Samuel Alito Comments from Rep. Sean Faircloth Senators Snowe and Collins say they oppose judicial activism. Senators Snowe and Collins say they oppose legislating from the bench. Now is their chance. Imagine, if you will, President Hilary Clinton. Imagine if she nominated someone for the Supreme Court. Further assume that this judge’s colleagues had said about this nominee he ignored QUOTE “well-established principles” of statutory interpretation. Not only that, but assume that this Hilary Clinton nominee was, according to his own colleagues, in another case, and I quote: “Gut[ting] the statutory standard.” (Lee v. Ashcroft; Dia v. Ashcroft) “Ignoring well-established principles of statutory interpretation?” intoned Rush Limbaugh. “That’s legislating from the bench! What a lack of respect for the law!” “’Gutting the statutory standard’!? He clearly lacks the stature required of a judge,” quotes a screaming Bill O’Reilly. But President Hilary Clinton is in even bigger trouble because then another case comes to light in which her nominee ignores a long established Supreme Court principle -- and is overturned by several respected Republican members of the US Supreme Court for doing so. “Will this activism never stop? Will this disregard for the law ever stop?” cries Tom Delay. Can you imagine how coordinated, how forceful, the Republican response would be to a Clinton nominee who had been chastised by fellow judges in such terms? You do know, because you’ve seen many times how forceful is the rhetoric of Limbaugh, DeLay, and O’Reilly with less justification. Yet all these quotes – all these characterizations -- come NOT from me or from some interest group, but from sitting judges chastising, not a Clinton nominee, but rather Judge Alito for “gutting the statutory standard” and “ignoring well-established” principles of statutory interpretation. Senators Snowe and Collins say they oppose judicial activism. Senators Snowe and Collins say they oppose legislating from the bench. If Senators Snowe and Collins mean what they say, then they have no choice. They must oppose Judge Alito and they need not wait for a hearing in January which will do nothing to change Judge Alito’s many published opinions. See more examples below. Michael Chertoff, Republican Michael Chertoff, appointed by first Bush to be a U.S. Attorney, Michael Chertoff fundraiser for the second President Bush, opposed by the ACLU when he was appointed to the bench by Bush, and now President Bush’s homeland security chief, yes THAT Michael Chertoff, sat as a Judge with Samuel Alito. In the Groody case, a search and seizure case, Judge Chertoff wrote that Judge Alito’s interpretation would “transform the judicial officer into little more than a rubber stamp” and “dangerously displacing the role of an independent magistrate.” In the dispute between Chertoff and Alito, Chertoff is the strict constructionist, not Alito. And Alito is to Chertoff’s right. This is one of many examples of Alito’s judicial activism to achieve ideological goals. In the Bray case, 11 judges were on one side and Alito was on the other. The 11 judges were both Democratic and Republican appointees, In the Bray the 11 judges majority wrote, quote, the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act would be “eviscerated” – their words-- if the Alito view were to prevail. Republicans SAY they seek someone who respects the plain language of the statute and the prerogative of Congress. But when it’s the most important civil rights law of the 20th Century, to be revered just as we revere Rosa Parks, Alito actively intervenes in opposition to 11 bipartisan judges to hamstring this hallowed law. In Sheridan, another Civil Rights case, Judge Alito’s position would, according to the judges in the majority, "immunize an employer from the reach of Title VII [of the 1964 Civil Rights Act] if the employer's belief that it had selected the 'best' candidate, was the result of conscious racial bias." Disabled Americans? Consider this judicial activism. In the Nathanson case, a woman in a terrible car accident requested a chair to accommodate her disability. A claim was brought under a disability rights law, the Rehabilitation Act. If Judge Alito’s view of the Rehabilitation Act would to prevail, according to the majority of the court, “few IF ANY Rehabilitation Act cases” would get a chance to be heard in court. Alito time and again demonstrates an activist disregard for laws passed by the Congress and signed by the president – exactly what Republicans claim they don’t want. The Supreme Court ruled decades ago that based on the 14th Amendment elective offices must enforce a one person one vote standard. On the old days rural districts often racist would have more power than urban districts. This has earned bipartisan support for decades, including from extremely conservative Republican appointees like Chief Justice Rehnquist. Judge Alito has expressly stated that he disagrees with the one person one vote ruling, a truly activist position that was a pillar of the Jim Crow laws. Judge Alito disagreed with Justice O’Connor, and several other Republican appointees to our highest court, when he claimed state governments can deny state employees the benefit of the Family and Medical Leave Act. Here’s another: Judge Alito said a defendant was not entitled to a hearing in what a circuit court judge called a “shocking ineffective assistance of counsel” in a death penalty case. On appeal, the Supreme Court majority disagreed with Judge Alito. And consider the majority: Justice Souter, a Republican appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush; Justice Stevens, a Republican appointed by Republican President Ford; and, yes, Justice O’Connor, a Republican appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan. One has to be very far right to be far right of Justice O’Connor (as Judge Alito’s written opinions prove him to be). Justice O’Connor, a Goldwater Republican, is no lefty. Indeed Justice O’Connor joined the majority in the most infamous case of the last century, Bush v. Gore, which even conservative scholars admit has no legal basis, merely a political goal (the Republican wins). O’Connor, Souter, and Stevens are now and always have been Republicans. Alito’s own published decisions demonstrate he is an activist to the right of all of them. When Woodward and Bernstein’s landmark Supreme Court book, The Brethren, came out a quarter century ago, they described Justice Stevens exactly as he was (and is): a moderate Republican. Back then there were actual liberal justices (Thurgood Marshall and William Douglas). Those days are gone. Judge Alito, if appointed, will be the culmination of a quarter century shift to the far right. Judge Alito, as right-wing activists acknowledge, is the tipping point nominee. Judge Alito’s colleagues have repeatedly chastised him for ignoring the rules of statutory interpretation. Judge Alito is an activist who legislates from the bench. Indeed that is exactly why Judge Alito was nominated. Senators Collins and Snowe, based on their own stated principles, have no choice but to oppose this nominee. Sean Faircloth is an attorney and State Representative. Sean Faircloth, all rights reserved.