I volunteered to participate in “The Twelve Days of Justice” because I believe Judge Samuel Alito is a right-wing nut job. It is my opinion that he will fundamentally alter the way that we now view the U.S. Constitution so that my children will grow up in a world that I will not recognize. Nothing I have read over the course of the first eight days has changed my mind. If anything, I am more frightened at the prospect of a Roberts-Scalia-Thomas-Alito block controlling the court. Here are the diaries for days one through eight:
Day one: The Coming Alito Attack on the Legislative Branch by tampopo.
Day two: Alito Hates Old People and Those with Families by AP.
Day three: Alito Is Ethically Challenged by Steven D.
Day four: Alito Hates the Disabled by susanhu.
Day five: Say Bye-Bye to the Right to Choose by Connecticut Man 1.
Day six: Church and State Are Like Two Peas in a Pod by Alice.
Day seven: Alito’s a Threat to the Establishment Clause by Alice.
Day eight: Alito Hates Girls by Teacher Toni.
If you haven’t been on board up until now, that’s okay. You can easily go back through the list and catch up with the rest of us. We want to flood their offices with our letters in opposition to Alito before they get started on the hearings.
Feel free to share this around the blogosphere. My contribution can be cut and pasted from the blockquote below. Try mailing it, e-mailing it, faxing it, or calling up and reading it to some poor staffer. Here are the contact links:
Your Senators
The Judiciary Committee
Your Representatives
Via Web FAX
Thanks to tampopo for organizing this and to everyone at the Booman Tribune for working so hard to try to defeat this nominee and preserve justice.
Dear Senator,
The United States Supreme Court has struggled through the decades to live up to the promise that America is a land where “all men are created equal.” From an early history that treated African-Americans as property and later allowed for legal segregation, the Court has evolved through the Civil Rights era to support equality for all races in the eyes of the law. We have still not met the full promise of our founding fathers, but the Court has made substantial progress.
In examining the judicial record and personal history of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, I am concerned that he has expressed opinions which would set back much of the progress that has been made by the Court in assuring the equality that should be our highest ideal. My concerns are shared by the 42 House members of the Congressional Black Caucus:
“The Congressional Black Caucus, which includes 42 House members… will announce Thursday its opposition to Alito…. ‘The members of the CBC are concerned about Judge Alito’s opinions, many in dissent, in race cases where his decisions have disproportionately affected African-Americans,’ said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., the caucus chairman. ‘We are troubled by what appears to be a very conservative judicial philosophy that seems greatly at odds with much of 20th century constitutional jurisprudence,’ Watt said.” – Associated Press, December 7, 2005.
The CBC’s concerns are supported by the record. In his dissent in Bray v. Marriott Hotels (1997), Alito’s logic actually allows lawful, race based discrimination. The majority decision in the case noted that Alito would have protected racist practices by “immuniz[ing] an employer from the reach of Title VII if the employer’s belief that it had selected the `best’ candidate was the result of conscious racial bias.”
Alito has been similarly hostile to the rights of immigrants. In opinions ruling against immigrants, Alito “guts the statutory standard” and “ignores our precedent” according the majority opinion in DIA v. Ashcroft (2003), and he contradicts “well-recognized rules of statutory construction” according to the majority opinion in Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft (2004).
These troubling legal opinions are compounded by revelations about Alito’s personal background in the Daily Princetonian (Alito ’72 Joined Conservative Alumni Group – November 18, 2005):
“[I]n a 1985 job application, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito ’72 wrote that he is ‘particularly proud’ of his work on cases arguing that ‘racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed…. ‘ Now, opponents to his nomination are using another piece of information from those documents to suggest he is far outside the mainstream in his political and social views: Near the end of his ‘Personal Qualifications Statement’ for a high-level job in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department, Alito wrote that he was ‘a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, a conservative alumni group….’ But Marsha Levy-Warren ’73, who was a member of the University’s first coeducational class and student government vice president, remembers things differently…. [S]he said the group ‘stated explicitly that they were not in favor of coeducation and that they weren’t in favor of affirmative action. Implicitly, they were opposed to any form of diversity on campus.’ “
Our Supreme Court has evolved historically toward the original promise that “all men are created equal.” Nominee Alito is a step in the wrong direction. Vote no on his confirmation and force President Bush to send a nominee to the court who will ensure equal rights to American citizens without regard to their race.
Sincerely,