Fillibuster Alito

In a party-line vote never in doubt, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended on Tuesday that the full Senate confirm Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. as the country's 110th Supreme Court justice. The committee's 10 Republicans had announced their support for Alito before the vote, President Bush crowed on Monday that supporters "don't have to worry about [Alito] in the committee."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, called Alito's record "clear and ominous," and said the stakes for his confirmation "could not be higher."

"I will not lend my support to an effort by this president to move the Supreme Court and the law radically to the right.....There is no reason to believe that Judge Alito will serve as an effective check and balance on government intrusion....Indeed, his record suggests otherwise....At a time when the president is seizing unprecedented power, the Supreme Court needs to act as a check and to provide balance......I have no confidence that Judge Alito would provide that check and balance." Sen. Patrick Leahy top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

"Based on his record, I'm concerned that Judge Alito will not be willing to stand up to a president who is determined to seize too much power over our personal lives.....In case after case, he has voted -- often as the lone dissenter on his court -- against the dispossessed, the poor and the powerless." Sen. Dick Durbin.

Alito, if confirmed, could serve on the US Supreme Court for an additional 28 years or, the equivalent of 7 presidential terms. Instead of occupying a more centrist position, like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, he will move the court far to the right. Justice O'Connor "provided the swing vote 77 percent of the time. If confirmed, Alito would tip the high court's delicate balance radically to the right. Nearly always favoring the government, corporations and universities, Alito has ruled against individual rights in 84 percent of his dissents."

With Judge Samuel Alito, the Senate Judiciary Committee faces its most consequential Supreme Court confirmation hearing in a generation....never in memory has a single nomination so threatened to redirect the Court as Alito's. [His] fifteen years of rulings ... demonstrates that Alito is at odds with the interests of ordinary Americans.

Both newly appointed Chief Justice John Roberts and nominee Samuel Alito endorse an out-of-the-legal-mainstream theory dubbed the "unitary executive." This theory would elevate the president's powers at the expense of the Congress and judiciary branches, wreaking havoc with the balance of power. Given that President Bush is currently under fire for authorizing torture, and warrantless NSA wiretaps of American citizens (which is a felony), allowing him to appoint another justice who seems hand-picked to approve of that would be ill-advised, to say the least. Alito is not just a garden variety conservative. Senators need to understand that by confirming Alito, they would shrink Congress's Constitutional power -- in effect, cutting their own throats.

Alito was one of those pushing to elevate the power of the presidency two decades ago, by advocating "that the president make a 'signing statement' indicating what he thinks the law means when he signs a bill. Bush has issued at least 108 such signing statements, most recently, qualifying his concurrence with the McCain amendment that outlaws torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, to imply that he would be free to torture if he felt it was necessary for national security. 'Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our Constitution? If the President has the inherent authority to eavesdrop, imprison citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do?'

One questions needing an answer - if the Democrats cannot stand together now and filibuster this ruinous nominee, then why are they in office? Most of the Dem's, who have the power to stop this confirmation, will be long dead when Alito is still causing misery for their descendants. Will passivity and failure to protect Americans be the legacy left for their children?
Posted on The Human Stain