11-02-05, 7:35 am
It's a sign of weakness. By dropping his support for Harriet Miers, an apparent victim of ultra-right hate, and appointing Judge Samuel Alito, whose ideological rigidity has right-wingers confident that he will vote their way on divisive issues, Bush signaled that he does not have the political capital to pursue his own agenda and that he has no political will of his own.
Alito will be replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote on the Court who despite her rightward tilt has helped to preserve major constitutional civil rights and privacy protections. Some groups, such as the National Organization of Women, have pleaded with O'Connor to remain in her seat.
If confirmed, Alito, who has demonstrated to the great glee of Bush's ultra-right base that he is a 'conservative activist' judge who puts ideology before constitutional traditions, will likely shift the Court to the far right of the political spectrum for some time to come.
A fact sheet distributed by People for the American Way, based on an examination of Alito's decisions and opinions, suggests that the nominee regards himself as part of a 'conservative' movement to radically alter, undermine, and uproot the basic provisions of the Constitution.
First on his hit list are our civil rights. Alito has shown time and again that he believes the federal government does not have any constitutional authority to protect civil rights. Alito is hostile to privacy rights and reproductive rights, and has argued that women do not have a right of self-determination over their bodies.
Alito has ruled in the past that claims of race bias were unfounded, specifically in a situation where an African-American defendant has been convicted by an all-white jury. A higher court found that Alito's decision simply ignored the fact of racial discrimination and undermined the right to a fair trial.
In another case, Alito ruled that employers could be exempt from charges of race and gender discrimination in hiring practices, simply by claiming they believed they had hired the best-qualified person. If his decision had been allowed to stand, it would have granted employers the right to return to practices of discriminatory hiring without any meaningful way to alter the practice.
According to the environmental group Earthjustice, Alito's opinions in certain cases, if they had been upheld, would have stripped environmental laws of meaningful enforcement provisions, by denying access to the courts to ordinary citizens victimized by big polluters.
While it may not be surprising that the right wing supports a judge with explicit activist impulses to rewrite constitutional law to allow racist practices, invasions of women's privacy, and the overturning federal responsibilities to protect civil rights, it is shocking that such extreme, antiquated, and divisive views continue to have a public hearing.
The Center for American Progress (CAP), a non-partisan think tank, also criticized the choice. In choosing Alito, CAP noted in a press release, Bush has backed away from uniting the country around a moderate, mainstream legal mind and has 'chosen the path of confrontation urged on him by the extreme right wing.' Alito's record, CAP adds, 'shows scant respect for constitutional rights and a troubling tendency to second-guess the authority of Congress to protect and advance them.'
'America wants a mainstream nominee, not one who will turn back the clock on civil rights progress, worker protections, environmental safeguards, and our health and safety. With the nomination of Alito, all of those rights are now at risk,' Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights said.
Nan Aron, president of the non-partisan judicial watchdog group Alliance for Justice, argued that 'while it's clear Judge Alito possesses a keen intellect, it is equally clear the president selected him for his backward-looking judicial philosophy. The Supreme Court is not a place for 'movement' judges of any kind. Supreme Court Justices do not rule for a narrow segment of the population, but for all of us. It is truly disheartening that President Bush thinks otherwise.'
Nancy Keenan, president of pro-choice advocacy group NARAL/ Pro-Choice America, stated, 'Alito's confirmation could shift the Court in a direction that threatens to eviscerate the core protections for women's freedom guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, or overturn the landmark decision altogether.'
Even Alito's colleagues have described the nominee as an 'ideologue.' According to the National Law Journal, lawyers believe Alito to be 'much more of an ideologue than most of his colleagues.' Media Matters for America, a media watchdog website, quotes Lawrence Lustberg, a criminal defense lawyer and acquaintance of Alito, who now happens to support Alito's nomination, as describing Alito as 'an activist conservative judge' and one who is 'very prosecutorial from the bench.' Lustberg also noted that Alito's personal ideology drives his legal opinions.
Other groups expressing serious concerns included the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian civil rights organization. In a statement to the press, HRC President Joe Solomonese remarked that Alito's nomination represents an appeal to a single ideological group, adding that 'our Constitution does not belong to one narrow ideology. It belongs to all of us.'
Americans for Democratic Action national director, Amy F. Isaacs, described the nomination as 'monumental threat to basic civil rights and civil liberties,' while Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, added that Alito's nomination 'threatens the very existence of core legal rights that Americans, especially women, have relied on for decades.'
--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
