WASHINGTON — Seizing a historic opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court, President Bush nominated John Roberts yesterday as the 17th chief justice of the United States and weighed how to fill another vacancy that could push the nation's highest court to the right on issues from abortion to affirmative action.

Polished and plainspoken, Roberts had been on a likely track to be confirmed as an associate justice to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and it appeared the president turned to him for the top job to avoid an acrimonious fight at a volatile moment.

Bush is on the defensive about the administration's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, and his poll ratings had fallen to the lowest point of his presidency.

"For the past two months, members of the United States Senate and the American people have learned about the career and character of Judge Roberts," Bush said. "They like what they see."

The president announced his decision two days after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The move could ensure Bush's influence on the judiciary long after his presidency ends. In the past half-century, only two other presidents have had the opportunity to name a chief justice to a lifetime appointment.

A former Rehnquist clerk, Roberts shares a philosophical outlook with the man he would succeed and, at age 50, would be the youngest chief justice since John Marshall was appointed in 1801, potentially giving him decades to shape the court's direction.

Chief justices


chief justices of the United States and their terms:

William Rehnquist: Sept. 26, 1986-Sept. 3, 2005

Warren Burger: June 23, 1969-Sept. 26, 1986

Earl Warren: Oct. 5, 1953-June 23, 1969

Fred Moore Vinson: June 24, 1946-Sept. 8, 1953

Harlan Fiske Stone: July 3, 1941-April 22, 1946

Charles Evans Hughes: Feb. 24, 1930-June 30, 1941

William Howard Taft: July 11, 1921-Feb. 3, 1930

Edward Douglass White: Dec. 19, 1910-May 19, 1921

Melville Weston Fuller: Oct. 8, 1888-July 4, 1910

Morrison Remick Waite: March 4, 1874-March 23, 1888

Salmon Portland Chase: Dec. 15, 1864-May 7, 1873

Roger Brooke Taney: March 28, 1836-Oct. 12, 1864

John Marshall: Feb. 4, 1801-July 6, 1835

Oliver Ellsworth: March 8, 1796-Dec. 15, 1800

John Rutledge: Aug. 12, 1795-Dec. 15, 1795

John Jay: Oct. 19, 1789-June 29, 1795

The Associated Press

Since O'Connor agreed to remain until her successor is confirmed, the move means the court could open its next term Oct. 3 with nine justices sitting. But in shifting Roberts to the center chair, Bush now must find someone else to replace O'Connor.

In some ways, that choice is even more consequential, because she cast the swing vote for many years on issues such as affirmative action, abortion and the death penalty.

"It is in the interest of the court and the country to have a chief justice on the bench on the first full day of the fall term," Bush said in the Oval Office before flying to the Gulf Coast for a second time to inspect hurricane-relief efforts.

"The Senate is well along in the process of considering Judge Roberts' qualifications. They know his record and his fidelity to the law. I'm confident that the Senate can complete hearings and confirm him as chief justice within a month."

Roberts, who appeared at Bush's side, seemed mindful that he would replace his mentor rather than join him on the court.

"I am honored and humbled by the confidence that the president has shown in me," he said. "And I'm very much aware that if I am confirmed, I would succeed a man I deeply respect and admire, a man who has been very kind to me for 25 years."

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been scheduled to open hearings on Roberts' confirmation to O'Connor's seat today, decided yesterday to postpone the process probably until next Monday in deference to Rehnquist, who will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery tomorrow.

"Out of sync"?

The same liberal groups that opposed Roberts for associate justice declared him even more unfit for chief.

"His views are very much out of sync with civil rights, women's rights, privacy," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice. "Certainly reviewing so many of those memos and briefs and papers he authored makes one wonder whether he understands how the law affects ordinary people."

Several Senate Democrats said Roberts should receive greater scrutiny for chief justice. "The stakes are higher and the Senate's advice-and-consent responsibility is even more important," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "The Senate must be vigilant in considering this nomination."

But there was no indication that his nomination faces any significant threat. "He will be an excellent chief," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "I still expect Judge Roberts to be confirmed before the Supreme Court starts its new term on October 3."

Bush always had Roberts in mind for the next chief justice, aides said yesterday. Roberts was first secretly interviewed in April for a Supreme Court slot in anticipation that the cancer-stricken Rehnquist would retire or die. When O'Connor surprised the White House by announcing her retirement in July and Rehnquist declared he was not stepping down, Bush decided to appoint Roberts to O'Connor's seat.

Even then, aides said yesterday, the president intended to elevate Roberts to chief justice whenever the job came open.

"This had been something in the back of the president's mind in case such a scenario came into being, if the chief justice had retired," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The president when he met with [Roberts] knew he was a natural-born leader."

While the chief justice has no more votes than the eight associate justices, he presides over their conferences, sets the initial agenda for considering cases and, when in the majority, assigns which justice will write a ruling, defining the extent of its reach.

He also wields a variety of administrative and policy powers not only over the high court but the broader federal judiciary and has a number of unique responsibilities, such as presiding over presidential impeachment trials and appointing the court that reviews secret wiretaps by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Most chief justices have been appointed from outside the Supreme Court, but in the past century they typically had long tenures on lower courts or had served as governors, Cabinet secretaries or, in one case, president (William Howard Taft).

With just two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Roberts boasts no such credential and would be much younger than the colleagues he would lead. Three and a half decades his senior, John Paul Stevens, 85, was already a justice when Roberts was studying at Harvard University.

Well-known to justices

But Roberts has the advantage of being well-known to the justices, having argued 39 cases before the court.

"He can pull it off because they really respect him," said Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. "What other justices look for in a chief justice is honesty, straight-shooting and smarts. That's what they want and that's what they'll get."

Raised in Indiana, Roberts graduated first in his class at Harvard Law School, clerked for Rehnquist, worked as a lawyer in President Reagan's Justice Department and White House, and served as principal deputy solicitor general under Kenneth Starr in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

A decade of private practice earned him the status of one of Washington's most accomplished appellate lawyers before the president put him on the appeals court in 2003.

Documents released from his government service in the past few weeks revealed Roberts to be a strong conservative with a sharp pen, opposed to many affirmative-action programs, open to more religion in public arenas and deeply skeptical of what he called the "so-called right to privacy" that undergirds abortion and other rights established by the court.

As the Senate digests that record in coming weeks, Bush will turn his attention to his second nomination, although advisers believe he likely will wait to make an announcement until after the final Roberts confirmation vote.