Posted on 10/31/2005 10:10:39 AM PST by Reagan Man
BUSH PUTS DEMANDS OF FAR-RIGHT ABOVE INTERESTS OF AMERICANS
WITH HIGH COURT NOMINATION OF RIGHT-WING ACTIVIST ALITO
PFAW will wage massive national effort to defeat nominee
who would dramatically shift balance of Court
President Bush put the demands of his far-right political base above Americans’ constitutional rights and legal protections by nominating federal appeals court Judge Samuel Alito to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, said People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas. “Right-wing leaders vetoed Miers because she failed their ideological litmus test. With Judge Alito, President Bush has obediently picked a nominee who passes that test with flying colors.”
“We had hoped President Bush would nominate someone with a commitment to protecting Americans’ rights and freedoms,” said Neas. “That’s what the American people want, and it’s what they deserve. Unfortunately, with Judge Alito, that’s not what President Bush has given us. He has chosen to divide Americans with a nominee guaranteed to cause a bitter fight.”
Neas said that People For the American Way will mobilize its 750,000 members and activists to wage a massive national effort to defeat Alito’s nomination and will work closely with its coalition partners to educate Americans about the threats posed by this nomination.
“Replacing a mainstream conservative like Justice O’Connor with a far-right activist like Samuel Alito would threaten Americans’ rights and legal protections for decades,” said Neas. “Justice O’Connor had a pivotal role at the center of the Court, often providing a crucial vote to protect privacy, civil rights, and so much more. All that would be at risk if she were replaced with Judge Alito, who has a record of ideological activism against privacy rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, and more.”
Neas said the President’s capitulation to the far right demonstrates the importance of our system of checks and balances and the importance of the Senate’s role in that system. “President Bush wasn’t willing to stand up to the far right, so Americans must count on senators to stand up for the Constitution,” said Neas. “Americans will have to live with the next justice long after President Bush has left office.”
Neas called on senators from both parties to take seriously their obligation to make a careful independent evaluation of the nominee’s record and judicial philosophy, especially given the red flags raised by Judge Alito’s record. “It is senators’ duty not to act as rubber stamps for the President’s nominees, but to examine all the evidence about the nominee’s record and make an independent judgment. We are confident that a careful examination of Samuel Alito’s record and judicial philosophy will ultimately lead to his rejection by the Senate.”
A preliminary report on Alito’s record is available from People For the American Way. Highlights of that record are included below.
Leading a Revolution Against Laws Protecting Individual and Other Rights
Alito is a leader of the radical right legal movement to prevent the federal government from enforcing civil rights protections and otherwise acting on behalf of the common good. According to one of Alito’s opinions, Congress had no authority to require state employers to comply with the Family and Medical Leave Act through payment of damages when they violate the law, a ruling that was repudiated by the Supreme Court. The late Chief Justice Rehnquist, a fellow ultraconservative, wrote the court’s decision. Alito also dissented from a ruling by the Third Circuit that Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause to restrict the transfer and possession of machine guns at gun shows.
Against Basic Protections for Workers
Alito’s record shows an alarming trend toward standing against protections for workers. In a number of dissenting opinions, Alito has taken positions that, if adopted, would have made it more difficult for victims of race and sex discrimination to prove their claims. In one case involving claims of race discrimination, the court majority sharply criticized Alito’s dissent, stating that his “position would immunize an employer from the reach of Title VII” in certain circumstances.
Hostile to Privacy and Reproductive Rights
Alito wants government to be able to interfere in personal decisions on reproductive rights. In one case, Alito attempted to uphold a provision of Pennsylvania’a restrictive anti-abortion law requiring a woman in certain circumstances to notify her husband before obtaining an abortion. Alito’s colleagues on the Third Circuit and Supreme Court disagreed, and overturned the provision.
Fails to Consider Racial Discrimination in Capital Punishment
In one case that came before Alito, an African American had been convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death by an all-white jury from which black jurors had been impermissibly struck. Alito cast the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion in a 2-1 ruling rejecting the defendant’s claims. The full Third Circuit reversed Alito’s ruling, and the majority specifically criticized him for having compared statistical evidence about the prosecution’s exclusion of blacks from juries in capital cases to an explanation of why a disproportionate number of recent U.S. Presidents have been left-handed. According to the majority, “[t]o suggest any comparability to the striking of jurors based on their race is to minimize the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants.”
The Future of the Supreme Court
The current vacancy on the Supreme Court is the second this year, and additional vacancies may occur in the next few years. Many important cases in recent years have been decided by just one or two votes, often with Justice O’Connor casting a decisive vote to uphold critical rights and liberties. Confirming additional far-right judicial activists like Samuel Alito to the Court would threaten hundreds of Supreme Court decisions that protect privacy, civil rights, religious liberty, reproductive choice, clean air and water, worker rights, consumer safety, educational opportunity, and much more.
“We are going to make sure that Americans understand what is at stake,” said Neas, “and how President Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito threatens fundamental rights and legal protections.”
Good luck. McCain is a beltway guy. He has totally and completely deluded himself into thinking he only needs the support of the MSM to win the presidency. That is why, when he fails to secure the Republican nomination, you will see him run as an independent.
Alito used to put gangsters in jail. He will do fine agaianst the whacko left. So Teddy, beware, he may come after you, you puffed up, overly fat, no good for nothing so and so!
Works for me.
We're getting the media back but still don't see how we'll get public education back. Thinking home/private schooling is the only answer for as many children as possible.
DeWine is up for reelection next year and I hear that it's RINO hunting season in Ohio. I think DeWine will be on board. There are the two.
We're getting the media back but still don't see how we'll get public education back. Thinking home/private schooling is the only answer for as many children as possible.
Does anyone else think it a bit stupid that the hysterical author of this PFAW piece claims that a person who has spent his whole professional life defending and interpreting the Constitution exactly as it was intended is planning to 'take away people's Constitutional Rights'????
I love it when a solid, righteous man gets the girly-men and the butchy-gals of the left in such a fluster that they show themselves to be such illogical, ignorant buffoons.
How can they spout this trash with a straight face?
Sounds good to me. Can you Dems say, "Fallujah?"
Amazing trashtalk!
Interesting hypocritical take there... lol
It's time to defeat the Left once and for all--and to drop all those sociopaths and morons into the oubliette of history where they belong.
Oubliette. Now there's a word you don't see to often. ;^)
I know DeWine is up for reelection, but I have the feeling he believes the way to win in Ohio is by being a RINO. We have Graham, hopefully Frist and the Administration are lining someone else up.
I would like Neas to explain how a Constitutional Originalist is a threat to Constitutional rights.
To answer your question. Liberals like Ralph Neas believe the Constitution is a living document. Pushing the amendment process aside, Neas and his ilk are ready to alter the Constitution at the drop of a dime.
A thought I wanted to share of perhaps a slightly different way to view the effects of the Alito nomination and the confirmation battle that now looms.
An old business consultant acquaintance of mine used to always say something to the effect that..."Often, the most effective way to solve a particular vexing problem, is to somehow force those tasked with solutions to it to first begin, before even attempting to envision or discuss various potential solutions, by defining and differentiating the elements (causes) of a problem into logical constituent parts."
I found if followed this approach often produces a sort of magic when it comes to solving problems...even though it is much easier said than done as everyone wants to talk about the solution first, which is where efforts first gravitate unless forced to not go there. To not first talk about solutions is sort of like having to learn to ride a bicycle backwards. It can be done but it does not occur naturally.
Anyway, her catch phrase for this approach was to "First differentiate before you attempt to re-integrate." The re-integrate step was of course evaluating and deciding on different possible solutions, once you had all the causes (elemental parts to solutions) on the table and logically organized.
In my opinion the confirmation fight that will now ensue from the Alito nomination should serve to cause this very same (and effective) differentiation step to occur first, in the overall effort to solve the vexing problem of activist judges.
The more it is a rip roaring confirmation fight dominated by arguments over the role of our constitution and the constitutionally limited and defined role of the judiciary, the more effective it will cause everyone and every group to publically show their colors and in effect differentiate themselves into their logical constituent (political) elements for the general electorate to view as they begin to ponder the way they may want to vote come next November, i.e., a significant step in any solution.
Seems to me the more we in our own individual ways keep our confirmation rhetoric focused on the central point of the proper constitutional role of judges, and cast all specific issue concerns so as to underscore that central constitutional argument, I think we win hands down. Not only with respect to this nomination but the election next November as well.
I don't approve of FR's consensus to over-reach, but I will say that I'm getting mightily tired of the minority pouring the phrase "the American people" into their text over and over again.
Someone needs to inform them that the majority speaks for the American people and they aren't it.
and you mention Ginsburg in the same post ?
The Right has been asleep at the switch for the last few decades and only awakened enought to lumber into action in the past few years.
Once this battle gets rolling and the left shows their true colors, alot of their supporters will question their own reality.
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