A Fight with a Twist: Democrats have a new weapon against Samuel Alito

By Massimo Calabresi
Time
Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005



Ever get a gift that looks beautiful but comes with a long list of special-care instructions? That's what opponents of Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito got last week when his 1985 application for a job in the Reagan Justice Department surfaced in Washington. In it, Alito espoused the idea that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion." With a solid majority of Americans in favor of legalized abortion, Alito's opponents thought they had finally found their cudgel. But the Senate Democrats, at least, did not seem prepared yet to use it bluntly: for Alito's nomination they have settled on a strategy that doesn't take abortion head on. "The tactic is going to be to frame it as a debate over broader rights, including privacy, civil rights and women's rights," says Jim Manley, the spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. This will avoid, Manley says, "the divisive debate over the word itself."

Democrats are wary because the majority of Americans are not dogmatic on the issue. While most want abortion to remain legal, they also support restraints on its use, and politicians who fail to strike a credible balance pay a price (think John Kerry). You could already see the Senate Democrats' cautious approach by observing their behavior last week. In a series of speeches Wednesday, Reid and Senators Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer spoke on Alito and the memo, but danced around abortion. On Thursday, the Senate's top five Democrats held a 40-min. strategy session in the anteroom of Reid's office with about 15 representatives of outside groups opposed to Alito's nomination. Abortion may have been on everyone's mind, but it was barely mentioned.

Even if the pro-choice case against Alito will be framed delicately, it is a surprise twist in the nomination that a battle is shaping up at all. A few weeks ago, it looked as if Alito might sail through the Senate as easily as Chief Justice John Roberts did last summer. But that changed with Bush's political fortunes. According to Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, when the President was riding high in the polls in January '05, 53% of the public said they had confidence in him to nominate good judges; now only 42% feel that way. "A President at 37% approval should expect fights at every turn," says centrist Democratic consultant Bruce Reed.

The Senate's more subtle pro-choice campaign will be tricky to pull off because it won't mesh with the high-volume voices of outside groups opposed to the nomination. A national coalition including the country's two largest pro-choice groups, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood, launched ads in Rhode Island, Maine and on national cable last week. NARAL has launched a grassroots campaign among 27 affiliates around the country timed for the Senate's Thanksgiving recess that will target members by requesting meetings, writing letters to editors and circulating petitions.




http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1132808,00.html

Voting Cases Could Shape Debate Over Alito

Court Nominee's Views On Warren-Era Reapportionment Decisions Puzzle Some Scholars

By JESS BRAVIN

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

November 21, 2005; Page A4

In his 1985 job application for the Reagan Justice Department, Samuel Alito asserted "disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment." The first two areas -- where a liberal Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren imposed rules to deter police misconduct and struck down state-directed prayers -- are familiar targets of conservatives.

But reapportionment is a chapter of Warren Court jurisprudence rarely disputed since the 1960s, when Southern states fought decisions that effectively ended rules that had diluted the voting power of African-Americans. Now legal scholars are puzzling over what Judge Alito, President Bush's choice to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, meant in disagreeing with cases that enforced the doctrine of "one person, one vote" as the basic structure for American elections.

snip

Yesterday, Sen. Joseph Biden (D., Del.) said that Judge Alito's observation on reapportionment cases markedly increased the odds of a filibuster. "The fact that he questioned abortion and the idea of quotas is one thing. The fact he questioned the idea of the legitimacy of the reapportionment decisions of the Warren Court is even something well beyond that," Mr. Biden told "Fox News Sunday." If Judge Alito truly doubts the "one person, one vote" doctrine, "clearly, you'll find a lot of people, including me, willing to do whatever they can to keep him off the court."

After the essay surfaced last week, Judge Alito distanced himself from it, telling senators he wrote it as a candidate seeking a job, and that it didn't necessarily reflect his judicial philosophy. Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, speaking for the Bush administration, emphasizes that Judge Alito's statement didn't specifically dispute the "one person, one vote" doctrine.

snip/more

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113252961872202600-hMdwIGS7AddNV__WM_Dj0SkjxaY_20061120.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

and he doesn't believe in one man one vote.

So, who HASN'T he offended?

Oh, and a man who will lie to get a job, which seems to be his excuse, is a man who will lie.

No wonder George likes him.

eom

Repugs call for and up or down vote, then hit them hard with well you didn't even give Harriet a chance. Pick their words back in their vile mouths.

Not sure what it means, but interesting.

Abortion isn't "couched" with other issues- it's fundamentally intertwined with privacy and civil liberties. You cannot separate the two- and had this "journalist" even looked into (or God forbid informed her readers about) the reasons why that is under constitutional law, she might actually have written a fair piece of analysis.

That probably wouldn't have gone over well with the editors of Time," though....