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Posted on 11/13/2005 7:08:32 PM PST by RWR8189
What would Samuel Alito's confirmation mean for First Amendment law? It's impossible to be sure, but his appeals court opinions give us some clues. A Justice Alito would likely take a pretty broad view of free speech protections; support religious exemptions from some generally applicable laws; uphold evenhanded benefit programs that include both religious and secular institutions; and uphold the use of religious symbolism by the government.
• Free speech. Until the late 1980s, liberal Supreme Court justices generally supported broad free speech rights, and conservative justices usually took a narrower view. No longer. I've studied the votes in free speech cases from 1994 (when Justice Stephen Breyer was appointed) until last summer, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died. The broadest views of free speech were held by conservative Anthony Kennedy, followed by conservative Clarence Thomas tied with liberal David Souter. The narrowest views were held by liberal Justice Breyer, followed by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (both conservatives). Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (liberals) and Antonin Scalia (conservative) were in the middle.
Judge Alito's past decisions suggest that he would be closer to Justices Kennedy and Thomas than to Justice O'Connor. Naturally, those decisions are shaped by Supreme Court precedents; but precedents often give lower court judges some flexibility, and Judge Alito has generally used this flexibility to protect speech.
In Pitt News v. Pappert, Judge Alito's opinion upheld a campus newspaper's constitutional right to publish alcohol advertising. The ban, he noted, would have little practical effect on the amount of alcohol advertising seen by underage readers. As more than 75% of prospective newspaper readers--university faculty, staff and students--were above 21, the ban would substantially affect communication to lawful alcohol buyers. And since the law singled out a small slice of the media
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
The Left's only hope is to paint Alito as a liberal so that conservatives turn on him.
Sabdra Day O'Connor, conservative? Who are they trying to kid?
I don't think that's gonna happen with this guy, no matter how many negative articles they write. Hopefully not too many people think of this as a negative article--being for free speech seems to me something people who are conservative should support, especially as often as PC speech codes are used against us.
I've said before Alito is more a Thomas than a Scalia. And I think that's a good thing! I love Scalia, I think he's a great Justice, but Clarence Thomas is my favorite. If Alito is in fact like Justice Thomas, then I'm all smiles.
Kennedy is no conservative either. It is a deliberate act by the Left and the media to portray O'Connor and Kennedy as 'mainstream conservatives' so as to paint a bogus picture of Scalia and Thomas as far-right justices.
It is true that Kennedy and O'Connor both still render conservative votes and come down on the side of the Constitution from time to time (Kennedy voted to allow the partial birth abortion ban, while O'Connor voted to protect the Boy Scouts First Amendment rights against the bullying of homosexual activists), but on the hot-button, social issues they are just as likely to side with the Left as they are the Constitution/conservatives. In fact, they are probably more likely to come down on the liberal side. And its not as if they are reliably conservative on non-cultural issues either; afterall Kennedy sided with the liberals in the Kelo private property case.
Maybe, but the left might hurt itself in the process. If Alito was to help strike down recent stupid campaign finance laws, that would be just awesome.
It doesn't take much at all to demonstrate that Alito is another Souter-like leftwing stealth candidate.
Expansionist on the rights of the people is fine; it's expansionist on government powers, which is where you usually hear that adjective, that is not fine.
"Expansionist on the rights of the people is fine"
No its not. The bogus "right to privacy" has lead to uncounted problems, including a right to abortion.
The job of the Supreme Court is to enforce the Constitution, not make up rights. Yours is the classic Leftist view.
Leftists (except for communists) used to be pretty good about First Amendment rights -- freedom of speech used to be the rule with them rather than the exception. Now the situation is reversed -- freedom of speech is an "expansive" exception they allow for abominations like child pornography but as a rule the left has a restrictive view of religious and political speech. This trend really got underway with the advent of political correctness and speech codes. This conditioned liberals to adopt Marxist attitudes about freedom of speech and this view has infected the Judiciary. If Judge Alito is a firm supporter of the First Amendment that is reason enough for most leftist groupt to hysterically oppose him.
Ditto all those points.
IMO, all signs point in the direction of Alito having more in common with Thomas than Scalia. Thomas has always been my favorite, so this doesn't disturb me in slightest. Though I like Scalia and respected Rehnquist.
Though, they aren't carbon copies. He'll earn his own distinctions over Thomas, Scalia and rehnquist over time...as will Roberts.
I must admit the point that has intrigued me is his zeroing in on O'Connor's decisions to attempt to make sense of them and rule accordingly. To me, this suggests he discerned his opinions would many times fall to her for a 5-4 decision and tried to tailor them precisely to match her questionable logic. Unfortunately, sandra couldn't remember what she wrote 2 minutes later.
Oh please. It may not take much when you're willingly influenced by the left-wing propaganda of the MSM, but if you were pressed to show one verifiable fact that demonstrates any left-wing tendency on the part of Alito, you could not do it.
I do not know what kind of weed that boy is smoking, but I do know it is high quality weed, and was not cheap!
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
I'd say its the Sup Court's job to apply the Constitution, as they have no enforcment power other than the extent to which the other two branches carry out their orders. But then again, seeing as how the other two branches are pretty much subservient to the judiciary, what you said is probably accurate afterall.
And I agree that it is not for the Courts to create new rights that hitherto had not been considered or part of the human experience.
I just hope he reads the Second Amendment with the same innate understanding.
Jesus Christ wasn't available for the SCOTUS nomination....
ahh! You were right!
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