Alito Confirmation Battle Begins Today

Posted on January 9, 2006

ABA may release a letter that will directly contradict the Alito-Vangard issue that Democrats are raising.

The NY Times focuses on the differences in today’s hearings compared to the relative smooth sailing of Roberts. They also note how it was a conservative for conservative swap in the Robert’s confirmation, and this is a conservative for moderate swap.

Poliblogger notes:

Much has been made of that latter point over the last several months, although as political scientist Charles Franklin noted a while back, the likelihood is that the replacing of O’Connor with Alito isn’t likely to upset the balance of the Court as much as many have wanted/feared (depending on one’s ideological predilections)

No matter how Alito answers questions, many critics will oppose him anyway.

One of Alito’s Democratic critics, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, said he sees tendencies by Alito to defer to the executive branch.

“In an era when the White House is abusing power, has authorized torture and is spying on American citizens, I find your support for an all-powerful executive branch and almost unlimited power for government agents to be deeply troubling,” Kennedy said in a pre-released excerpt from his opening statement. Source

We will do our best to keep an eye on things. Today is only the beginning of what is going to be an ugly fight.
There will be six major issues that the democrats will be trying to use to obstruct the confirmation of Alito.

1. His view on abortion:

In an application for the job of deputy assistant attorney general written nearly 20 years ago , Alito, then working in the Solicitor General’s office preparing cases for argument for the Supreme Court, said, “I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”

2. Strip searching a 10 year old girl.

This is one the democrats are trying to use to vilify Alito. They twist this ruling completely out of context in hopes people will think Alito is an extremist that doesn’t care about privacy. The issue before the court was not whether the search was proper but whether police should be faced with possible monetary fines for acting reasonably on the basis of the warrant and affidavit.

3. No Federal Ban on Machine Guns

In a 1996 case called United States v. Rybar, Alito dissented from two of his colleagues who upheld a federal law banning possession of machine guns. Democrats will try to throw this one out, but I doubt it has enough substance to stick very much.

4. Shooting a 15 year old in the back

In this case involving a 15-year old boy who broke into a house at night, the police arrived at the scene and ordered the burglar to halt. When he didn’t, an officer shot him to prevent his escape. Alito argued it was an issue better solved through the legislative branch. Another issue that doesn’t have any substance.

5. The race card

The Washington Post has a good roundup of how the Democrats are ready to go after Alito:

Kennedy described the now-disbanded group, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, as “anti-black, anti-disabled and anti-women,” but he said Alito in 1985 “took a sense of pride in belonging to” it. Alito has said recently he does not recall participating in the group. Democrats say that is an example of evasions they will aggressively challenge.

This one doesn’t have much sticking power either, due to the fact that their star witness turned out to have no credibility. Besides, most reasonable people are not going to buy into the B.S. that just because he was a member of an organization that a racist was also a member of would make him a racist. If we followed that line of thinking, the entire democratic party would have to condemn itself for former KKK member Byrd.

6. THE BIGGIE! Expect to hear the same questions repeated a thousand times, and hours focused on this particular issue:

DOMESTIC SPYING BY THE BIG BAD BROTHER FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

In 1984 Alito wrote a memo supporting the position held by the Carter and Reagan administration that former Attorney General John Mitchell should have immunity from lawsuits starting from domestic national security wiretapping that he ordered in 1970.

The Supreme Court later rejected this position.

Expect the dems to really focus in on this one. In my prediction, they will make this the spotlight of their showdown. They want to keep this issue in the center stage, since it has come up as a more recent controversy.

Rightwing Nuthouse reviews the questions the media are asking, and concludes they are good for the public debate. He also notes that we all know where the Senate debate is headed, the sewers. Professor Bainbridge doesn’t quite agree with that.

It is gonna be an ugly fight folks. Hold on tight.

Blogs For Bush covering things at the RNC Blogger forum
Michelle Malkin has a great Alito Roundup

» Filed Under News, Supreme Court

Trackback URL

Comments

2 Responses to “Alito Confirmation Battle Begins Today”

Kevin Mark Smith on January 9th, 2006 12:12 pm

6-3 liberal majorities with become, at best, 5-4 pluralities. Likewise for Conservative votes. Only when Stevens, Ginsberg or Breyer is replaced by a conservative will anything substantial happen.
jeff tomerson on January 9th, 2006 1:32 pm

In a report issued Friday, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service said it would be difficult if not impossible to read congressional support for warrantless spying into the 2001 use-of-force resolution. Over the weekend, the not-at-all non-partisan Sam Brownback said much the same thing. Asked whether he believed the use-of-force resolution authorized the warrantless spying program, the conservative senator from Kansas said: “It didn’t, in my vote. I voted for that resolution. That was a week after 9/11. There was nothing you were going to do to stop us from going to war in Afghanistan, but there was no discussion in anything that I was around that that gave the president a broad surveillance authority with that resolution.”