Alito Hearings

I gave my opinion on Samuel Alito back on November 15, 2005, (Hyping Alito) so I won't repeat myself again. However, the Senate Committee hearing started yesterday, and I thought folks might be interested in having access to the transcripts.

Transcripts from Day 1 of the Senate Committee Hearings - Part I

Transcripts from Day 1 of the Senate Committee Hearings - Part II

Given Bush's ongoing push for all power resting in the President without oversight, the Alito nomination takes on even more significance than moving the Supreme Court to the right, or the threats to a woman's control of her own body. The Democrats have wisely included questions about executive power in the questioning of Alito. Regardless, I don't think the nomination can be stopped. However, it might be slowed down long enough to get some of the critical cases off the docket before Alito takes the bench.

One of the best summations of concerns about Alito was given in opening statements yesterday by Senator Herbert Kohl (D-WI). Below is that summation - rather than his whole opening statement.

KOHL: To a certain extent, we know more about what is in your heart and your mind than we did with now-Justice Roberts. You have a long track record as a judge and as a public official in the Justice Department.

When we met privately and I asked you what sort of Supreme Court justice you would make, your answer was fair when you said, "If you want know what sort of a justice I would make, then look at what sort of a judge I have been."

Taking this advice, your critics argue that your judicial record demonstrates that you will not sufficiently protect the individual, but will, instead, side with more powerful interests, narrow the rights we enjoy and leave individual Americans more vulnerable to abuse.

For example, they cite your Casey dissent as diminishing the power of married women over their own bodies. They identify your decision in the Chichester case as evidence that you will make it harder for working people to care for a family. They cite the Bray case and others where you often side with corporations to block the victims of discrimination from getting their day in court. Others raise concerns about your views on the rights of the accused when faced with the government's enormous power in the criminal justice process.

In addition to your record on the bench, your opponents identify memos you wrote while in the Justice Department as further evidence of your hostility to individual rights.

For example, in your now-famous 1985 job application, you express pride in some of the work you did in the Solicitor General's Office. You choose to single out the assistance that you provided in crafting Supreme Court briefs urging that, quote, "the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion."

While these statements came in the context of your work on behalf of the Reagan administration, they were, nevertheless, your self- proclaimed personal views.

KOHL: In the same job application, you wrote that you had pursued a legal career because you disagreed with many of the decisions of the Warren court, especially, and I quote, "in the areas of criminal procedure, the establishment clause and reapportionment."

These Warren court decisions establishing one person, one vote, Miranda rights and protections for religious minorities are some of the most important cases protecting our rights and our liberties, protecting minorities against majority abuses, and protecting individuals against government abuses. And yet antagonism toward these decisions seems to have motivated your pursuit of the law.