I've been asked, so...
Jan. 16th, 2006 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdI've been asked about my impressions about the Alito hearings and nominee Alito himself, so here they are.
Barring a miracle, Judge Alito will be confirmed as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court. The hearings are all but meaningless. It will be a largely party-line vote and there will be no filibuster. The entire exercise from the Democratic side has been to stall, mostly in the hope that he would self-destruct or hand them a trivial way to rile people up a bunch. Being cowards, they will not attempt to raise the actual issues themselves; instead, they'll just let him roll on through once they're done posturing.
On the bench, Justice Alito will be an advocate for the powerful in general, and for essentially-unlimited executive power, in regards to the presidency, in particular. His base assumption is that people in positions of authority (be it via power or wealth) generally have good reasons for doing the things they do, and should be given great deference. He is, as I've said in comments elsewhere, as strongly for governmental power in the seat of the executive as Senator Kennedy is for governmental power in the seat of the legislature. He is an authority-conservative rather than a libertarian- or Goldwater conservative.
All this seems clear from his record, his history, and, for that matter, the testimony of many of his supporters. The fundamentalists have picked up on this strongly and have started preaching (that word is not an accident, not after Justice Sunday III) more openly about the need to be deferential to authority - it's a religious virtue; falling into line is part of being right with their god. It is my opinion that everybody involved knows all of this, but, as discussed above, nobody in the opposition is willing to fight it on the actual issues, because it's complicated and difficult and they're too afraid to do any damn thing about it.
Either that, or because they look forward to having that kind of power if they ever manage to retake the executive, something his supporters apparently have no conception can ever, ever happen. In this regard, they are fools.
Because Alito styles himself an incrementalist, it will most likely be that he will be the fifth anti-Roe v. Wade vote on a series of rulings compromising the integrity of the precedent before being the fifth (or sixth, if Bush gets to name another justice) voting to overturn it entirely. It is also possible that he would support an overturning at an early opportunity; he certainly did make a point of not ruling that out during the hearings, and the fundamentalists are working to set up the test cases now. (See previous Cultural Warfare Updates for details.)
His record on race and the rights of women should be considered a high-contrast warning flag. He was a member of an avowedly anti-women and anti-minourity Princeton alumni group for several years, Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), and put it on his resume. No, he wasn't an activist; no, he wasn't heavily involved; yes, he was a member and more than willing to use it to try to get a job. Saying he was in it just for the ROTC is like saying you only joined the Klan because you liked their position on silver coinage; I don't like it and I don't buy it. His judicial record gives no room for reassurance on women; it carries with it implicit support for the idea that women are less important, as people, than men.
I expect him to be very friendly to the fundamentalists on state support of religion, of course. I do not think he would go so far as many of them would like, and declare that "religion" in the first amendment really means "Christianity (and oh yeah, Jews are okay too)," and he will not be an activist supporting, say, state-sponsoured prayer in schools, but should the court lean that far via a series of precedents, I suspect he would be a fellow-traveller and vote to support. I hope that, like many non-fundamentalist authority-conservatives, he will oppose nonsense like Creationism and ID.
On any attempt to overturn Lawrence v. Texas, I honestly don't know; given that he is not at all strong on equal-protection issues, I have concerns, but for that case to be overturned so quickly strikes me as unlikely. (Hopefully, I am not wrong!) I would certainly not expect a pro-marriage-rights vote out of him, however - or really, a pro-any-rights ruling.
As important as these rights-of-queers-like-me issues are to me in particular, I'm honestly more concerned about his, in my view, radical support for essentially-unrestrained executive power. I don't like it; I don't think it's originalist in any way; I don't think it's conservative in any sort of limited-government sense. Unfortunately, those issues are exactly why he's there. His views of the rights of women are similarly disturbing; they're at a level that would, alone, trigger strong resistance to his confirmation in me. But his views on executive power are so unrestrained that they take precedence over everything else.
I just wish we had a party that would just get up there and say it.
Barring a miracle, Judge Alito will be confirmed as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court. The hearings are all but meaningless. It will be a largely party-line vote and there will be no filibuster. The entire exercise from the Democratic side has been to stall, mostly in the hope that he would self-destruct or hand them a trivial way to rile people up a bunch. Being cowards, they will not attempt to raise the actual issues themselves; instead, they'll just let him roll on through once they're done posturing.
On the bench, Justice Alito will be an advocate for the powerful in general, and for essentially-unlimited executive power, in regards to the presidency, in particular. His base assumption is that people in positions of authority (be it via power or wealth) generally have good reasons for doing the things they do, and should be given great deference. He is, as I've said in comments elsewhere, as strongly for governmental power in the seat of the executive as Senator Kennedy is for governmental power in the seat of the legislature. He is an authority-conservative rather than a libertarian- or Goldwater conservative.
All this seems clear from his record, his history, and, for that matter, the testimony of many of his supporters. The fundamentalists have picked up on this strongly and have started preaching (that word is not an accident, not after Justice Sunday III) more openly about the need to be deferential to authority - it's a religious virtue; falling into line is part of being right with their god. It is my opinion that everybody involved knows all of this, but, as discussed above, nobody in the opposition is willing to fight it on the actual issues, because it's complicated and difficult and they're too afraid to do any damn thing about it.
Either that, or because they look forward to having that kind of power if they ever manage to retake the executive, something his supporters apparently have no conception can ever, ever happen. In this regard, they are fools.
Because Alito styles himself an incrementalist, it will most likely be that he will be the fifth anti-Roe v. Wade vote on a series of rulings compromising the integrity of the precedent before being the fifth (or sixth, if Bush gets to name another justice) voting to overturn it entirely. It is also possible that he would support an overturning at an early opportunity; he certainly did make a point of not ruling that out during the hearings, and the fundamentalists are working to set up the test cases now. (See previous Cultural Warfare Updates for details.)
His record on race and the rights of women should be considered a high-contrast warning flag. He was a member of an avowedly anti-women and anti-minourity Princeton alumni group for several years, Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), and put it on his resume. No, he wasn't an activist; no, he wasn't heavily involved; yes, he was a member and more than willing to use it to try to get a job. Saying he was in it just for the ROTC is like saying you only joined the Klan because you liked their position on silver coinage; I don't like it and I don't buy it. His judicial record gives no room for reassurance on women; it carries with it implicit support for the idea that women are less important, as people, than men.
I expect him to be very friendly to the fundamentalists on state support of religion, of course. I do not think he would go so far as many of them would like, and declare that "religion" in the first amendment really means "Christianity (and oh yeah, Jews are okay too)," and he will not be an activist supporting, say, state-sponsoured prayer in schools, but should the court lean that far via a series of precedents, I suspect he would be a fellow-traveller and vote to support. I hope that, like many non-fundamentalist authority-conservatives, he will oppose nonsense like Creationism and ID.
On any attempt to overturn Lawrence v. Texas, I honestly don't know; given that he is not at all strong on equal-protection issues, I have concerns, but for that case to be overturned so quickly strikes me as unlikely. (Hopefully, I am not wrong!) I would certainly not expect a pro-marriage-rights vote out of him, however - or really, a pro-any-rights ruling.
As important as these rights-of-queers-like-me issues are to me in particular, I'm honestly more concerned about his, in my view, radical support for essentially-unrestrained executive power. I don't like it; I don't think it's originalist in any way; I don't think it's conservative in any sort of limited-government sense. Unfortunately, those issues are exactly why he's there. His views of the rights of women are similarly disturbing; they're at a level that would, alone, trigger strong resistance to his confirmation in me. But his views on executive power are so unrestrained that they take precedence over everything else.
I just wish we had a party that would just get up there and say it.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 11:04 pm (UTC)That is the most damning thing I think I've heard about him to date. That is the sort of thing that should have been brought clearly foward. I want a Strict Constitutionalist on the court, and nothing but in all of its positions.
As for the hearings, I thought that Kennedy and Schumer turned it into a travesty. Attack attack attack, and just make total fools of yourselves. I don't know who they were pandering too, but it wasn't the average citizen, I stopped listening to anything they say years ago because of their tactics. If someone had made the case that in a choice between citizens and government, all other things being equal, that he'd rule for the government I'd definitely be against him. After all, governments change, the people don't.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 12:14 am (UTC)On the other hand, I do see the political calculus of avoiding a filibuster, even though I disagree with it. The Democrats are calculating that Roe itself is safe since its status was 6-3, and Alito's nomination will only make it 5-4. That's assuming that Kennedy doesn't reverse himself. Given the opportunity to write a new opinion, however, I can see Kennedy performing some legal acrobatics to take on Roe in some form. That also ignores the various 5-4 abortion rulings that will now go the other way with Alito voting instead of O'Connor. And, as you allude, reproductive freedom is not the only freedom at stake.
It's ugly, but we lost this battle when we allowed Bush to win in 2004. I don't think people are going to notice until it's their rights that can no longer be exercised. It's going to take at least a reversal on Roe, if not an attack on Griswold, to wake enough people out of their slumber that they start voting against Republicans in sufficient numbers to turn the judicial tide.
I think the Democrats should have avoided any attempt at gotchas, come right out and said they opposed Alito on principle despite his qualifications, and then spent their time on the committee starkly depicting the real choice at hand. "A vote to confirm Alito is a vote against our essential liberties and in favor of unchecked monarchical power. We Democrats are united against it, and urge mainstream Republicans to join us." Had they done that, they might have built public support for a filibuster, and even failing that would have put a lot of pressure on Republicans to vote no or come off as the radicals they are.
But now? By not making the stark choice clear, they came off looking petty, just like Banner says below. It's not the first time--the Congress folded on Clarence Thomas way back when, rather than take his extremist ideology on directly. I do think a lot of it is that the Senate Democrats are more concerned about power than the good of the country, and so they don't want to take any stand that might constrain their own power in the future. So they'll go along with the delusion that the Senate is a venerable and dignified debating club. It's kind of sick, really.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 01:37 am (UTC)I oppose unchecked power in the government. I did not like the recent Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain, Kelo v. New London (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._New_London), and Alito would make such rulings worse. I work for a federal agency that would be scary if it abused its power, and I hate President Bush's attitude that he gets to define what counts as abuse.
The fundamentalists have picked up on this strongly and have started preaching (that word is not an accident, not after Justice Sunday III) more openly about the need to be deferential to authority - it's a religious virtue; falling into line is part of being right with their god.
That is a medieval attitude. The Bible does not call deference to government authority a religious virtue (or at least I missed seeing any such virtue in my reading). It does have some virtues that are close. Deference to God is a virtue, so the Jews were asked to follow the civil laws that God gave at Mount Sinai. But as for other governments, the Bible says simply not to rebel in the name of religion. The Bible has several examples of people stopping evil rulers by persuasion rather than rebellion. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things which belong to Caesar, and unto God the things which belong to God," when asked about paying taxes to the conquering Roman government. I interpret that as we people owe the government for the services it provides us, and nothing more.
Erin Schram
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 04:48 am (UTC)