to the Judiciary Committee. But the Bush administration maintains that his writings as a principal deputy solicitor general under the first President Bush will not, because they are subject to lawyer-client privilege.

Graham, a judge in the Air Force Reserve, said that’s the way it should be.

“I’ve represented people charged with rape, murder and child molesting — you name it. I’ve represented them when I was a defense counsel in the Air Force. ... I don’t think it’s fair to judge me by what my client did or their position. What’s fair is to judge me by how well I represented that person.”

But USC law professor Andrew Siegel said it’s more complicated than that.

Graham has a point, he said, in that it’s unfair to assume that lawyers always agree — ideologically or morally — with their clients.

“On the other hand, a lawyer of John Roberts’ credentials could have done anything he wanted in the whole world, but he made particular choices to work in particular administrations and to take on particular cases,” said Siegel, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. “You can learn from that.”

Siegel concludes that the matter is debatable.

“Asking for those documents is not ridiculous but not turning them over isn’t ridiculous either.”

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Roberts, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, are scheduled to begin after Labor Day. He is President Bush’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, which has not had a vacancy in 11 years.

The full Senate is charged to confirm or reject him.

On Friday, Roberts will meet with U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. Like many Americans, DeMint said he wants to know Robert’s views on particular cases.

“I’d like to ask, ‘What if you were around when Roe v. Wade was decided? What would you have done?’” said DeMint, referring to the 1973 case that made abortion legal.

“But the purpose of the confirmation process is not to satisfy our curiosity,” added DeMint, who is an abortion rights opponent. “I have to try to restrain myself and get at his judicial philosophy.

“Obviously, I’m feeling very favorable toward him.”

Reach Markoe at (202) 383-6023 or lmarkoe@krwashington.com