Alito, S

SEE TWO

under b2 coc guy ~v refs head of osha (their legal arm got roberts and alito confirmed) 266bak 921

opus dei?! eastman? ginni? barb ledeen?
<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/alito-2663217962/">https://www.alternet.org/alito-2663217962/</a></div><div>
</div><div>alito inc tax recuse?</div><div>=</div><div>=</div><div>old? roberts hid x</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/alito-2659695479/">https://www.alternet.org/alito-2659695479/</a></div><div>=</div><div>ALSO ~ WOTUS</div><div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div>=</div><div>tom b raw an 5 23</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/brett-kavanaugh-lobbed-the-judicial-version-of-a-grenade-at-sam-alito-this-week-analysis-2660660997/">https://www.alternet.org/brett-kavanaugh-lobbed-the-judicial-version-of-a-grenade-at-sam-alito-this-week-analysis-2660660997/</a></div><div>reacting to a blunt-talking concurring opinion submitted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh taking on the ruling authored by colleague Sam Alito, Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson suggested in <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/brett-kavanaugh-tells-us-exactly-justice-alito-got-wrong-rcna86336" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a new column for MSNBC</a> there is the makings<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/brett-kavanaugh-tells-us-exactly-justice-alito-got-wrong-rcna86336" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> of a schism developing within the conservative majority court.</a>At issue was the court severely limiting the ability of the government to enforce the Clean Water Act, with Kavanaugh agreeing with the ultimate decision, but siding with the liberal wing in pointing out that the court is making law instead of interpreting it.

According to Levinson, the court's ruling was an egregious assertion of the court's authority and "the court’s ruling isn’t merely practically pernicious for those who care about the environment; it is legally wrong."

As she notes, the conservative wing of the court continually emphasizes that they are jurists and not elected lawmakers and, surprisingly, Kavanaugh reminded Alito of that in the text of his concurrence.<div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div>"It is unusual for Kavanaugh to break with his conservative colleagues, and the fact that he did so here shows us how truly baseless the court’s reasoning is," she suggested before explaining, "Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion explains why the court’s interpretation of the text of the Clean Water Act is fundamentally unmoored from the text itself. To use his words, 'the Court is imposing a restriction nowhere to be found in the text.'"

"The question before the court in this case was which wetlands are considered to be 'adjacent' to a body of water covered by the act, and therefore itself protected by the act," she wrote. "While the court’s ultimate decision was unanimous, its reasoning was splintered. A thin five-member majority of the court, defying basic rules of legal interpretation, concluded that 'adjacent' means 'adjoining.'"

As she notes Kavanaugh pointed out that the court went out of its way to ignore the obvious meanings of the words involved."Kavanaugh tells us exactly why Justice Alito got it wrong, as well: his interpretation goes against the 'ordinary meaning' of the word 'adjacent' and the 'longstanding agency practice' of the Army Corps. Referring to dictionaries for the plain and ordinary meaning of the word adjacent, Kavanaugh notes, 'the definitions of "adjacent" are notably explicit that two things need not touch each other in order to be adjacent,'" she elaborated.

According to Levinson, Kavanaugh was being brutally blunt with Alito and his other conservative colleagues when he wrote, "I would stick to the text.”

"These six words are nothing less than the judicial version of a grenade," the law professor wrote before adding, "Kavanaugh is essentially reminding the majority that they had one job, and one job alone, when interpreting a federal law: to follow the text. They failed to do so. We will live with the practical and legal consequences of that failure for years to come."

You can read <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/brett-kavanaugh-tells-us-exactly-justice-alito-got-wrong-rcna86336" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">her whole column here</a>---an 5 23no lnxU.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority on Thursday severely curtailed protections for "waters of the United States."The decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is "unanimous in result but very split in reasoning," explained Slate's Mark Joseph Stern. "The upshot of Sackett is that, by a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court dramatically narrows" which wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act (CWA).The majority opinion—authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by all of the court's other right-wing members except Justice Brett Kavanaugh—concludes that the CWA only applies to wetlands with "a continuous surface connection" to larger bodies of water, excluding those that are "adjacent."Earthjustice declared in response to the ruling that "this is a catastrophic loss for water protections across the country and a win for big polluters, putting our communities, public health, and local ecosystems in danger."Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), was similarly critical, saying that "the Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands.""The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price," Bapna warned."What's important now is to repair the damage," he added. "The government must enforce the remaining provisions of law that protect the clean water we all rely on for drinking, swimming, fishing, irrigation, and more. States should quickly strengthen their own laws. Congress needs to act to restore protections for all our waters."Elizabeth Southerland, former director of science and technology in EPA's Office of Water, noted that "since 1989, the U.S. government has used Clean Water Act authority to either prevent the filling of wetlands or to permit filling only when an equal acreage of wetlands is reclaimed or restored.""Wetland preservation is critical for providing flood control, absorbing pollutants, preventing shoreline erosion, storing carbon, and serving as a nursery for wildlife," stressed Southerland, now a volunteer with the Environmental Protection Network.Thursday's decision, she said, "is a big win for land developers and miners, who will now be free to destroy certain types of wetlands without paying for wetland reclamation," and "a big loss for communities who will have to pay more to treat their drinking water and respond to increased flooding and shoreline erosion."The high court was criticized for hearing the case—brought by an Idaho couple denied a permit by the EPA—as the federal agencuy was finalizing a new waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule following the Trump administration's widely condemned rollback. The Biden administration's policy was just finalized in December."While Earthjustice and our allies are closely evaluating the impact of the Sackett decision on the new WOTUS regulation," said Sam Sankar, the legal group's vice president of programs, "we can say with certainty that the court has once again given polluting industries and land developers a potent weapon that they will use to erode regulatory protections for wetlands and waterways around the country."
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</div><div>Under the guise of the regressive legal theory of “originalism,” the United States Supreme Court Republican-appointed majority has issued a series of ultra-right rulings on such vital issues as <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voting</a> <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">rights</a>, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/18-422" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">gerrymandering</a>, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-1466" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">union</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-curbs-union-power-farm-access-dispute-2021-06-23/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">organizing</a>, the <a href="https://casetext.com/case/glossip-v-gross" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">death penalty</a>, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">environmental protection</a>, <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep554/usrep554570/usrep554570.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">gun</a> <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">control</a>, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">abortion</a>, and <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">campaign finance</a>. The end goal appears to be nothing less than the dismantling of the last vestiges of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement.But in addition to being reactionary, is the court also guilty of corruption? The answer depends on how we define and think of corruption.In the strictest legal sense, the justices appear to be in the clear. Under <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndfl/programs/public-corruption" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">federal law</a>, “public corruption” is defined as “a breach of the public’s trust by government officials who use their public office to obtain personal gain,” asking for or receiving anything of value in exchange for an official act. In a <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mcdonnell-v-united-states/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">2016 decision</a> reversing the bribery conviction of former Virginia GOP Governor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_McDonnell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bob McDonnell</a>, the Supreme Court narrowed the legal definition of public corruption to require strict proof of a “quid pro quo”—a swap of money or another benefit in return for a specific governmental favor.But from a larger moral and political perspective, the court’s Republican majority is far from innocent. We expect all federal judges—and particularly those at the top of the judicial pyramid—not only to be law-abiding but to be free of political bias and conflicts of interest. We expect them to honor the enormous faith we have placed in them to use their lifetime appointments to be forthright stewards of justice and democracy.That faith has been breached time and again.<a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges#c" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ethical Cannon 2A of The Code of Conduct for United States Judges</a> requires those who don the robe to “respect and comply with the law,” and “to act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” Cannon 2B further advises that a “judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment.”There also is federal statute, found at <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Title 28, section 455 of the United States Code</a>, that requires judges to disqualify themselves when they have a personal bias or prejudice toward a party, or when the judge or their spouse has a financial interest in a proceeding, or they or their spouses have “any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome” of a proceeding before them.The problem is that the Code of Conduct <a href="https://fixthecourt.com/fix/code-of-ethics/#:_{:text=The%20nine%20justices%20of%20the,and%20participation%20in%20political%20activities.}" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">does not apply to the Supreme Court</a>. And there is no mechanism for enforcing the disqualification criteria against a sitting justice. The Supreme Court stands alone as the only tribunal in the nation without any ethical accountability beyond impeachment, which for all practical purposes is an ineffective remedy. (Only one Justice in our entire history has been impeached—<a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/impeachment/impeachment-chase.htm#:_{:text=The%20House%20voted%20to%20impeach,in%20two%20politically%20sensitive%20cases.}" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Samuel Chase</a> in 1804—and he was acquitted by the Senate.)The most obvious offender is Clarence Thomas, who has gotten away with flagrant misconduct as a result of this lack of accountability. Under the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43186.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">1978 Ethics in Government Act</a>, all high-ranking federal officials are required to file yearly financial disclosure statements for themselves and their spouses to safeguard against conflicts of interest. But for many years, Thomas <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2011-jan-22-la-na-thomas-disclosure-20110122-story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">failed to report his wife Ginni's earnings</a> on the mandatory annual financial disclosure forms that he signed under penalty of perjury, indicating that his spouse had no non-investment income. In fact, she was steadily employed in high-level jobs as a policy analyst and an outspoken conservative activist.According to Common Cause, Ginni—who is also a lawyer—received more than <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2011/02/clarence_thomas_gets_away_with_breaking_the_law_ginni_thomas_shills_for_right-wing_interests/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$686,000</a> between 2003 and 2007 working for the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, claiming incredulously that he had <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-criminal-behavior-on-financial-disclosure" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">misunderstood</a> his reporting responsibilities, Thomas amended his financial disclosures, which can now be examined on the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/clarence-thomas/reports?cid=N99999918&year=2018" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">OpenSecrets.org</a> website.Thomas again generated headlines when he <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/25/1088720571/ginni-thomas-tex-messages-mark-meadows-2020-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">refused to recuse himself in cases</a> involving the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, despite Ginni’s prominent role as an organizer of the “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/legal-scholars-are-shocked-by-ginni-thomass-stop-the-steal-texts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">stop the steal</a>” campaign.Thomas is not the only justice with a spouse whose work has raised conflict-of-interest questions. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/john-roberts-jane-sullivan-roberts.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The New York Times</a>, Chief Justice Roberts’ wife Jane has made millions in her career as a recruiter for high-profile law firms, some of which litigate cases before the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice, however, has never recused himself from a matter involving his wife’s recruits and has never disclosed her client list on his annual financial reports.Additional potential conflicts of interest have surfaced around donations made to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_Historical_Society" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Supreme Court Historical Society</a>, a non-profit charity founded in 1974 to promote and celebrate the court’s legacy. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/us/supreme-court-leak-abortion-roe-wade.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Over the past two decades</a>, the society reportedly raised more than $23 million from corporations, law firms, and other groups. The donors, in turn, receive special access to the Justices, who regularly attend the society’s annual black-tie dinner as well as lectures and other functions the society sponsors.Among those who have attended society events and helped raise donations on its behalf is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Schenck" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Reverend Rob Schenck</a>, an Evangelical minister and anti-abortion crusader. In a <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/roberts-letter-redacted-annotated/fb6e34bb904bfafa/full.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">June 2022 letter</a> to Chief Justice Roberts and in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/us/supreme-court-leak-abortion-roe-wade.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">later interviews</a> with The New York Times, Schenck claimed he was told in advance of the court’s 2014 decision in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-354" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Burwell v. Hobby Lobby</a>, which held that the owners of for-profit corporations may lawfully refuse to fund health insurance coverage for employees for contraception on religious grounds. The source of the leak, Schenck alleged, was Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the Hobby Lobby majority opinion.Alito also has been at the center of the scandalous leak last May of the draft majority opinion in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-organization/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a>, which Alito wrote, overruling <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Roe v. Wade</a>.</div><div>=</div><div>===</div><div>an badash 2 23</div><div>
</div><div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2659336651"><div class="body-description">The highly controversial and highly unpopular <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=U.S.+Supreme+Court" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">U.S. Supreme Court</a> isn’t just facing <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/12/gee-i-wonder-why-top-political-science-professor-mocks-supreme-court-as-approval-rating-drops-to-lowest-on-record/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">a historic loss of confidence</a>,

it’s now facing yet another ethics scandal that is likely to lower even

further public opinion of the far-right institution that in under two

decades has <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">seen its approval rating slashed</a>.Although

it will not hear arguments, the issue before the Supreme Court and the

American people’s view of it, is, should a justice’s spouse – in this

case the spouse of Chief Justice John Roberts – be able to make millions

of dollars recruiting attorneys who are placed into top law firms that

argue cases before it?That’s the latest allegation, and already a spokesperson for the Court has issued a statement denying any ethical violations.<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/john-roberts-jane-sullivan-roberts.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">The New York Times</a>

reports that “a former colleague of Mrs. Roberts has raised concerns

that her recruiting work poses potential ethics issues for the chief

justice. Seeking an inquiry, the ex-colleague has provided records to

the Justice Department and Congress indicating Mrs. Roberts has been

paid millions of dollars in commissions for placing lawyers at firms —

some of which have business before the Supreme Court, according to a

letter obtained by The New York Times.”Jane Sullivan Roberts left a law firm where she was a partner after her spouse was confirmed as Chief Justice.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/01/failed-leak-probe-will-add-to-public-distrust-and-accelerate-partisan-rancor-surrounding-supreme-court-analyst/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Failed Leak Probe Will ‘Add to Public Distrust’ and ‘Accelerate Partisan Rancor’ Surrounding Supreme Court: Analyst</a>“Mrs.

Roberts, according to a 2015 deposition,” The Times reports, “said that

a significant portion of her practice was devoted to helping senior

government lawyers land jobs at law firms and that the candidates’ names

were almost never disclosed.”Documents in that case “list

six-figure fees credited to Mrs. Roberts for placing partners at law

firms — including $690,000 in 2012 for one such match. The documents do

not name clients, but Mr. Price recalled her recruitment of one

prominent candidate, Ken Salazar, then interior secretary under

President Barack Obama, to WilmerHale, a global firm that boasts of

arguing more than 125 times before the Supreme Court.”That case

involves “a former colleague of Mrs. Roberts,” Kendal Price, a

66-year-old Boston lawyer, who “has raised concerns that her recruiting

work poses potential ethics issues for the chief justice.”“According

to the letter,” sent by Price to DOJ and Congress, which the Times

reports it obtained, “Mr. Price was fired in 2013 and sued the firm, as

well as Mrs. Roberts and another executive, over his dismissal.”Doug Lindner, Advocacy Director for Judiciary & Democracy for the League of Conservation Voters <a href="https://twitter.com/DougLindner/status/1620507678530486272" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">remarked</a>:

“Another day, another ethics concern about another life-tenured

conservative justice on the most powerful court in the world, which has

no binding ethics rules.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2023/01/marshal-spoke-with-supreme-court-justices-excluded-them-from-signing-sworn-affidavits-in-leak-probe/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Marshal ‘Spoke With’ Supreme Court Justices, Excluded Them From Signing Sworn Affidavits in Leak Probe</a>Indeed,

the lack of a Supreme Court code of ethics has been repeatedly

condemned for years, including by some of the nation’s top critics.On Sept. 1, 2022, The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin <a href="https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1565366132256686081" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">tweeted out</a> her opinion piece: “Ginni Thomas pressed Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory .. just another insurrectionist.”Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor for the Atlantic, <a href="https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1565369335971020801" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">responded</a>:“Another

reminder of how unethical is Justice Clarence Thomas, while Chief

Justice Roberts turns a blind eye and continues to resist a code of

ethics for a Supreme Court now distrusted by a majority of Americans.

This defines the Roberts Court.”The following month Ornstein slammed the Roberts Court once again.“It

is a stain on the Supreme Court that Chief Justice Roberts refuses to

support a Judicial Code of Ethics, and stands by silently while Clarence

Thomas flouts ethical standards over and over and over,” Ornstein <a href="https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1584658140099846144" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">charged</a>.Less than one month later he again <a href="https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1594024345638092800" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">unleashed on Roberts</a>.“Roberts

is culpable,” he tweeted. “He has resisted over and over applying the

Judicial Code of Ethics to the Supreme Court. This is Alito’s court, and

it is partisan and corrupt.”Ornstein is far from the Court’s only critic.“If

Chief Justice Roberts really wanted to address Supreme Court ethics, he

would have immediately worked to implement a Code of Conduct after

Clarence Thomas failed to recuse from cases involving January 6th

despite having a clear conflict of interest,” the government watchdog

group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington <a href="https://twitter.com/CREWcrew/status/1522169246041710592" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">tweeted</a> a year ago in May. The following month CREW published <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/analysis/justice-roberts-gets-it-wrong-federal-judges-conflicts-of-interest-threaten-the-entire-judiciary/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">an analysis</a> titled: “Chief Justice John Roberts is wrong: the American judicial system is facing a major ethics crisis.”Meanwhile, in late November <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/20/supreme-court-roberts-whitehouse-johnson-00069673" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Politico</a> reported that Democrats in Congress were outraged at the Roberts Court.“Two

senior Democrats in Congress are demanding that Chief Justice John

Roberts detail what, if anything, the Supreme Court has done to respond

to recent allegations of a leak of the outcome of a major case the high

court considered several years ago,” PoliticoJosh Bernstein reported,

referring to the leak of the Dobbs decision that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision – itself a massive ethics crisis for the Court.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/revealed-four-supreme-court-justices-attended-right-wing-gala-further-endangering-scotus-credibility/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Revealed: Four Supreme Court Justices Attended Right-Wing Gala — Further Endangering SCOTUS Credibility</a>“Sen.

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) are also

interested in examining claims about a concerted effort by religious

conservatives to woo the justices through meals and social engagements.

They wrote to Roberts on Sunday, making clear that if the court won’t

investigate the alleged ethical breaches, lawmakers are likely to launch

their own probe.”Whitehouse and Johnson “also criticized the high court’s response to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/20/justice-alito-birth-control-leak-allegations-2014-supreme-court-00069603" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">a letter they sent Roberts</a> in September, seeking information about the court’s reaction to reports in <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/08/religious-right-supreme-court-00044739" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">POLITICO</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roe-supreme-court-justices-1378046/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">Rolling Stone</a> about a yearslong campaign to encourage favorable decisions from the justices by bolstering their religiosity.”Nothing has changed.When the Roberts Court earlier this month announced its lengthy investigation did not find the draft Dobbs

decision leaker but also did not include the Justices themselves,

Stokes Prof. of Law at NYU Law School Melissa Murray, an MSNBC host, <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfMMurray/status/1616295952373153792" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">tweeted</a>,

“This is a Roberts Court leitmotif–The Chief loves to handle

things–even big things–in-house. Ethics issues? No need to get involved,

Congress. We’ll sort it out ourselves. Leak needs investigating? No

need to call in an actual investigative body, the Marshal will handle

it.”Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter

Jodi Kantor, pointing to how the Justices were not thoroughly

investigated during the leak probe, in earlier this month said: “Last

week the court released statements that confirmed the gap between how

the justices and everyone else were treated.”“The whole situation

amplifies a major question about the court: are these nine people,

making decisions that affect all of us, accountable to anyone?”</div></div>=</div>=
cnn 1 23...In

the early 1990s, as Roberts worked in the first Bush administration’s

Department of Justice, Chertoff was tapped by President George H.W. Bush

to be the US attorney in New Jersey. That post was previously held by

another current justice, Samuel Alito.

Chertoff

later took a turn through private practice and in 2003 joined Alito on

the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals. Chertoff was appointed by President

George W. Bush, in whose administration current justices Brett

Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch also served. In 2005, Chertoff left the bench

as Bush appointed him to be secretary of Homeland Security.<div>
</div><div>Previous work for the court

Chertoff

set up his private firm in 2009, and court sources said he was hired to

revamp court police security for the justices about four years ago.

During

this period, CNN learned at the time, the court was trying a new

approach in which each of the nine justices would have a permanent

security detail of the same officers. (This was before their protection

was enhanced as a result of the abortion case leak and regular protests

at the court and at justices’ homes.)

Chertoff’s firm was then

asked to advise the court in its response to Covid-19 and the justices’

safe return to courtroom proceedings.

Neither the court

nor Chertoff responded to CNN’s questions regarding whether The Chertoff

Group would have any part in carrying out his new recommendations,

which accompanied the January 19 report, to improve the justices’

security in the wake of the leak.....</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><div>=</div><div>
</div><div>an 11 22</div><div>Another batch of emails <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/02/trump-lawyers-saw-justice-thomas-as-only-chance-to-stop-2020-election-certification-00064592" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">obtained</a> from <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-hiding-emails-appeal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">John Eastman</a> shows <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-complains-to-florida-court-about-war-of-intimidation-from-ny-attorney-general/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Donald Trump's</a> lawyers were counting on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to help them disrupt Joe Biden's election win, and their certainty raises new questions about his wife's role in the scheme.Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote Dec. 31, 2020, that Thomas would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6" on a challenge to election results in Georgia, whose circuit court he oversees, and Washington Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany wondered on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" why he and Eastman felt so confident about the justice's willingness to assist."The fringy lawyers that were surrounding Trump and helping him in his efforts to overturn the results of the election in the last few months of his presidency had reason to believe, at least publicly, that justice Clarence Thomas was going to be sympathetic to their cause. Remember in December of 2020, Thomas along with [Justice Samuel] Alito issued a brief statement after the audacious Texas lawsuit was filed, calling to ultimately throw out the results of the 2020 election in four battleground states. The majority dismissed it, but Alito and Thomas expressed a statement that was sympathetic to the lawsuit, and said that the majority threw it out too quickly.""Now the question is, I think, privately, what reasons did John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have to believe that Thomas would be sympathetic to them if he got a lawsuit in front of them?" she added.vGinni Thomas was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/15/ginni-thomas-john-eastman-emails/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">corresponding</a> with Eastman during that same period, along with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Republican legislatures in key states won by Biden, and Alemany said the newly revealed emails place her under additional scrutiny."It's a very small world here," Alemany said. "There was no indication in the correspondence that either of the Thomases were [copied] on the e-mails, but you can clearly see why John Eastman was fighting hard to prevent the release of these e-mails."Host Joe Scarborough said the revelations were scandalous."It's shocking, the behavior between John Eastman, Ginni Thomas, and the efforts to overthrow, throw out democratic election for the presidency," Scarborough said. "Also, their misreading of what Clarence Thomas and Alito did when they went along with an opinion in a Pennsylvania case, the only time the court wrote anything of substance on the election challenges, they said about the Pennsylvania case, which involved the court in Pennsylvania overruling the state legislature. That race is a constitutional question, and I think they rightly said, this race has questions we probably should address now, but even if we did address them now, it wouldn't change the outcome of the election, so there you have even the two most conservative justices saying even if we take this question up, which we think we should, there aren't going to be enough votes to change the fact that Joe Biden's the next president of the United States."Watch the video below or <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-john-eastman-2658591959" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at this link</a>.</div><div>=</div></div>tom b raw an 10 22In a blunt-talking editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the editors took two of the most conservative members of the Supreme Court to task for doing little to halt the slide in the court's credibility that has been in freefall after it became a 6-3 conservative majority.Specifically, they cited Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito over a Thomas ruling last week, and a report on Alito dating back to his confirmation in 2005.In the case of Thomas, last week he interceded on behalf of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is balking at having to testify in an election corruption case in Georgia related to Trump's phone call to Georgia's secretary of state.Regarding his ruling temporarily granting Graham relief, the editors wrote, "... as with anything regarding that election, having Thomas involved in any way automatically looks suspect because of his wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas. In the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, Ginni Thomas flooded Trump’s inner circle with unhinged texts calling Joe Biden’s election a 'coup,' suggesting the Biden 'crime family' should face 'military tribunals for sedition,' and generally encouraging resistance to accepting the election outcome."The editors added, "In what universe is it OK for Justice Thomas not to recuse himself from anything Jan. 6-related when this is the kind of pillow talk he goes home to at night?"As for Alito, he was scorched for l<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/us/politics/alito-kennedy-abortion.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">ying his way onto the court</a> that led to his Dobbs's majority decision that gutted Roe v. Wade 17 years later.With the New York Times reporting that Alito had assured Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) that he had no intention of overturning Roe, saying, "I am a believer in precedents. People would find I adhere to that,” the Post-Dispatch editors slammed him for his "mendacity.""That mendacity is hardly a surprise, nor is Alito alone in it," they wrote. "All five conservative justices who voted in June to overturn Roe (Roberts concurred, but stopped short of endorsing full reversal) have at various times waxed on about the sanctity of precedent generally — and have, to varying degrees, offered assurance they weren’t going to go out of their way to flip Roe as soon as they had the votes to do it. Which, of course, is exactly what they did."<div style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The editors also took a shot at Chief Justice John Roberts for acting like he doesn't understand why the court he heads has lost the confidence of the public.With Roberts complaining, "I don't understand the connection between (Supreme Court) opinions that people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Court," the editors explained, "As we noted then, his frustration is misplaced. These latest developments further illustrate why."You can read <a href="https://nordot.app/958310304558120960?c=592622757532812385" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the whole piece here</a>.</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">----</div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/16/jan-6-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-524839" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/16/jan-6-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-524839</a>no lnx many
INSURRECTION FALLOUT
The Jan. 6 puzzle piece that's going largely ignoredRep. Louie Gohmert sued then-Vice President Mike Pence on Dec. 27. Donald Trump’s involvement in the case remains unclear.Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who is now running for Texas attorney general, has said little about his lawsuit. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesBy KYLE CHENEY12/16/2021 As Donald Trump and his allies squeezed then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Joe Biden’s presidency in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6, they used one particular tool that’s been largely ignored ever since.Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) sued Pence on Dec. 27, just as Trump was ratcheting up his pressure campaign against his vice president. Backed by a squad of lawyers associated with Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, Gohmert argued Pence should assert unilateral control over certification, governed only by the vague wording of the Twelfth Amendment.Gohmert’s move forced Pence to publicly resist Trump’s subversion of the election, only a week before the fateful Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. When the Justice Department stepped in to defend Pence from the lawsuit on Dec. 29, it marked the first time Pence signaled he wouldn’t fold to Trump’s demands.Pence allies have long believed that Trump played a role in Gohmert’s legal strategy, and they’ve indicated that Trump was frustrated that the Justice Department intervened to defend his vice president against Gohmert’s suit. But what remains unknown is just how involved Trump was in Gohmert’s legal strategy. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.And while it’s unclear whether the Jan. 6 select panel is probing the genesis of Gohmert’s suit — which was quickly rejected by federal district and appellate courts in Texas — one committee member described it as an important episode in the runup to the violence at the Capitol.“It’s a significant detail in that it was part of a plan to isolate and coerce Pence,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).A litany of new details about Trump’s pressure campaign against Pence have emerged in recent weeks. Those include memos from Trump attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis that lay out fringe legal rationales for halting certification, as well as proof of further public and private force exerted by Trump himself. Gohmert’s suit is rarely mentioned in the publicly available pre-Jan. 6 timetable.Gohmert’s goal, outlined in the suit, was to force Pence to ignore the 130-year-old law that governs the final certification of presidential elections and instead wield total authority over the proceedings. Pence ultimately decided that he lacked this power and his role was almost entirely ceremonial. He revealed his final decision on Jan. 6, shortly before a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol amid chants that he was a “traitor” and should be hanged.As for why Gohmert led the suit, Powell has publicly indicated that one reason was because Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has jurisdiction over his home state of Texas. Alito, Powell argued, might have bought more time for pro-Trump forces to reverse the results by blocking Pence from certifying Biden’s victory. (There’s no evidence Alito was considering this)....</div>=aha: so rights of women are being stripped in the name of religious freedom [OF CORPORATIONS?]8 22 ah anOn July 21, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave a keynote address at the Notre Dame Law School/Religious Liberty Summit’s gala dinner in Rome, Italy, where he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/politics/samuel-alito-religious-liberty-notre-dame-rome/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">mocked and ridiculed</a> European critics of the Court’s decision to <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2022/us-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">overturn Roe v. Wade</a>. Alito made it abundantly clear that he couldn’t care less what <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/07/abortion-eu-parliament-condemn-roe-wade" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">European officials</a> think of that ruling, which ended abortion as a national right in the United States and allows individual states to ban abortion if they choose.Journalist Linda Greenhouse is highly critical of Alito’s Religious Liberty Summit speech in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/opinion/religion-supreme-court-alito.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">guest essay/op-ed</a> published by the New York Times on August 11. Greenhouse has no problem with the fact that Alito is religious; the problem, she emphasizes, is the disdain Alito shows for those who aren’t.Greenhouse describes Alito’s “snarky” speech as a “victory lap” following Roe’s demise and “a call to arms on behalf of religion.” Alito told the crowd in Rome, “The challenge for those who want to protect religious liberty in the United States, Europe and other similar places is to convince people who are not religious that religious liberty is worth special protection.”[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/samuel-alito-mocks-reactions-ruling/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Samuel Alito mocks reactions to abortion ruling at religious summit</a>“Justice Alito’s Notre Dame speech still merits close examination for what it reveals about the assumptions built into his worldview,” Greenhouse argues. “What does it mean, for example, to assert that it is ‘people who are not religious’ who need to be persuaded that religion is worthy of special treatment? Do all religiously observant people naturally believe that religion merits more protections than other values? There’s scant evidence for that; in any event, that has not been our law, at least not until recently.”Alito, Greenhouse writes, is openly contemptuous of law professors who don’t share his views on religion and government.“Justices and legal scholars alike have struggled for decades to identify the right balance for religion within a pluralistic society, an effort Justice Alito reduced to a cartoonish either/or,” Greenhouse notes. “Even were I willing to cut him some slack for loose talk among friends — I don’t know whether he was aware that Notre Dame would post the video online — I would still find the narrowness of his vision deeply disturbing. He offered no acknowledgment, none, of the harm that can occur when religion is elevated above all other claims to recognition and respect.”Greenhouse continues, “For example, in the aftermath of his opinion in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case, tens of thousands of women have never received the contraception coverage to which the Affordable Care Act entitled them because they work for employers with objections to particular forms of birth control. His opinion in 2020 extending the so-called ministerial exception to cover non-ministerial employees of religious organizations stripped those employees of the protection of federal laws that prohibit job discrimination. And, of course, the very opinion he bragged about to his audience in Rome, an opinion that as I have recently explained was grounded in religious doctrine rather than constitutional law, took no account of its devastating impact on women.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/embarrassment-to-the-supreme-court/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Embarrassment to the Supreme Court': Samuel Alito ripped for taunting critics of his anti-abortion ruling</a>Alito, according to Greenhouse, is a defender of “militant Christianity” — and the civil liberties of other Americans are suffering as a result of it.“His religion does not reside in the quiet recesses of his home or chambers,” Greenhouse warns. “His is religion on the march. And that’s the problem the rest of us face now.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/this-former-anti-abortion-activist-believes-alito-used-his-rhetoric-in-dobbs-ruling/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">This former anti-abortion activist believes Alito used his rhetoric in Dobbs ruling</a>==rome speech kinda frat boy?https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/he-thinks-it-s-a-joke-justice-alito-blast/=an 7 22 lucien t 4
watching Justice Samuel Alito go spelunking in his Dobbs opinion

through centuries of so-called history and tradition in search of legal

justifications to overturn the right to abortion decided almost 50 years

ago in Roe v. Wade was like watching a boy play in a pile of dirt.

Where do I dig next, he seemed to be muttering to himself as he shoveled

manure from a slave-era law in Virginia onto an 18th-century pile of

garbage he quoted from some doofus who believed women were inferior

beings. Clarence Thomas was right there behind him in his decision that

New York can't prevent people from carrying concealed weapons, plowing

through statutes from jolly old England and the American frontier to

show that Dodge City didn't really mean it when they told cowboys they

had to check their six-guns with the sheriff if they came into town. And

then along came Chief Justice Roberts as clean-up man, swinging the

club of something known as the "major questions doctrine" to deny the

Environmental Protection Agency its statutory authority to — duh —

protect the environment unless Congress spells out exactly how they

should do it. According to Roberts, it is Congress, not the EPA, that

has to write a rule telling corporations they can't empty industrial

waste directly into creeks, rivers or the ocean because it's a "major

question" if it costs corporations a lot of money, so let's make it as

hard as possible for the government to take a chunk out of our golf

buddies' bottom lines.Throughout the entire year of decisions by a

court that for the first time included all three of the Supreme Court's

newest and most conservative members, the Republican majority decided

to jettison the doctrine of stare decisis, which means to stand by things decided, and employ their own doctrine on how precedents should be treated: Stare quisquilias acervum

or "stand by the trash heap," where they proceeded to throw the court's

previous decisions and entire articles of the Constitution.All

of this in service to their favorite doctrine of all — rights granted

by the Constitution must be "deeply rooted in the nation's history and

tradition" or they aren't really rights at all. Legal scholars have been

predicting that the court will use its new jewel of a doctrine to

overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, not to mention other recent

decisions recognizing rights under the privacy provision of the equal

protection clause of the 14th Amendment … because we have no "history

and tradition" of same-sex marriage or gay sex or rubbers or the pill,

or anything else they simply don't like.To justify its

abandonment of the court's "history and tradition" of respecting and

upholding its previous decisions, the Supreme Court called upon a

favorite from an era they apparently revere, states' rights. Speaking

for the court's conservative majority, Alito decided to "return"

abortion to the control of the states, several of which promptly made

performing abortions illegal and effectively established new rules — or

re-established old ones — which dictated that women must carry to term

babies resulting from rape or incest, and then give birth to them,

relying, it would seem, on our deeply rooted history and tradition of

slavery.What can be done about the court's prejudice masquerading

as reason? Doesn't the wrongheadedness of the "history and tradition"

of the way women were treated at the time the 14th Amendment was written

tell us something about all the anti-abortion laws of the past Alito

quoted in the world's longest footnote? Women weren't allowed to vote,

to sit on juries, to own property separate from husbands or male members

of their families, and in some states they did not have the right to

sign contracts. Oh, by the way, they weren't allowed to have abortions,

either.It took decades of fighting for women's rights for us to

get rid of some forms of prejudice against women. But "history and

tradition" demands we go back to banning abortions, according to Alito.Alito's

decision features a gigantic hole not even the dissenters pointed out:

To have "history and tradition," it has to start somewhere. Precedents

become part of history only after they make history. If the

court is going to require that all our rights must be grounded in

history and tradition, that's exactly what Obergefell and the other

privacy rights decisions do. They establish a baseline of history that

can be depended upon in the future rather than reaching back to 1868 in

search of one.I say if they're not going to respect their own

decisions, then neither should we, and neither should lower court

federal judges and state judges and legislatures. Legal scholars use the term "vertical stare decisis"

to describe the principle that lower courts should follow and respect

the decisions of the Supreme Court. But the law is not something handed

down from a higher power or engraved on a tablet with a hammer and

chisel. It is a living thing, and it has to breathe and move and eat and

expel waste in order to stay alive, and some of the waste that must be

expelled can be found in the court's most recent decisions.<div align="left">===</div><div align="left"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roe-supreme-court-justices-1378046/">
</a></div><div align="left"><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roe-supreme-court-justices-1378046/">https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roe-supreme-court-justices-1378046/</a></div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">no lnx
at?

an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate

the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill

religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that

she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only

people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said.

This disclosure was

a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major

conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization,

Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court. In

fact, the conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health,

which ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, cited an amicus

brief authored by Liberty Counsel in its ruling.

[Related Stories
Texas' Most Famous Abortion Provider Is Closing Its Doors
The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point: 'Roe v. Wade' Edition]

In

other words: Sitting Supreme Court justices have prayed together with

evangelical leaders whose bosses were bringing cases and arguments

before the high court.

Nienaber is Liberty Counsel’s

executive director of DC Ministry, as well as the vice president of

Faith & Liberty, whose ministry offices sit directly behind the

Supreme Court. She spoke to a livestreamer who goes by Connie IRL,

seemingly unaware she was being recorded. “You actually pray with the

Supreme Court justices?” the livestreamer asked. “I do,” Nienaber said.

“They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” She did

not specify which justices prayed with her, but added with a chortle,

“Some of them don’t!” The livestreamer then asked if Nienaber

ministered to the justices in their homes or at her office. Neither, she

said. “We actually go in there.”

Nienaber intended her

comments, broadcast on YouTube, to be “totally off the record,” she says

in the clip. That’s likely because such an arrangement presents a

problem for the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, which not only

weighed in on the Dobbs case as a friend of the court, but also

litigated and won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory this May in a case

centered on the public display of a religious flag.

The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. Liberty Counsel’s founder, Mat Staver, strenuously

denied that the in-person ministering to justices that Nienaber bragged

about exists. “It’s entirely untrue,” Staver tells Rolling Stone.

“There is just no way that has happened.” He adds: “She has prayer

meetings for them, not with them.” Asked if he had an explanation for

Nienaber’s direct comments to the contrary, Staver says, “I don’t.”

But

the founder of the ministry, who surrendered its operations to Liberty

Counsel in 2018, tells Rolling Stone that he hosted prayer sessions with

conservative justices in their chambers from the late-1990s through

when he left the group in the mid-2010s. Rob

Schenck, who launched the ministry under the name Faith and Action in

the Nation’s Capital, described how the organization forged ministry

relationships with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late

Antonin Scalia, saying he would pray with them inside the high court.

Nienaber was Schenk’s close associate in that era, and continued with

the ministry after it came under the umbrella of Liberty Counsel.

Louis

Virelli is a professor at Stetson University College of Law who wrote a

book about Supreme Court recusals. He’s blunt in his assessment:

“Praying with a group that filed an amicus brief with a court,” he says,

“is a problem.”

Barbara Abshire, center, of Baltimore, and Peggy

Nienaber of Lorton, Md., unpack flowers for use in the "Encircle the

Court in Prayer," event led by Christian faith organizations on the eve

of the Supreme Court arguments on President Obama's health care

legislation, in Washington, Sunday, March 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn

Martin)

Peggy Nienaber, right, at an event outside the Supreme

Court led by Christian faith organizations on the eve of the Supreme

Court arguments on President Obama’s health care legislation in 2012.

In

the shadow of the high court, across the street from its chambers, sits

a cluster of unassuming row houses known only to the initiated as

“Ministry Row.” The strip is host to evangelical political groups that

have spent the past several decades pushing Beltway conservatives to

embrace the religious right’s political causes — and, most of all,

reverse Roe v. Wade. The street view offers few clues as to what

transpires behind the painted brick facades, save for a granite slab

inscribed with the Ten Commandments planted in the grassy patch before a modest cream-colored Victorian with maroon trim.

The

home serves as Faith & Liberty’s headquarters. The Ten Commandments

statue had been placed there by Schenck, an evangelical minister famous

for orchestrating high-profile anti-abortion stunts, such as shoving an

aborted fetus in a plastic container into the face of former President

Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign. Schenck had opened the

ministry in the 1990s as Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, a

nonprofit dedicated to ending federal abortion rights. The organization

operated on a “utopian ‘trickle-up’ theory” of influence: building

access “higher and higher up within the government, until we got to the

top, my ultimate target — members of Congress, U.S. senators, cabinet

secretaries, Supreme Court justices — even presidents,” Schenck wrote in

his 2018 autobiography.

The group established a strong

foothold in both chambers of Congress and, eventually, the White House.

But Faith and Action ultimately directed its energies toward the

judicial branch. “There were no pro-life groups directly approaching

the judges and justices, who shaped abortion law simply by their

precedent-setting decisions,” Schenck wrote. “We knew we were stuck with

members of the federal bench — they were appointed for life — so why

not convert them while in office?” (Schenck has since reversed course:

He is now a fierce critic of evangelical politicking and says Liberty

Counsel assumed Faith and Action’s operations in 2018. He says he has no

knowledge of the group’s inner workings after he left.)

At

first, the high court regarded Faith and Action and its peer

organizations as nuisances, according to Schenck. “Justice Thomas would

say to me, ‘You know those groups outside? Are they crazy or are they

good people?’” Schenck recalls in an interview with Rolling Stone. When

Schenck first began his approach in 1994, prayer activities on the

Supreme Court’s property was considered an act of demonstration, and

therefore illegal. Eventually, Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas would

embrace Schenck, he says, and pray with him in various corners of the

high court’s grounds — including, occasionally, in their chambers.

(Chief Justice John Roberts, meanwhile, remained more guarded and

skeptical of such groups’ influence.)

To pray with the

justices was to perform a sort of “spiritual conditioning,” Schenck

explains. “The intention all along was to embolden the conservative

justices by loaning them a kind of spiritual moral support — to give

them an assurance that not only was there a large number of people

behind them, but in fact, there was divine support for very strong

and unapologetic opinions from them.” Prayer is a powerful communication

tool in the evangelical tradition: The speaker assumes the mantle of

the divine, and to disagree with an offered prayer is akin to sin. “It’s

just not common to interrupt or challenge a prayer,” Schenck explains.

“That’s not something a devout Supreme Court justice would ever consider

doing.” That was true even for the devout Catholic justices, such as

Scalia, who joined the evangelical Faith and Action members in prayer,

Schenck says.

Sometimes the prayers would be general; other times, on specific subjects, such as ending abortion,

according to Schenck. He says Faith and Action took assiduous care to

avoid speaking blatantly about cases in the Supreme Court’s pipeline,

discussing the political agenda only in broad strokes. Even so, under

the time period Schenck describes, prayers with the justices occurred

as Faith and Action signed onto several amicus briefs for landmark

SCOTUS cases such as Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, which ultimately

upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

Schenck

walked away from his life on the Hill after receiving a late-career

doctorate on the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who

questioned the collaborative relationship between Adolf Hitler and

1930s German evangelicals. He drew parallels between the Republican

Party and American evangelicalism, concerned that he’d weaponized

worship to fuel a hate-filled agenda. No longer an anti-abortion activist, Schenck views his past efforts with regret. “Prayer

is a positive exercise, until it’s politicized — and too many prayers

that I and my colleagues offered in the presence of the justices were

political prayers,” he explains. He also believes the work “contributed

to the internal moral and ethical corruption of the justices at the

court,” he says.

“I was sure, while we were doing it, it would be

a positive contribution to our public life,” Schenck says. “It didn’t

have the effect I thought it would. In some ways, it set the stage for

the reversal of Roe, which I now think of as a social catastrophe.”

When

Liberty Counsel absorbed Faith and Action in 2018, Peggy Nienaber, who

had worked alongside Schenck since at least 2005, continued with the

group. In a July 2021 conversation with Staver, Liberty Counsel’s

founder, Nienaber described the group’s new incarnation as similar to

Faith and Action’s mission. It’s “the ministry right here on Capitol

Hill,” she said, devoted to “changing the hearts and minds of not only

our elected officials, but the staffers all the way down.” Nienaber

highlighted Faith & Liberty’s proximity to the court by pointing to

the window of the conference room where the justices decide their cases.

”When you’re sitting in that conference room, you cannot miss those Ten

Commandments,” she said. (Faith & Liberty sits so close to the

Supreme Court, in fact, that it has been included in the “buffer zone”

surrounding the high court, shut off to protesters and the public.

There’s irony here, given that Liberty Counsel has for decades 

litigated to abolish buffer zones near abortion clinics.)

“There’s

a lot of things that Faith & Liberty does — and that you do — that

obviously we can’t put in an email, can’t put in a newsletter, can’t put

in a press release,” Staver said to Nienaber during their chat,

“because it’s private relationships that are spiritually

transformative.” Nienaber’s social media accounts show her hobnobbing

with high-profile Republicans such as Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and

former Vice President Mike Pence. She hung close to the confirmation of

Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018: She posted photographs from inside the

Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing room, as well as a screenshot of

her invitation to Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony.

Nienaber

told Rolling Stone, “I do not socialize with the justices.” Yet she has

posed for photos with Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas, calling the latter a

“friend” in a Facebook post, praising him for “passing by our ministry

center to attend church and always taking time to say hello.”

In

addition to her proximity to conservative power players, Nienaber has

championed the plaintiffs who have brought right-wing religious causes

before the Supreme Court. Ahead of oral arguments, she prayed with Joe

Kennedy, the football coach who recently succeeded in his suit to allow

prayer during football games. Liberty Counsel also filed an amicus brief

in that case, calling on the court to rule that the school district

“engaged in viewpoint discrimination against Coach Kennedy’s private

speech.”

Nienaber was recorded telling the livestreamer

that she prayed with Supreme Court justices on June 27, the Monday

after the high court issued the Dobbs ruling. She was at a

celebration she helped organize with Sean Feucht, a prominent

Christian-worship musician. Nienaber identifies herself only as “Peggy”

in the footage, but she references the ministry she runs behind the

court and its 850-pound replica of the Ten Commandments. For most of the

interview, Nienaber is not on camera. But when the video pans on her

briefly, she can be seen wearing the same dress and necklace she has on

in a selfie with Feucht posted to Faith & Liberty’s website.

Last

week, Rolling Stone spoke to Patty Bills, the director of constituency

affairs at Faith & Liberty. Bills did not want to discuss Faith

& Liberty’s ministry practices, citing privacy concerns. Bills would

not, however, deny that Faith & Liberty ministers to Supreme Court

justices. “I never said we didn’t — I just said we provide privacy,” she

said.

Staver, in denying that members of Faith & Liberty

prayed with Supreme Court justices, says that such prayers would have

been inappropriate, especially given Liberty Counsel’s litigation

efforts. “That’s why we wouldn’t do that,” he says. “And especially

on cases that are pending before the Supreme Court, we would make a very

clear firewall. We just would never do something like that.”

In

a written statement to Rolling Stone, Nienaber says of her hot-mic

comments: “I do not recall making such a statement. I listened to the

livestream, and I did not hear such a statement.” She adds that Covid

restrictions have limited public access to the Supreme Court: “The

public has not been allowed access, and I am no different.” When she has

had access to public areas of the court, she says, “I will generally

silently pray for the justices, their staff, and the Court.”

But

after this story was published, Nienaber acknowledged her remarks and

conceded she has prayed personally with Supreme Court justices.

Despite speaking in the present tense on the livestream, Nienaber

asserted, “My comment was referring to past history and not practice of

the past several years.” Nienaber added: “During most of the history up

to early 2020, I met with many people who wanted or needed prayer. Since

early 2020, access to the Supreme Court has been restricted due to

COVID. It has been many years since I prayed with a Justice.”

Liberty

Counsel was founded in 1989 by Staver. The organization is an uncommon

hybrid of religious ministry and legal practice, dedicated to “advancing

religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family through

strategic litigation.” Staver is the organization’s senior pastor as

well as its top litigator. This mix of law and religion is central to

Staver’s career; he previously served as dean of the law school at

Liberty University, founded by the televangelist Jerry Falwell.

Staver has argued numerous cases in front of the Supreme Court. He

started in 1994 in a case that struck a blow against protest-limiting

buffer zones near abortion clinics. In the court’s most recent term,

Staver argued and won a 9-0 judgment in Shurtleff v. Boston, a case in

which the court ruled a Christian flag couldn’t be excluded from a

public flagpole that displayed a rotating assortment of secular flags.

Staver also wrote an amicus brief in the Dobbs case that purports to tie abortion and birth control to eugenics.

Calling Roe “the low watermark in this Court’s history,” it argued that

Dobbs was ”an ideal vehicle for the Court to finally overrule Roe v.

Wade and its progeny, which have constitutionalized eugenic abortions as

a fundamental right.”

In the Dobbs majority opinion written by

Justice Alito, he cited this brief to impugn the motives of

pro-abortion-rights advocates, arguing that “some such supporters have

been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American

population,” adding, “it is beyond dispute that Roe has had that

demographic effect,” because “a highly disproportionate percentage of

aborted fetuses are Black.”

When Roe v. Wade was reversed, Staver

was triumphant: “I have dedicated my life to defend life and overturn

the bloody decisions of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey,” he

wrote. “This global earthquake will impact the world.”

Prayer

unto itself in no way presents a conflict of interest for the justices,

says Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow of governance studies at the

Brookings Institution, not even with a group like Faith & Liberty

that has business before the court. Justices are allowed to visit there

with whomever they’d like in their private chambers, and have socialized

with interested parties throughout the court’s history. President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example, routinely played cards with the

high court’s magistrates, and Scalia went duck hunting with former Vice

President Dick Cheney. What would amount to an ethical concern would be

if they’re discussing those cases as they pray — “or if the prayer

sessions would influence how justices rule in a particular case,” says Adam Winkler, a Supreme Court expert at the University of California Los Angeles.

But

even among legal experts troubled by the court’s ties, they acknowledge

there are few remedies to address ethical conflicts. A federal statute

governs when judges and justices should step away from cases, but the

Constitution leaves questions of partiality to the justices themselves.

Their general unwillingness to step aside isn’t necessarily a bad thing,

Virelli, the Stetson law professor, says: When justices recuse

themselves from a case, no one replaces them, a scenario that can create

more problems than it solves. “The court changes shape,” he explains.

“That makes the decision to recuse difficult.”

That the justices

are their own keepers in regard to those rules creates complications,

however, says Steve Vladeck, a constitutional-law expert at the

University of Texas Law School. The relationship between Faith &

Liberty and Liberty Counsel, as described by Rolling Stone, “could make a

reasonable observer worry about the appearance of partiality,” he says.

But the concerns the scenario raised shouldn’t be about recusal. “What

that really reveals is how problematic it is that there isn’t an

objective mechanism to resolve these sorts of questions.”

For Winkler,

the greater concern is not prayers, but the “religious-themed”

decisions he’s seen come down from the high court this term, pointing to

not only the Roe reversal but also opinions that permit unchecked free

exercise of First Amendment rights. “The problematic aspect isn’t

whether they’re praying,” Winkler says, “but that several justices seem

committed to reading their religion into the Constitution.”
</div>==<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/historian-law-professor-lays-out-some-things-alito-gets-egregiously-wrong-about-the-history-of-abortion/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/historian-law-professor-lays-out-some-things-alito-gets-egregiously-wrong-about-the-history-of-abortion/</a>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/alito-drawing-inspiration-medieval-zealot/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/alito-drawing-inspiration-medieval-zealot/</a>
shitstorm leaked roe memo=no lnx newsweek see eastmanatorney Sidney Powell said the January 6 riot at the Capitol could have caused a delay which would have allowed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito time to stop the certification of Joe Biden's election victory—but that chance was lost when Nancy Pelosi reconvened Congress to complete the process.Powell, an attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits in a failed bid to overturn former President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss, made the comments during an appearance on the conservative Stew Peters Show on Friday.She said that as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol that day, her team was seeking an emergency injunction to prevent the certification of Biden's win."We were filing a 12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process that the Congress was about to use under the Electoral Act provisions that simply don't jive with the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution," she said. "And Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that."She added: "Louie Gohmert was the plaintiff in our lawsuit, and we were suing the vice president to follow the 12th Amendment as opposed to the Electoral College Act."...==an 921 salonDecades of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/us/politics/texas-abortion-conservatives-courts.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">strategizing by anti-abortion forces</a> and a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/how-conservatives-won-the-battle-over-the-courts/564533/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">relentless conservative focus</a> on winning the courts culminated this month in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-six-week-abortion-ban/2021/09/01/e53cf372-0a6b-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision</a> to allow the nation's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2021/sep/01/most-extreme-abortion-law-in-us-takes-effect-in-texas-video" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">most restrictive rollback of reproductive rights</a> to go into effect. The decision <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/01/texas-abortion-law-faq/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">effectively prohibits most abortions in Texas</a> and provides a road map for <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/republican-states-seek-mimic-texas-abortion-law.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">red state legislatures nationwide</a> to evade judicial review and undo Roe v. Wade in their states as well.But that wasn't the only careful right-wing project that contributed to this back-door assault on five decades of constitutional protections and Supreme Court precedent. This decision is inextricably bound to the long-term GOP war on voting rights, itself a two-front effort between red state legislatures and a conservative Supreme Court majority.You might even call it a Texas two-step. First, unelected, tenured judges did what <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/washington/21vote.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">elected Republicans didn't feel empowered to do in 2006</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">put a stake into the Voting Rights Act</a>. Then, after blessing a new generation of sophisticated voter suppression methods, as well as providing a green light for <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">partisan</a> and <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/17-586/#tab-opinion-3919768" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">racial</a> gerrymanders, uninhibited lawmakers — untethered from nearly any accountability — can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/how-gerrymandering-undermines-democracy-us-elections" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">pass laws dramatically out of step with voters</a>, like the new Texas abortion bill. This court then smiles on those efforts as well. (And of course, all this is amplified and encouraged by the right-wing media ecosystem.)It's a nifty closed loop that has the added benefit of sheltering Republicans from any consequences for their extremism, and from any real fear that a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/12/how-2020-census-change-how-we-look-america-what-expect/5493043001/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">changing electorate</a> will threaten entrenched one-party rule.This isn't even the first time that the Supreme Court and Texas legislature have danced in this fashion, though nearly a decade ago, it was the Roberts court that led.When Chief Justice John Roberts authored a 5-4 decision in the 2013 <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Shelby County</a> case, hobbling the Voting Rights Act and putting an end to <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/313052-history-voting-rights-act-how-preclearance-provision-came-be" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">pre-clearance in states, like Texas, that had a longstanding history of racially motivated voting chicanery</a>, Texas did not wait long before showing America that, contrary to Roberts' sense that things were "<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/john-roberts-georgia-voting-rights/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">dramatically</a>" different in the South, in reality little had changed.That very afternoon, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/25/texas-voter-id-supreme-court-decision" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Texas jumped to take advantage</a> of Roberts' decision by enacting a <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/effects-shelby-county-v-holder" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">deeply restrictive voter ID law</a> that requires specific forms of identification to vote. This would be the first post-Shelby voting restriction in Texas, but hardly the last. The new law demanded an ID that <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/supreme-court-texas-voter-id-law-history/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">600,000 Latino citizens lacked</a>; it allowed a ballot to be cast with a gun license but not a student ID. It enabled Republicans to place barriers before the rising electorate of young and Hispanic voters who lean Democratic and help ensure themselves a hold on power.It was a magnificent two-step. When a Republican Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 2006, <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=republicans+voted+for+vra+in+2006&oq=republicans+voted+for+vra+in+2006&aqs=chrome..69i57.6051j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">nearly unanimously</a>, and the 25-year extension was signed into law by President George W. Bush, GOP leaders whipped the votes for passage, fearing that it would be bad for the Republican brand to be seen as hostile to voting rights. It's a story that Jesse Rhodes tells brilliantly in his book "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781503603516" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ballot Blocked</a>." GOP leaders wanted to make inroads with Latino and Black voters, and worried that Hurricane Katrina and the souring economy and Iraq war might make that a challenge during a tough midterm year. They didn't want to also be seen as keeping minorities from the polls.So the voting rights putsch was outsourced to the courts. Bush appointed, and the GOP Senate confirmed, two Supreme Court justices known to have a very limited view of the Voting Rights Act's scope and relevancy: Roberts as chief justice and Samuel Alito to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts, as a young Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, had <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/john-roberts-voting-rights-act-121222/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">lobbied aggressively against the 1982 reauthorization</a> of the VRA.When the court did the GOP's dirty work, hollowing out the pre-clearance mechanism that Republicans viewed as untenable to take on through the political process, the Roberts decision <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/06/26/republicans-used-to-unanimously-back-voting-rights-act-not-any-more/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">offered Congress the option to revisit and update</a> the pre-clearance formula. But once the courts had dealt its blow, the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Republican majority had no appetite to revisit the VRA</a> and those efforts crashed in Congress. That's the case to this day: When the Democratic House voted on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act earlier this summer, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-house-passes-john-lewis-voting-rights-bill-with-no-gop-votes-2021-8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">every House Republican opposed the bill</a>, and it would appear to have little chance of surviving a GOP filibuster in the Senate.Texas Republicans may well have seen the Shelby County decision coming when they passed a draconian voter ID bill — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us/court-blocks-tough-voter-id-law-in-texas.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">initially blocked under pre-clearance in 2012</a> — ahead of the court's ruling. During that same period, Republican lawmakers also prepped new state legislative and congressional maps that were the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/25/17500918/supreme-court-texas-gerrymandering-abbott-v-perez" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">subject of much complicated litigation</a> from 2011 through 2018.The legal history here becomes <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/18/drawn-out-texas-redistricting-fight-people-are-passing-away-while-awai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">convoluted</a>: Courts originally blocked the first maps enacted by Republicans in 2011. A federal court rejected them under pre-clearance, finding that these lines made it tougher for minority voters to elect a candidate of their choosing. As the 2012 elections neared, a three-judge panel ordered tweaks to the legislative maps — but these were supposed to be temporary fixes while the legal challenges worked their way through the courts.But when the Shelby decision came down, as the <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/18/drawn-out-texas-redistricting-fight-people-are-passing-away-while-awai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Texas Tribune observed</a>, Texas suddenly no longer needed to pre-clear its maps. Republican leaders disingenuously cloaked themselves in a map they could claim was drawn by the courts, when really those judges had only approved the first step in a much longer process. How could we be diluting minority voters, the state protested, when we just took the courts' map? Lower federal courts disagreed, and developed a rich evidence file that delved deep into the 2011 mapmaking process and referred to the 2013 GOP strategy as "<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/18/drawn-out-texas-redistricting-fight-people-are-passing-away-while-awai/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">discriminatory at its heart</a>."Once again, however, the Supreme Court stepped in. In 2018's <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/17-586" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Abbott v. Perez</a>, the Supreme Court overturned those lower court decisions that found Republicans had diluted minority votes in multiple state house districts. They OK'd what had been called a racial gerrymander of the state legislature which judges said went "out of its way" to preserve GOP power at the expense of Latino voting power, with "serious costs to our democracy."That 5-4 <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/17-586/#tab-opinion-3919768" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">decision</a>, written by Justice Alito, insisted that when it comes to redistricting, the good faith of the legislature must be assumed. Alito blithely dismissed <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxeOfQQnUr_gTDlvVmRkYVhWNjA/view?resourcekey=0-bH44BDHXtuHipH12Bi_t1g" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a 150-page lower court report </a>that laid out, county by county, the precise machinations that Republican mapmakers used to crack and pack growing numbers of Latino voters, and even a careful study of which Latino voters were most likely to turn out. (Those unlikely to vote could also be carefully distributed in order to make districts appear to resemble a "minority opportunity" district, without actually being one.)In her <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/17-586/#tab-opinion-3919768" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">dissent</a>, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the majority of ignoring "undeniable proof of intentional discrimination," contributing to the deliberate underrepresentation of minority voters and doing "great damage" to both equal opportunity and equal participation in the political process. The majority decision, she wrote, "blinds itself to the overwhelming factual record" in order to "allow Texas to use electoral maps that, in design and effect, burden the rights of minority voters."Texas isn't a red state or a blue state. It's a voter suppression state, with some of the lowest turnout numbers in the country, in part because the state — with the full support of the U.S. Supreme Court, since the 2013 Shelby County case — makes it so difficult to vote. By 2014, Texas turnout had plunged to the lowest in the nation, just 28.3 percent according to the <a href="http://www.electproject.org/2014g" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Elections Project</a>. A sexy 2018 U.S. Senate race between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke helped push that number higher, but the <a href="http://www.electproject.org/2018g" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Elections Project still found Texas mired among the lowest 10 states</a> in the nation.Political scientists will long debate the impact of redistricting, voter ID laws and other restrictive techniques, as well as the Roberts court's rulings on the VRA and gerrymandering, on the democratic backsliding that has become a feature of so many red state legislatures and contributed to the growing crisis of GOP minority rule. But no one needs an advanced degree to see the effects of this two-step on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/18/us-anti-abortion-bans-backlash-gerrymandering" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">extreme legislation on reproductive rights</a>, among other issues, coming from Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri and elsewhere — despite zero indication that <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/18/18630562/alabama-abortion-ban-voters-exemption-for-rape-incest" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voters in these states</a> <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/02/texas-gambling-abortion-marijuana-confederate/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">desire these new restrictions</a> or have moved anywhere near as far right on these issues as their representatives.Perhaps the problem is that this Supreme Court has made it exceptionally difficult for voters to get rid of their representatives when they go too far, and that this has emboldened lawmakers who no longer fear that their extremism might lead either to defeat or reproach from the courts. Indeed, this Supreme Court, under Alito's lead, has encouraged legislatures to go a step further. After the ruling on the Texas law, in which justices threw up their hands at the novel workaround created by empowering citizens to turn in anyone involved in making an abortion possible, the signal to every other state was this: Go as far as you want. This court has your back.The message to the rest of the nation is clear as well. When voting rights are hollowed out, it opens the door to an assault on every right you hold dear and any policy that matters to you, whether that's reproductive rights, labor rights, gun control, the environment, or whether or not your kids can be asked to wear masks at school during a pandemic.If voters want to change those policies, Samuel Alito says tough. He can't be voted out of office — and his colleagues just keep tilting the rules so your legislators can't be either.As redistricting begins in state legislatures nationwide, Republican state legislators are building up their own walls of protection. If Democrats want to reverse course before a potential generation of GOP minority rule, 2022 could be the last chance. Congress must protect voting rights. And we all must prioritize state legislative and secretary of state races. We invest now to win next November — or the Texas two-step could be playing in your state next.<div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/supreme-court-2655063879/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/supreme-court-2655063879/</a></div><div>
</div><div>It is a central principle of law: Courts are supposed to follow earlier decisions – precedent – to resolve current disputes. But it's inevitable that sometimes, the precedent has to go, and a court has to overrule another court, or even its own decision from an earlier case.In its upcoming term, the U.S. Supreme Court faces the question of whether to overrule itself on abortion rights. Recent laws in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/19/texas-abortion-law-abbott/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Texas</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade/2021/05/17/cdaf1dd6-b708-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mississippi</a> restrict the right of women to terminate pregnancies in ways that appear to challenge the long-standing precedent of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Roe v. Wade</a>, which allowed women to have abortions in most circumstances.Over the centuries, courts have stated many reasons they should adhere to precedent. First is the idea of equity or justice, under which “ <a href="https://cgc.law.stanford.edu/commentaries/15-john-walker/#:%7E:text=I.-,How%20Does%20a%20Case%20Become%20a%20Binding%20Precedent%3F,cases%20should%20be%20decided%20alike.&text=First%2C%20as%20compared%20with%20the,as%20applied%20to%20similar%20facts." style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">like cases should be decided alike</a>," as one senior federal judge put it. If a court in the past reviewed a particular set of facts and decided a case in a specific way, fairness dictates it should decide another similar case the same way. Precedent <a href="http://www.nonpublication.com/schauer.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">promotes uniformity and consistency</a> in the law.In addition, precedent promotes judicial efficiency: Courts do not have to decide from scratch every time. Finally, following precedent promotes predictability in the law and <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol47/iss2/2/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">protects people who have come to rely on past decisions as a guide for their behavior</a>.But not all precedents are equal, and several current Supreme Court justices have signaled that they might be open to overturning even long-standing rulings that interpret the Constitution.<h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Reversing precedent is unusual</h2>The Supreme Court rarely overturns its past decisions or precedents.In my forthcoming book, “Constitutional Precedent in Supreme Court Reasoning," I point out that from 1789 to 2020 there were 25,544 Supreme Court opinions and judgments after oral arguments. The court has reversed its own constitutional precedents only 145 times – barely one-half of one percent.The court's historic periods are often characterized by who led it as chief justice. It was not until the 1930s under Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes that it started to overturn precedents with any frequency. These were cases such as <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/657/USSC_PRO_312_100_82" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">United States v. Darby</a>, in which the court began to affirm President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal economic policies after previously rejecting them as unconstitutional.Before then, of course, many cases asked the court to interpret clauses of the Constitution for the first time, so there were often no precedents to confront or overturn.Under Chief Justices Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist and now John Roberts, the court overturned constitutional precedent 32, 32, 30 and 15 times, respectively. That is well under 1% of decisions handled during each period in the court's history.<h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When is precedent overturned?</h2>For most of its history the court changed its mind only when it thought past precedent was unworkable or no longer viable, perhaps eroded by its subsequent opinions or by changing social conditions.This happened in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/304/64" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Erie Railroad v. Tompkins</a>, a 1938 Supreme Court case overturning a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/41/1" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">96-year-old precedent</a> in which the court had constructed rules about how federal courts should handle cases involving parties from different states. The court in Erie said that the original decision proved to be unworkable and had been undermined by the court's own later decisions.The court has also said that its precedents based on <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-5721.ZO.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">constitutional grounds</a> deserve less respect than those in which the court interprets statutes or laws. The reason is that if Congress thinks the court has erred in a matter of interpreting a statute or law, it is relatively easy for them to overturn it by passing a new law. But it's quite hard to pass a constitutional amendment, so the only real way to update the judicial understanding of the Constitution is to overrule a precedent.Of course the most famous reversal of precedent is the 1954 <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brown_v_board_of_education(1954)" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Brown v. Board of Education</a> under the Warren Court, in which it reversed <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Plessy v. Ferguson</a> and struck down segregation under the “separate but equal" doctrine.Roe v. Wade is an important precedent. In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that women have a right to terminate their pregnancies. That right was reaffirmed in 1991 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a>, with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter noting that an entire generation of women came of age relying upon their right to control their bodies and terminate pregnancies in most circumstances. The justices said it would be wrong to upset that expectation.<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Turn-Conservative-Christian-Politics/dp/1108405606/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=abortion+politics&qid=1631829608&s=books&sr=1-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Roe has also spurred opposition</a>, with many wanting to overturn it. For years, presidents including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump sought to appoint justices to the Supreme Court with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-hearings-updates-and-analysis-on-the-supreme-court-nominee/trump-promised-judges-who-would-overturn-roe-v-wade/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the goal of overturning Roe</a> and, with it, abortion rights. Now with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-a-6-3-supreme-court-would-be-different-146558" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">6-3 conservative majority</a>, the court may be poised to do that.<h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Justices get more comfortable reversing precedent</h2>Beginning with the Rehnquist court, justices have become more willing to reject precedents they think were badly reasoned, simply wrong, or inconsistent with their own senses of the constitutional framers' intentions. Justice <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-1323" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Clarence Thomas</a> has taken this position on abortion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett during her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/daily-202-big-idea/supreme-court-nominee-does-not-consider-roe-v-wade-a-super-precedent/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Senate confirmation hearing</a> argued that Roe is not a so-called superprecedent, a decision so important or foundational that it cannot be overturned.Chief Justice Roberts has been willing to overturn settled law when he thinks the original opinion was not well argued. He did so in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZC.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Citizens United</a>, a 2010 decision overturning two major campaign finance decisions, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/652" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce</a> and part of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1674.ZS.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">McConnell v. FEC</a>.In 2020, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-5924" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ramos v. Louisiana</a> went out of their way to explain and justify their views on when constitutional precedent may be overturned. They echoed Justice Samuel Alito's discussion in 2018 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/16-1466" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council Number 31</a>. All three justices said constitutional precedent is merely a matter of court policy or discretion, more easily overturned than a precedent about a law. Sometimes, they said, constitutional precedents can be overruled if later judges view them as wrongly decided or reasoned.Abortion foes have been preparing practically since Roe was decided to overturn it. They have set both the political conditions and legal justification to overturn Roe, and perhaps this year it will be the time when it finally happens. <img alt="The Conversation" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168052/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" width="1" height="1" /><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-schultz-541364" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">David Schultz</a>, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Professor of Political Science, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/hamline-university-2113" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hamline University</a></div><div>
</div><div>=</div>s<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/election-law-expert-clashes-with-mike-lee-over-justice-alitos-ruling-in-voting-rights-case/" aria-label="Sen. Lee throws a hissy fit and demands an apology when a legal expert criticizes Justice Alito" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height">en. Lee throws a hissy fit and demands an apology when a legal expert criticizes Justice Alito</a><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/alex-henderson" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative;">Alex Henderson</a></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653801066" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; margin-bottom: 15px; display: -webkit-box; text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 23px; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description">On July 14, election law expert <a href="https://electionlawblog.org/?p=123429" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Rick Hasen</a> was among the people who testified during a <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/watch?hearingid=197B3F0D-5056-A066-602D-C69CB2A55416" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Senate Judiciary Committee hearing</a> on voting rights. Hasen has been critical of right-wing...
</div></div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/justice-alito-voting-rights/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/justice-alito-voting-rights/</a><div>=</div><div>big lie institutionalized (msnbc?) used to justify voter suppression</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/justice-alito/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/justice-alito/</a></div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>=</div><div>alito tips conserv hand?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/justice-alito/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/justice-alito/</a></div><div>
</div><div>=</div>=free sp in sci bs:<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">big in CEI slapdown of walker; Baker Host, pal of rivkin, pow</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">lost mann defamation suit nat rev.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">bs no names, the eds</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/no-michael-mann-you-arent-going-to-ruin-this-filthy-organization/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/no-michael-mann-you-arent-going-to-ruin-this-filthy-organization/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">a few days before launching his lawsuit against what he called “this filthy organization,” Michael Mann wrote that there “is a possibility that I can ruin National Review.” Nearly a decade later, we are still fighting his attempt to do precisely that.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">From the beginning of this affair, <span class="small_caps" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review has maintained that the case that Mann filed is frivolous, malicious, corrupt, and lacking entirely in legal justification. We maintain that still. The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment is predicated upon “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” and that matters of political dispute are in consequence exempt from superintendence. By attempting to litigate against his critics, Michael Mann has chosen to stand firmly on the other side of that national commitment. Were he to prevail, he would set a host of terrible precedents against free inquiry and open argument, and in favor of censorship.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">That this case has been open-and-shut from the start was obvious not only to <span class="small_caps" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review, but to all who believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press — which is why the amicus briefs that have been filed in our behalf range so widely across the political spectrum.[note none listed]<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">We’ve said we’d use every tool and argument at our disposal to defeat Mann, and that’s what we’ve done. Mark Steyn posted the blog item in dispute in July of 2012. Mann sued in October of that year, and we filed our first motion to dismiss in December of 2012.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">When that was denied by the trial court, we filed a motion to reconsider. When that, too, was denied, we appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals — twice. This brings us to 2014. After oral arguments, the Court of Appeals sat on the case for two years. Then, the court denied our appeal. This was in December of 2016. Because the opinion had myriad obvious flaws, we petitioned for a rehearing. Incredibly enough, the court then delayed for yet another two years. When the court finally issued an amended opinion, all it did was add one footnote and amend another.Because the amended opinion didn’t fix any of the flaws of the original opinion, we petitioned for a rehearing yet again. This, too, was denied. Then, last May, we filed a cert petition before the U.S. Supreme Court. All indications are that the court seriously considered it, before denying the petition (with Justice Alito issuing <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/free-speech-in-abeyance/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/free-speech-in-abeyance/&source=gmail&ust=1582902191332000&usg=AFQjCNHQpuFTrv_z783eFypwcsyx18tO8Q" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.2s ease 0s;">a strong dissent</a>).<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">Now, we are back in the trial court, with expensive and time-consuming discovery underway.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">Mann’s plan to “ruin” us, as he put it in an email produced under discovery, is plainly to get to a trial with a politically sympathetic D.C. jury and hope that the finer points of the law and the First Amendment are lost. (Short of that, he is surely happy for the case to drag out further, draining us of energy and resources.)<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">But it’s clear that the case should never get to that point — hence our latest motion. Under the First Amendment, Mann has to prove that <span class="small_caps" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review published the Corner post with “actual malice.” That would require him to show that <span class="small_caps" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review actually believed that the post was “false” (or likely false) at the time of publication. That is absurd for a number of reasons, including — given the nature of The Corner — we didn’t even know about the post until after it was published. The case against <span class="small_caps" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review is thus nonsensical at its core. It is also barred by a federal statute, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online publishers for hosting content posted by outside contributors.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">To be clear, the content of the post itself is also plainly protected First Amendment speech, as we have argued consistently and at length from the first letter our lawyers wrote in response to Mann’s initial legal threat to our brief before the Supreme Court.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.8125rem; vertical-align: baseline;">It is a matter of considerable irony that the only “malice” that the discovery process has uncovered is that exhibited by Michael Mann. When planning his suit, Mann described <span class="small_caps" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">National Review as a “threat to our children,” beholden to “greedy fat cat corporate masters.” His stated intention was to bring us “down for good.” Needless to say, this is not how a country with a First Amendment or a culture of free speech is supposed to work. It’s past time that this suit is dismissed as incompatible with both, and a failure on the facts and the law.So far, the courts have, to quote Churchill, elected to “go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.” They brushed past the anti-SLAPP statute that was designed to prevent this from happening. Our hope is that the same won’t happen with Section 230, which is also meant to protect the free-speech rights of online publishers.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/why-the-right-wing-has-put-marriage-equality-and-lgbtq-rights-on-the-ballot/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/why-the-right-wing-has-put-marriage-equality-and-lgbtq-rights-on-the-ballot/</a></div><div>
</div><div>same-sex marriage advocates expressed concern Monday after rightwing Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a fresh attack on a landmark 2015 decision that had been <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/26/supreme-court-delivers-transformative-triumph-marriage-equality%20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">hailed</a> as a "transformative triumph'" for marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.</div>The attack came when the top court declined to hear an appeal from Kim Davis, a former county clerk in the Kentucky who <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/01/overruling-gods-authority-supreme-court-affirms-gay-marriage-ruling" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">refused</a>, after the Obergefell v. Hodges et. al. decision, to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/03/kentucky-county-clerk-jailed-refusing-issue-same-sex-marriage-licenses" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">issue</a> same-sex marriage certificates citing her religious beliefs.In a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-926_5hdk.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">statement</a> (pdf) accompanying the denial of Davis's appeal, written by Thomas and joined by Alito, the justices say "Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court's cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last."The "petition provides a stark reminder of the consequences of Obergefell," they added."By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment," Thomas and Alito wrote, "the court has created a problem that only it can fix. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have 'ruinous consequences for religious liberty.'"The opinion drew sharp rebuke from James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union LGBT and HIV Project."It is appalling that five years after the historic decision in Obergefell, two justices still consider same-sex couples less worthy of marriage than other couples," <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-responds-comments-justices-thomas-and-alito" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">said</a> Esseks."When you do a job on behalf of the government—as an employee or a contractor—there is no license to discriminate or turn people away because they do not meet religious criteria. Our government could not function if everyone doing the government's business got to pick their own rules," Esseks said.Attorney and trans rights activist Chase Strangio warned the comments from Alito and Thomas could signal a broad attack on the LGBTQ community.<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9c1ebaebe78438c3567b5e5570745626" id="ea17f" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1313112412393005057" data-twitter-extracted-i1602262536713961796="true" style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);"><div style="margin: 1em 0px;">First day of the SCOTUS term and Alito & Thomas call for the overturning of Obergefell. https://t.co/IwejJL6dGX</div>— Chase Strangio (@Chase Strangio)<a href="https://twitter.com/chasestrangio/statuses/1313112412393005057" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">1601905370.0</a></blockquote></div>"The attack on marriage equality will be part of a larger wave that also includes the criminalization of trans healthcare, the formulation of a constitutional right for cis people not to share space with trans people, the attack on our very existence," said Strangio, adding, "We must fight."According to Tim Holbrook, a professor at Emory University School of Law, the choice of words in the opinion by Thomas and Alito sends "a signal to state legislatures to challenge Obergefell, at least on religious liberty grounds."In his op-ed at CNN, Holbrook warned, "Such efforts could be successful," and continued:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">Does this mean marriage equality will be overruled? It may not. Instead, the justices, with Justice Thomas's and Alito's statement as a preview, may carve out sweeping religious liberty exceptions to marriage equality. The court may also chip away at attendant rights, like adoption and allowing same-sex couples to be named as parents on birth certificates. It also would be problematic, if not impossible, for the court to eliminate existing marriages between same-sex couples. That may stay the court's hand to some extent.</blockquote>"Nevertheless," added Holbrook, "marriage equality may be at risk."Amplifying concerns is the fact that the Republican-controlled Senate is set to move " <a href="https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=B9972CA8-7920-4ED0-8C65-7F6CCCC0059C" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">full steam ahead</a>"—Capitol Hill Covid-19 <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/05/halt-reckless-supreme-court-process-now-says-schumer-gop-advisers-float-plan-let" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">infections be damned</a>—with confirmation hearings <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/nomination-of-the-honorable-amy-coney-barrett-to-be-an-associate-justice-of-the-supreme-court-of-the-united-states" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">next week</a> for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom progressive activists say <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/01/everything-stake-reproductive-rights-advocates-say-barrett-signing-extremist-anti" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">poses</a> a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/27/truly-horrifying-pick-fury-over-trump-nomination-amy-coney-barrett-scotus" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">threat</a> to healthcare, reproductive justice, and LGBTQ rights."Amy Coney Barrett has openly claimed to hold similar views to [late Supreme Court Justice Antonin] Scalia, who Thomas and Alito channel with this opinion," HRC president Alphonso David said in a <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/as-scotus-threatens-an-extreme-rightward-tilt-hrc-president-calls-out-thomas-alito-for-renewed-war-on-marriage-equality" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">statement</a> Monday."That fact, along with Barrett's ties to anti-equality extremist groups who aim to criminalize LGBTQ relationships in the United States and abroad," said David, "shows that Barrett will only embolden these anti-equality extremist views on the court."<div>=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/marco-rubios-final-humiliation-gops-seven-year-campaign-against-key-obama-policy-was-just-terminated-by-the-supreme-court/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/marco-rubios-final-humiliation-gops-seven-year-campaign-against-key-obama-policy-was-just-terminated-by-the-supreme-court/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">“Q: Did Marco Kill Obamacare?” asked a 2015 tweet from the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., before presumptively answering the question: “A: You bet he did.”OK, so who wants to tell him?Rubio, like his fellow failed presidential aspirant Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, staked his campaign on bringing down Barack Obama’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Rubio began his specific effort to sabotage the law in 2013, a few short years after entering the Senate and before setting out to win the White House. Seven years later, the Supreme Court made clear what was otherwise evident then: Rubio and his fellow Republicans didn’t kill Obamacare, they only made it a bigger mess.While Cruz’s infamous stunt to undermine the ACA by shutting down the government — complete with his 2013 reading of Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” on the Senate floor — proved he was willing to “troll the libs” at any cost, Rubio’s less flashy legal assault was meant to cement his status as the Obama-slayer.At the time, Rubio was still making an attempt to burnish his Tea Party bonafides. As congressional Republicans unsuccessfully voted to defund the ACA more than 50 times he went on the warpath against an obscure portion of the law meant to safeguard participating insurance companies against crippling financial loss as a result of the new requirement to cover clients with pre-existing conditions. Under what was known as “risk corridors,” the law helped some companies defer the cost of lower premiums in the early days of the ACA marketplaces. If an insurance company priced its plans less than 3% below a set target, the government would cover the losses. Conversely, an insurer that benefited from millions of new customers under the law’s individual mandate had to pay its excess profits to the government. Ultimately, the goal was to entice more insurers on the markets, leading to lower prices for consumers. Like the ACA itself, risk corridors have a Republican pedigree and were even <a href="https://www.medpac.gov/docs/default-source/reports/chapter-6-sharing-risk-in-medicare-part-d-june-2015-report-.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">included</a> inGeorge W. Bush’s Medicare Part D program .Still Rubio picked the program to push forward his presidential ambition by promoting what he thought would prove a poison pill to the larger health care law.Decrying it as a “taxpayer bailout,” he testified against risk corridors as the star witness at a House Oversight Committee hearing and penned op-eds against the program. In a classic case of a solution in search of a problem, Rubio claimed that the ACA was suffering a “death spiral,” an actuarial term used to describe a marketplace spinning out of control, to push for the demise of the law’s infrastructure. Although Rubio didn’t actually sponsor <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1378743-pg-892.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the provision in Congress’ 2014 appropriations bill</a> that prevented the federal government from using certain funds to make the required payments to insurers, he took credit for it. The Rubio-inspired provision also required the program to become budget-neutral.The Republican rider effectively pulled the rug out from under insurers. After companies had already locked in their 2015 rates on the assurance of a government stopgap, Congress changed the rules such that the federal government could only afford to pay 13 cents of every dollar owed to the insurance companies. Insurers compiled an overall loss of $5.5 billion the year after the Republicans blocked one avenue of funding. The risk corridors were a temporary program, which expired after 2016, but insurers ultimately lost $12 million due to Rubio’s shenanigans.“So far, we’ve succeeded in stopping the Obama administration from bailing out healthcare companies under ObamaCare, and it’s critical that Congress once again stand with taxpayers to stop any taxpayer bailout of health insurers from happening,” Rubio <a href="https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/cache/files/34875e7c-25c1-4055-8a1d-82f973c8e93a/395AF80FA38F770DDFB148C266F89B3B.bailouts-letter-to-gop-leadership-11-24-15.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote</a> to Republican leadership at the time.As lawyers for the insurance companies argued before the Supreme Court, Rubio and congressional Republicans orchestrated “a massive government bait-and-switch.” Republicans weren’t able to muster the votes to repeal the ACA outright, so they just tried to bail out on the law’s statutory obligations. The end result was weakened Obamacare markets with fewer insurers and higher premiums. Premiums that, as the Supreme Court just ruled, must still be subsidized by the federal government.On Monday, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1023_m64o.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Supreme Court voted in</a> an 8-1 decision against Rubio’s gimmick to take down Obamacare. Justice Samuel Alito was the sole dissenter, arguing that the decision provides “a massive bailout for insurance companies that took a calculated risk and lost.” Writing for the majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor relied on what she called “a principle as old as the nation itself: The government should honor its obligations.” Republicans in Congress could not simply decline to fund the program, the Supreme Court ruled. The government still has to pay insurers $12 billion all of these years later.So the man Donald Trump derided as “Little Marco” didn’t win the White House, and didn’t kill off Obamacare either. He simply <a href="https://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/11/20/risk-corridor-payments-unitedhealth-cooperatives-and-the-marketplaces/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">drove small insurers out of rural America</a>, leaving many coverage areas with no competition in the marketplace. In effect, he created a monopoly by driving out small insurers, quite likely so he could attract Koch brothers funding for his ill-fated presidential campaign.Of course this was all eminently predictable, according to a plain reading of the relevant laws and long-standing jurisprudence. But Rubio’s instance on a vanity campaign that cost millions of dollars and denied millions of people access to affordable health care feels like more than a pathetic afterthought now, as our embattled health care system struggles to meet the challenge of a global pandemic.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html</a></div><div>
</div><div>the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/18-260_5i36_scotus-maui.pdf" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">ruled</a> against the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/trump-administration" target="self" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Trump administration</a> Thursday in a case <a href="https://earthjustice.org/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Earthjustice</a> <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2019/clean-water-case-of-the-century-heads-to-supreme-court" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">called</a> "the clean <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water" target="self" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">water</a> case of the century."</div><div>
</div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2645821708" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;"><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-basename="particle-1" data-post-id="2645821708" data-published-at="1587733026">The case concerned a Maui, Hawaii wastewater treatment plant that pumped around four million gallons of sewage a day into groundwater, where some of it reached the Pacific Ocean, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/supreme-court-clean-water-act-hawaii.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The New York Times reported</a>. Maui County and the Trump administration argued that the plant did not need a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/clean-water-act" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Clean Water Act</a> permit if the waste was passing through groundwater before entering protected waters, but the court rejected that narrow interpretation of the landmark environmental law six to three."We do not see how Congress could have intended to create such a large and obvious loophole in one of the key regulatory innovations of the Clean Water Act," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion, as <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/decision-on-supreme-court-clean-water-case?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Earthjustice reported</a>[twt?]Earthjustice brought the case on behalf of Maui environmental groups <a href="https://www.wildhawaii.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund</a>, <a href="https://mauisierraclub.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Sierra Club-Maui Group</a>, <a href="https://www.surfrider.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Surfrider Foundation</a> and <a href="https://www.savewestmaui.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">West Maui Preservation Association</a>. Both the Hawaiʻi District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the county, but the Supreme Court case was high stakes.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-basename="particle-3" data-post-id="2645821708" data-published-at="1587733026" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"If the Supreme Court endorses the county's position, it would open a massive loophole for every polluter in the country to avoid regulation of their discharges by the law that protects the nation's waterways," arguing Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said in November 2019.By backing up the county's case, the Trump <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Environmental Protection Agency</a> was also reversing the agency's historic position, <a href="https://apnews.com/fcee565b9fed5b001e9b3fce9ed00c24" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Associated Press reported</a>. This is in keeping with other Trump administration attempts to weaken water protections, such as its rollback of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-admin-repeals-protections-for-smaller-streams-and-wetlands-2640338564.html" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Clean Water Rule</a> rule granting protection to small streams and wetlands."This decision is a huge victory for clean water," Henkin said. "The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act's protections for rivers, lakes and oceans."</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem4" data-id="4" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" data-basename="particle-4" data-post-id="2645821708" data-published-at="1587733026">Henkin said it was likely the lower court would now order the Maui plant to get a permit for its activities and ensure they do not damage the ocean. They have already been found to have harmed a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="self" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">coral reef</a>.Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh joined Breyer in the majority opinion, while Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented, though Alito wrote his own dissent, The New York Times reported."Based on the statutory text and structure, I would hold that a permit is required only when a point source discharges pollutants directly into navigable waters," Thomas wrote, according to The Associated Press.In the majority ruling, the court did not go as far as the environmental advocates, who argued a permit was needed for any pollutants that "actually and foreseeably reach navigable surface waters," The New York Times reported.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem5" data-id="5" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-basename="particle-5" data-post-id="2645821708" data-published-at="1587733026" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled entirely in favor of the environmental groups, but Breyer said that standard was too all-encompassing and would include things like "pollutants carried to navigable waters on a bird's feathers."Instead, he argued that discharges into groundwater had to be regulated if they were the "functional equivalent" of a direct discharge.But Earthjustice still touted the decision as a win, and CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas School of Law professor Steve Vladeck said it would boost water-protection efforts."Compared to the argument that it does not require permits for any groundwater pollution, which the county and the three dissenting justices all argued, this result will both empower the federal government to more aggressively regulate such pollution and allow private parties to sue when that regulation fails," Vladeck <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/23/politics/supreme-court-clean-water-act-maui/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">told CNN</a>.</div><div class="post-pager js-listicle-pager" data-listicle-style="" data-async_load_parameters="platform=desktop&display_ads=1&settings=%7B%22enter_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22no_post_section%22%3A+null%2C+%22ads_breaks%22%3A+%5B1%2C+1%2C+1%2C+1%2C+1%5D%2C+%22prevent_last_break_repetition%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_numeration%22%3A+false%2C+%22allow_url_change%22%3A+null%2C+%22ads_order%22%3A+%5B1%5D%2C+%22pagination_order%22%3A+null%2C+%22list_breaks%22%3A+null%2C+%22reorder_voting%22%3A+null%2C+%22cooldown_in_seconds%22%3A+null%2C+%22source%22%3A+%22engine_settings%22%2C+%22next_post_url%22%3A+null%2C+%22up_down_voting%22%3A+false%2C+%22show_columns_on_mobile%22%3A+null%2C+%22numeration_sort%22%3A+-1%2C+%22allow_url_update%22%3A+null%2C+%22use_pagination%22%3A+false%2C+%22body_text_above%22%3A+false%2C+%22use_ads%22%3A+true%2C+%22items_as_posts%22%3A+false%2C+%22multiple_answers%22%3A+null%2C+%22no_redirect%22%3A+null%2C+%22is_guest_voting_allowed%22%3A+null%2C+%22layout_type%22%3A+null%7D" style="display: table; width: 780px;"><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 5px !important;"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; visibility: hidden !important; margin-bottom: -5px !important;"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act-hawaii-mayor-2641102344.html" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Maui Mayor Rejects Clean Water Act Settlement, Aims for Supreme ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hawaii-clean-water-act-2629411804.html" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Hawaii Clean Water Act Case ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div></div>dissent? ALito maj<a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-supreme-court-crimes-immigrants-legal-trump-20190319-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-supreme-court-crimes-immigrants-legal-trump-20190319-story.html</a>
2nd 5-4 ruling a major blow for immigrant rights, the Supreme Court ruled the government can detain immigrants with past criminal records indefinitely and without due process—even decades after their convictions. The 5-4 ruling Tuesday in favor of the government centers around a 1996 law that allows immigration officials to take immigrants into custody after they are released from jail—but without specifying a time frame. The ACLU, which brought the case on behalf of immigrants affected by the law, said, “[T]he Supreme Court has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes, allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are defending themselves against a deportation charge. We will continue to fight the gross overuse of detention in the immigration system.”<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243);"><li style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Widget: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/20/headlines/scotus_rules_govt_can_detain_immigrants_with_criminal_records_indefinitely" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;">SCOTUS Rules Gov’t Can Detain Immigrants with Criminal Records Indefinitely</a></li></ul><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/27/trumps-supreme-court-strikes-blow-government-workers-good-paying-jobs/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/27/trumps-supreme-court-strikes-blow-government-workers-good-paying-jobs/</a>In a major blow to organized labor and good paying government jobs, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that government workers who choose not to join a union cannot be charged fees to reimburse the union for the cost of representing them in collective bargaining.The decision was 5-4 in the Janus vs. AFSCME Council 31 case, with Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch supplying the deciding vote. Justice Samuel Alito, who actively invited a challenge to union fees, wrote the decision for the Court’s right-wing majority.In today’s decision, Alito wrote that the fees, called “agency fees,” violated the First Amendment. In doing so, Alito overruled a 41-year-old Supreme Court decision legalizing these fees in the Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education decision.The decision ushers in “right to work” style conditions for public employees in states across the nation. These anti-union measures <a href="http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2017/08/racist-who-pioneered-right-work-laws" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">originated in the Jim Crow South</a> as a means of undermining unions who were organizing black and white workers together in the same shop. Predictably, Koch brothers groups–such as Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network–cheered the ruling, while union leaders prepared to renegotiate thousands of contracts and deal with a new legal landscape for unions across the land.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CROWN JEWEL IN ASSAULT ON UNIONS BY RIGHT-WING BILLIONAIRES AND CORPORATIONS</h2>The case should be seen in the context of a sustained assault by extremist billionaires, corporations, and foundation on unions, the organized voice of working families and a major player in campaigns and elections on the Democratic side.Over the past decade, as ALEC legislators aggressively advanced union-busting bills in red states like Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky, a slew of rapid fire cases were advanced by allied groups in blue states, as Center for Media and Democracy detailed in an <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">award-winning article</a> on the Janus case. A number of these cases, including Knox v. SEIU (2012), Harris v. Quinn (2014), and Friederichs v. California Teachers Association (2016), made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and were used by Justice Alito to justify the Janus decision.The Janus case originated with Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) represents state workers in Illinois and campaigned hard against the venture-capitalist in his 2014 race for governor. When Rauner was found not to have standing, attorneys from the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_Policy_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Policy Institute</a>–a State Policy Network think tank–substituted Illinois child care worker Mark Janus as the lead plaintiff. Rauner said that “taking this issue on was one of my primary reasons for running for governor in the first place,” and flew to Washington, DC this week to await the ruling.The case involves the obscure technical issue of agency fees. In over 20 states, even if public sector workers do not want to be represented by a union, they must pay agency or “fair share fees” to cover the cost of their representation. These fees were ruled fair and constitutional in 1977 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Abood decision, to prevent a “free rider” problem and because unions are legally required to represent all workers in a bargaining unit. The fees fund the unions’ collective bargaining process and other services they provide to state workers; they cannot be used for political action.Justice Alito wrote that the free rider problem was not a “compelling state interest.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“WEAPONIZING” THE FIRST AMENDMENT</h2>Dissenting justices portrayed the case is a radical re-write of labor law, with dramatic consequences for dozens of states and thousands of binding contracts.“There is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation’s law–and in its economic life–for over 40 years,” wrote Kagan,who read her dissent from the bench. In doing so the Court has “weaponized the First Amendment,” she said.The radical nature of the case was explained by Justice Kagan during oral arguments:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, all would have their statutes declared unconstitutional at once. Thousands of municipalities would have contracts invalidated. Those contracts probably cover millions, maybe up to over 10 million, workers. So property and contract rights, the statutes of many states and the livelihoods of millions of individuals affected all at once. When have we ever done something like that? What would be the justification for doing something like that?</blockquote>Kagan also wrote that in overturning Abood the Court “disregards the defining characteristic of this free-rider argument–that unions, unlike those many other private groups, must serve members and non-members alike…. That special feature was what justified Abood.”“But the worse part of today’s opinion is where the majority subverts all known principles of stare decisis,” the principle that rulings should be based on precedent, Kagan wrote. The majority can’t just “throw some gratuitous criticisms into a couple of opinions and a few years later point to them as ‘special justifications’ for their actions,” she said.Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers had previously stressed this point. “Rarely is there a situation where a next-generation Supreme Court overrules or changes precedent of a unanimously decided opinion. This is a completely ideological movement to end unions as we know it and to redefine the First Amendment as a weapon against people,” <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/05/randi_weingarten_qa.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">she said</a>.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TRUMP COURT ATTACKS BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS</h2>The decision, along with the recent <a href="https://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/mary-bottari-epic-fail-supreme-court-turns-back-clock-to/article_2d61881f-950f-5281-8822-68bf06669a28.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">EPIC Systems v. Lewis</a> case, will make the Trump-Gorsuch court one of the worst for working families in history. Gorsuch wrote the May 2018 EPIC Systems decision, which held that businesses can prohibit their workers from banding together to battle their employers in court in disputes over a wide array of issues such as wage theft, sexual harassment, civil rights, and gender discrimination.“This is probably the most relentlessly anti-democratic and specifically anti-worker court since the ‘Lochner Era’ of the late 19th and early 20th century,” University of Wisconsin Law Professor Joel Rogers told the Center for Media and Democracy.“But Janus shows it’s arguably worse, since it doesn’t even respect freedom of contract. This Court doesn’t stand for the ‘rule of law,’ which means putting constraints on the arbitrary and abusive use of power. It’s ‘let’s concoct a legal justification for giving abuse a free rein,'” said Rogers. The 1905 Lochner case held that limits on the work day or work week violated the Constitution.“These are two devastating 5-4 decisions–two decisions that could have easily gone the other way but for the sabotage of the appointment of Merrick Garland,” said Courtlyn Roser-Jones, visiting Assistant Professor at the Ohio State Mortiz College of Law. Garland was appointed by President Obama in 2016, but the Republican Senate refused to confirm him leading to Trump’s appointment of Neil Gorsuch.The Janus decision could lead to weaker unions, lower wages for government workers, and poorer public services.“We are living in a system that is rigged to benefit special interests and billionaires, all at the expense of working people. Today’s radical decision by the Supreme Court is a blatant slap in the face for educators, nurses, firefighters, police officers and all public servants who make our communities strong and safe… [U]nions will continue to be the best vehicle on the path to the middle class,” said Lily Eskelsen García, President of the National Education Association.And the agenda is broader that just unions, the court is going after the policies that unions advocate for, say experts.“This is a concerted, corporate-funded effort to get rid of public employee unions–to stop them from advocating for higher minimum wages, affordable healthcare or a right to paid sick leave, to stop them winning wages and benefits that force private sector employers to raise their own wages, and to stop them from insisting on a level of public services–schools, libraries, transportation and more–that we all have a right to just by dint of being citizens,” said Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TEAM TRUMP IS BUILDING A LASTING ANTI-WORKER LEGACY, BUT UNIONS ARE FIGHTING BACK</h2>The Trump administration frequently claims to be on the side of the little guy, but it is building a strong track record of harming workers and working families in the courts, in Congress, and in administrative agencies.The 2018 EPIC Systems ruling will harm millions of non-union workers who will be newly subject to arbitration. The huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump the end of 2017 will exacerbate an already profound income inequality gap between the wealthy and working families. And the Trump administration has aggressively rolled back a 2016 rule strengthening overtime protections for low- and middle-income workers, and took steps to gut regulations that protect restaurant workers from having their tips taken by their employers. Michael Arria noted in <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/09/17/in-attacking-overtime-pay-trump-is-hurting-his-biggest-fans_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Salon</a> that by “attacking overtime pay, Trump is hurting his biggest fans.”But unions are not sitting idly by. Massive teachers’ strikes have succeeded in winning major concessions for government workers in multiple states. “Don’t count us out,” said AFT’s Weingarten. “Workers are sticking with their unions, because they know that unions are the best vehicle for workers to get ahead.”Richard Trumka, the head of the national AFL-CIO, also noted the recent revival of organized labor. “All over the country, workers are organizing and taking collected action as we haven’t seen in years. More than 14,000 workers recently formed or joined unions in just a single week. This followed a year where 262,000 workers organized and the approval of unions reached a new high.”“The corporate narrative of the labor movement’s downfall is being dismantled by working people every single day,” said Trumka.<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-collapse: collapse; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); clear: both; margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />Mary Bottari</div>

slate:

After authoring a <a target="blank" href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-1447_6j37.pdf">slew</a> of 5–4 <a target="blank" href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-556_11o2.pdf">conservative</a> <a target="blank" href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-142_8njq.pdf">opinions</a> this week and helping to <a target="blank" href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf">effectively kill</a> the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito should be in a good mood. He’s not. On Monday, a cranky Alito <a target="blank" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/justice-alitos-inexcusable-rudeness/277163/">rolled his eyes, shook his head, and looked at the ceiling</a>— a <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/06/25/justice_alito_was_a_jerk_to_justice_ginsburg_but_she_can_take_care_of_herself.html">jarring breach</a> of court decorum—as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read a dissent from the bench. In weeks prior, the justice openly <a target="blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-justice-samuel-alitos-middle-school-antics/2013/06/24/534888f8-dd0d-11e2-9218-bc2ac7cd44e2_story.html">glowered and rolled his eyes</a> at Justice Elena Kagan on two separate occasions. It’s a grand court tradition for justices to get <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2012/supreme_court_year_in_review/supreme_court_year_in_review_the_justices_disagree_sharply_on_immigration_and_juvenile_life_sentences.html">grumpy and dyspeptic</a> during the final, toughest days of the term. But even cantankerous Justice Antonin Scalia has learned to take out his anger on cases, not people (or at least, <a target="_blank" href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/scalia-cites-obama-immigration-policy-in-dissent-on-arizona-law/">not people present</a>).

</div>

That’s a skill Alito has yet to learn—and if the past few weeks are any indication, he certainly isn’t trying. That should come as no surprise. Everyone <a target="_blank" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chief-justice-roberts-snaps-at-lawyer-2012-11">snaps</a> from time to time, but Alito has long stood out as the rudest, most impudent justice, broadcasting his hostility and impatience to advocates and colleagues alike. He treats lawyers like children caught in a lie, grilling them on every minor point of their argument while dismissing their logic as idiotic. He handles fellow justices like hecklers who have thoughtlessly interrupted his train of thought. His demeanor is one of gruff agitation; he constantly sounds like he would rather be somewhere else.

</div>

Most of the world first witnessed the justice’s churlish tendencies during the 2010 State of the Union address, when the justice <a target="blank" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35117174/ns/politics-white_house/t/justice-openly-disagrees-obama-speech/%23.Ucnc3z614k8">shook his head and mouthed “not true”</a> in response to President Obama’s Citizens United criticism. (Alito is known to dislike Obama, who as a senator voted against his confirmation. When Obama stopped by the court a week before his inauguration, Alito was <a target="blank" href="http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/01/a-chat-around-the-fireplace-for-obama-biden-and-the-supreme-court.html">conspicuously absent</a>.) But his bad manners were on display in the courtroom long before that. At times, Alito can look <a target="_blank" href="http://books.google.com/books?id=QTDaHIZ70MoC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=alito+rude+oral+arguments&source=bl&ots=FKh53zQYBZ&sig=yNzl0jJAfrle4sHzQfUVu8ALUsU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tNHJUZfxNMvO0QGU8oGYBA&ved=0CF8Q6AEwBzgK%23v=onepage&q=alito&f=false%23v=onepage&q=often%20closes%20his%20eyes&f=false">bored or frustrated</a>, occasionally following the lead of his colleague Justice Clarence Thomas and resting his eyes for a long moment. More frequently, however, Alito will hack away at an advocate’s line of reasoning with smug certitude, sighing and scowling as if to indicate that the lawyer’s response is simply not worth his time.

</div>

The best way to experience Alito’s strange, irascible weariness is to see it in person at the Supreme Court. But the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.oyez.org/">Oyez Project</a>’s invaluable recordings of oral arguments offer insight into his vexed style. His tone during oral arguments for Hollingsworth v. Perry, for instance, provides much more insight into his mindset than mere text. During arguments in the case, which questioned the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, Alito infamously asked why the court should “render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cellphones or the Internet.”

</div>

The depth of Alito’s subtle malice, his irked impatience, can only be heard in his delivery. Take a listen at <a target="blank" href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2012/2012_12_144">Oyez</a>, starting around the 63:30 mark, to hear how Alito’s halting cadence conveys his exasperation that gay people had the gall to actually assert their rights in court. “You want us to step in?” he demands. “We do not have the ability to see the future!” His voice, thin and crackly, churns with indignation. His question is not really a question; it’s a cri de coeur taken straight from the anti-gay marriage movement, which routinely agonizes over the newness and “<a target="blank" href="http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/12-144-12-307_merits_reversal_rpg_etal.authcheckdam.pdf">revisionism</a>” of same-sex marriage.

</div>

In recent years, Alito’s temperamental flare-ups have become increasingly directed at his colleagues. Court procedure dictates that the justices argue with one another through the proxy of an advocate. But Alito is entirely willing to direct his barbs directly at his colleagues. Even Scalia, Alito’s usual ideological ally, isn’t safe from his prickly jibes. During oral arguments for <a target="blank" href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/eanf/">Brown v. EMA</a>, a case involving the sale of violent video games to minors, Alito mocked Scalia’s originalism by <a target="blank" href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/08-1448.pdf">informing an advocate</a>, “I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?” Alito was obviously amused by his own belittling quip, as was the audience: The <a target="_blank" href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2010/2010_08_1448">exchange</a>, which begins around 16 minutes in, drew laughter from the crowd. Scalia, though, was clearly unamused. “No,” he growled, “I want to know what James Madison thought about violence.” A frequent court jester himself, Scalia still takes his own philosophy quite seriously. He doesn’t take kindly to a colleague ridiculing it—especially in public.

</div>

There is, to be fair, one setting in which Alito appears to be truly happy and comfortable: speeches to far-right conservatives. The justice has made speeches to the <a target="blank" href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/01/26/140655/alito-thomas-singer/">Intercollegiate Studies Institute</a>, a rabidly free-market think tank for which he helped raise $70,000; the libertarian <a target="blank" href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/wl2010.htm">Manhattan Institute</a>; and the <a target="blank" href="http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/11/alito-defends-citizens-in-speech-to-federalist-society.html">Federalist Society</a>. He’s also spoken at fundraisers for the <a target="blank" href="http://spectator.org/">American Spectator</a>, a conservative magazine that, among other things, drove the character assassination of Anita Hill. During these appearances, Alito is radically different from his court persona, wearing a bemused smirk that intermittently approaches genuine geniality. And there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be enjoying himself: Alito’s out-of-court speeches are invariably political, stuffed with barely concealed jabs at liberalism and its champions. In his Spectator speech, for example, Alito <a target="_blank" href="http://www.humanevents.com/2008/12/05/justice-alito-pokes-fun-of-biden-at-dinner/">jeered at Joe Biden</a>, praised John McCain, and compared Obama’s campaign to Eugene McCarthy’s doomed run in 1968.

</div>

Supreme Court justices need not be completely apolitical. Their rulings are fundamentally intertwined with politics, so they might as well be transparent about where their partisan sympathies lie. But for a justice to take potshots at a vice president–elect while openly raising money for a far-right think tank is to abandon any gesture toward judicial impartiality. It is simply not behavior befitting a Supreme Court justice—but then neither is much of what Alito says and does. On the bench, he tramples advocates’ arguments with a dismissive sneer and openly cuts down his colleagues’ logic. Off the bench, he unapologetically trumpets his fidelity to the Republican cause. Alito’s lifetime tenure ensures that his antics will never have serious professional repercussions. But as long as his impudence continues, his presence on the court will continue to demean what was once, not too long ago, a respectable institution.

</div>

===

When Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court, in 2006, the balance started shifting in favor of deregulating political spending. The next year, the Court sanctioned unlimited, secret spending on “issues” ads, as long as they didn’t directly endorse or oppose a candidate, and as long as the primary purpose of the group making them was “educational” rather than political. Once the Court opened a path for unlimited anonymous money, it flooded in.

Conservatives cast their opposition to campaign-finance restrictions as a defense of free speech, but one of the cause’s biggest champions, Senator McConnell, occasionally revealed a partisan motive. McConnell once opened a college seminar by writing on the blackboard the three ingredients that he felt were necessary to build a political party: “Money, money, and money.” In a Senate debate on proposed campaign-finance restrictions, McConnell reportedly told colleagues, “If we stop this thing, we can control the institution for the next twenty years.” In the end, McConnell decided to wage his battle through the courts. He and a conservative lawyer, James Bopp, Jr., founded the James Madison Center for Free Speech, which mounted a legal challenge on behalf of Citizens United—yet another outside spending group created by McCarthy’s partner on the Willie Horton ad, Floyd Brown.

The case reached the Supreme Court, and its ruling, issued in January, 2010, rolled back a century of legislation limiting corporate money in federal elections. Citizens United argued, successfully, that political spending was a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In the past, the Court had balanced the free-speech argument against the need to protect American democracy from corruption. In Citizens United, a 5–4 decision, the Court essentially ruled that elections wouldn’t be corrupted by independent expenditures made by outside groups. They could spend all the money they wanted, as long as the contributions weren’t made directly to the candidates’ campaigns.

===

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court Gearing Up to Restore White Rule Over America</h1>

</div>

<div class="field-item even">GOP desperation over U.S. demographic changes has spread to the U.S. Supreme Court -- a majority is ready to tear up the most important part of the Voting Rights Act.</div>

</div>

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/neo-confederate-supreme-court-gearing-restore-white-rule-over-america">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/neo-confederate-supreme-court-gearing-restore-white-rule-over-america</a>

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==

Roberts and Alito, however, are younger men who take an originalist approach after elder scalia  SCALITO

5) ALITO: originalist, (w/ Roberts and scalia; Meese?) ; woman must tell husband on abortion;

Am Specator, Gillespie, Intercoll Stud Inst (prolly just a speech?), Norquist booster

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<h3 class="r"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/27/alito-not-true_n_439672.html" class="l" onmousedown="return rwt(this,'','2373142178198596492','','14','AFQjCNGvG2z_sU1jZsESyW5YmMNMVNQ10A','','0CH4QtwIwDQ',null,event)">Alito Mouths 'NOT TRUE' At State Of The Union (VIDEO)</a></h3>

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anti-union:

<h1>How the Supreme Court's 'Knox v. SEIU' Decision Could Dismantle Union Security Around the Country</h1>

</div>

<div class="teaser">In Knox v. Service Employees International Union, the Supreme Court suggests that the First Amendment is for corporations, not working people and unions.</div>

The Supreme Court struck at the rights of workers with the blade of the First Amendment on June 21, when it made a decision that will restrict unions’ ability to spend on elections, and could open the way for passage and court approval of a national, union-weakening, so-called "right to work" law.

The curious case of Knox v. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1000—in which the high court decided to throw "judicial restraint" to the wind and go beyond the questions posed in the appeals court to rule against the union—portends nothing good for workers. Knox restricts how unions can get money for political uses from public sector workers in a unionized shop who refuse to join the union (Garrett Epps over at the <a href="http://prospect.org/article/court%E2%80%99s-scott-walker-moment">American Prospect</a> has a great description of the particulars in the case.)

Even as unions in the private sector have seen their memberships dwindle to around 6 percent of the workforce, public sector unions (in places where they are still recognized) have remained relatively strong because they have been allowed to collect some money—albeit less than the full union-dues amount—from workers who do not want to belong to the union. The public sector union contract has to cover all the workers in the agency, not just card-carrying members-- and all the workers benefit from the resultant pay raises, health benefits, pensions and other goodies. So non-members are expected to contribute something to the direct cost of negotiations. (Workers who don’t support the union shouldn’t get to enjoy the better pay and working conditions that their union colleagues fought for, but employers haven’t historically been willing to pay people less for NOT being union members. They much prefer to bribe, cajole and threaten workers to reject the union.).

</div>

attended 2 Spectator fundraiser, galas,

<div class="submitted">By Miranda | November 10, 2010 - 1:27pm</div>

ThinkProgress’s Lee Fang went out to a high-profile, high-price fundraiser for the right-wing magazine the American Spectator last night, and <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/10/sam-alito-republican-fundraiser/">confronted</a> one of the gala’s distinguished guests: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The Spectator is more than merely an ideological outlet. Spectator publisher Al Regnery helps lead a secretive group of conservatives called the “Conservative Action Project,” formed after President Obama’s election, to help lobby for conservative legislative priorities, elect Republicans (the Conservative Action Project helped campaign against Democrat Bill Owens in NY-23), and block President Obama’s judicial appointments. The Spectator’s gala last night, with ticket prices/sponsorship levels ranging from $250 to $25,000, featured prominent Republicans like RNC chairman Michael Steele, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer (a major donor to Republican campaign committees and attack ad groups), and U.S. Chamber of Commerce board member and former Allied Capital CEO William Walton. Among the attendees toasting Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the keynote speaker for the event, was Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.

It’s not the first time Alito has attended the Spectator dinner. In 2008, Alito headlined the Spectator’s annual gala, helping to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the political magazine. According to Jay Homnick, a conservative who attended the 2008 Spectator gala, Alito spent much of his speech ripping then Vice President-elect Joe Biden as a serial plagiarizer.

As Alito entered the event last night, I approached the Justice and asked him why he thought it appropriate to attend a highly political fundraiser with the chairman of the Republican Party, given Alito’s position on the court. Alito appeared baffled, and replied, “it’s not important that I’m here.” “But,” I said, “you also helped headline this same event two years ago, obviously helping to raise political money as the keynote.” Alito replied curtly, “it’s not important,” before walking away from me....http://blog.pfaw.org/content/justice-alito-confronted-gop-related-fundraiser

</blockquote>

</div>

Sup Ct thomas and also koch?

<a href="http://blog.pfaw.org/content/justice-alito-confronted-gop-related-fundraiser">http://blog.pfaw.org/content/justice-alito-confronted-gop-related-fundraiser</a>

=

<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">Samuel A. Alito, Jr.</h1>

<h3 id="siteSub">From SourceWatch</h3>

Samuel A. Alito, Jr. was <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051031.html" class="external text" title="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051031.html" rel="nofollow">nominated</a> October 31, 2005, by President <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" class="mw-redirect">George W. Bush</a> to be an Associate Justice of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Supreme_Court" title="Supreme Court">Supreme Court</a> of the United States. Alito would replace Associate Justice <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sandra_Day_O%27Connor" title="Sandra Day O'Connor">Sandra Day O'Connor</a> who was to retire this fall. Alito's nomination came four days after White House Counsel <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Harriet_E.Miers" title="Harriet E. Miers">Harriet E. Miers</a> withdrew her nomination.

The White House has appointed <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Gillespie" title="Ed Gillespie">Ed Gillespie</a>, the co-chairman of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Quinn_Gillespie_%26_Associates" title="Quinn Gillespie & Associates">Quinn Gillespie & Associates</a> to help win Senate support for Alito's confirmation. <a href="http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/526230/white-house-expanding-pr-roles-alito-nomination/" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/526230/white-house-expanding-pr-roles-alito-nomination/" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>

During the January 2006 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Senate_Confirmation_Process" title="U.S. Senate Confirmation Process">confirmation</a> hearings on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito, Jr., his wife, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Martha-Ann_Bomgardner&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Martha-Ann Bomgardner (page does not exist)">Martha-Ann Bomgardner</a>, left the hearing in tears. (She left as Senator <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lindsey_Graham" title="Lindsey Graham">Lindsey Graham</a> was apologizing for Democratic Senators' questions about Mr. Alito's membership in the ultra-conservative group <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Concerned_Alumni_of_Princeton&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Concerned Alumni of Princeton (page does not exist)">Concerned Alumni of Princeton</a>.) Time magazine reported that, following this incident: <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1148113,00.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1148113,00.html" rel="nofollow">[2]</a>

<dl>

<dd>The always-alert <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Creative_Response_Concepts" title="Creative Response Concepts">Creative Response Concepts</a>, a conservative public relations firm, sent this bulletin: "Former Alito clerk Gary Rubman witnessed Mrs. Alito leaving her husband's confirmation in tears and is available for interviews, along with other former Alito clerks who know her personally and are very upset about this development." In case that was too much trouble for the journalists, the firm also e-mailed out a statement from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judicial_Confirmation_Network" title="Judicial Confirmation Network">Judicial Confirmation Network</a> calling "for the abuse to stop."</dd>

</dl>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Controversies">1 Controversies</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Hard_Right">1.1 Hard Right</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#.22Scalito.22">1.2 "Scalito"</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#No_Constitutional_Right_to_Abortion">1.3 No Constitutional Right to Abortion</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Alito_Would_Overturn_Roe_v._Wade">1.4 Alito Would Overturn Roe v. Wade</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Religiosity">1.5 Religiosity</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Cronyism">1.6 Cronyism</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Career_Prosecutor">1.7 Career Prosecutor</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Conflict_of_Interest">1.8 Conflict of Interest</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Another_.22Chickenhawk.22.3F">1.9 Another "Chickenhawk"?</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Photo-Opportunist">1.10 Photo-Opportunist</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Notable_Rulings_.26_Views">2 Notable Rulings & Views</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Related_Links">2.1 Related Links</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Specific_to_Women.27s_Issues">2.1.1 Specific to Women's Issues</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Specific_to_Crime">2.1.2 Specific to Crime</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Specific_to_Privacy_.26_Gay_Rights_Issues">2.1.3 Specific to Privacy & Gay Rights Issues</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Specific_to_Civil_Rights">2.1.4 Specific to Civil Rights</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Specific_to_Workers.27_Rights">2.1.5 Specific to Workers' Rights</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Specific_to_Conflict_of_Interest">2.1.6 Specific to Conflict of Interest</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Reactions_to_the_Nomination">3 Reactions to the Nomination</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Profiles">4 Profiles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Appointments">5 Appointments</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Professional_Career">6 Professional Career</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Education">7 Education</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Corporate_Holdings">8 Corporate Holdings</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#SourceWatch_Resources">9 SourceWatch Resources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#External_links">10 External links</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Ongoing_Coverage:Blogs.26_Websites">10.1 Ongoing Coverage: Blogs & Websites</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Supreme_Court_Nomination">10.2 Supreme Court Nomination</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Profiles_2">10.3 Profiles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.#Articles_.26_Commentary">10.4 Articles & Commentary</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Controversies</h2>

<h3>Hard Right</h3>

"There will be no one to the right of Sam Alito on this Court. This is a pretty hardcore fellow on <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Abortion" title="Abortion" class="mw-redirect">abortion</a> issues." --Jonathan Turley, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/alito-turley/" class="external text" title="http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/alito-turley/" rel="nofollow">Think Progress</a>, October 31, 2005. <a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/31.html#a5629" class="external text" title="http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/10/31.html#a5629" rel="nofollow">Video</a>, Crooks and Liars.

"Judges who have served with Samuel Alito say he's unquestionably a conservative who would push the Supreme Court to the right, likely favoring new <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Abortion" title="Abortion" class="mw-redirect">abortion</a> restrictions that retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would not," Associated Press writer Hope Yen <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/03/colleagues_alito_unlikely_to_overturn_roe/" class="external text" title="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/03/colleagues_alito_unlikely_to_overturn_roe/" rel="nofollow">reported</a> November 3, 2005.

"'Of course he's against abortion,' his 90-year-old mother Rose told reporters at her home in Hamilton, N.J." --<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051031/ap_on_go_su_co/bush_scotus_52%26printer=1" class="external text" title="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051031/ap_on_go_su_co/bush_scotus_52&printer=1" rel="nofollow">Associated Press</a>, October 31, 2005.

<h3>"Scalito"</h3>

Alito is considered to be a favorite of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Conservative" title="Conservative">conservative</a> movement. Comparisons to Justice <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Antonin_Scalia" title="Antonin Scalia">Antonin Scalia</a> have led some lawyers to give Alito the nickname "Scalito." <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802085.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802085.html" rel="nofollow">[3]</a>

<h3>No Constitutional Right to Abortion</h3>

Alito wrote "in a 1985 document <a href="http://washingtontimes.com/national/20051114-015136-2101r.htm" class="external text" title="http://washingtontimes.com/national/20051114-015136-2101r.htm" rel="nofollow">obtained by</a> The Washington Times" that "'the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

"The document, which is likely to inflame liberals who oppose Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, is among many that the White House" was to release November 14, 2005, from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan">Ronald Reagan</a> Presidential Library.

<h3>Alito Would Overturn Roe v. Wade</h3>

Senate Minority Leader <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Harry_Reid" title="Harry Reid">Harry Reid</a> (D-Nevada) warned President Bush not to nominate Alito as he is seen as a very <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Conservative" title="Conservative">conservative</a> judge and an anti-abortionist due to his involvement in the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Planned_Parenthood" title="Planned Parenthood">Planned Parenthood</a> of Southeastern PA. v. Casey <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=505&invol=833" class="external text" title="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=505&invol=833" rel="nofollow">case</a> in 1992. <a href="http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/12858879.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/12858879.htm" rel="nofollow">[4]</a> <a href="http://www.now.org/issues/judicial/supreme/potentialnominees.html?printable" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.now.org/issues/judicial/supreme/potentialnominees.html?printable" rel="nofollow">[5]</a>

"One group [Bush] consulted was the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Concerned_Women_for_America" title="Concerned Women for America">Concerned Women for America</a>, whose decision to oppose Miers last Wednesday became one of the final blows to help kill the nomination. Janet M. LaRue, the group's chief counsel, said it received a call from the White House on Saturday and liked what it heard." --Peter Baker, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000910.html" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000910.html" rel="nofollow">Washington Post</a>, October 31, 2005.

"Having finally tracked down and read Judge Alito's 3rd Circuit <a href="http://www.confirmthem.com/?p=1764#comment-62642" class="external text" title="http://www.confirmthem.com/?p=1764#comment-62642" rel="nofollow">dissent</a> in Planned Parenthood v Casey, I certainly hope that over the next several weeks pro-choice voters in Maine (Snowe, Collins) Rhode Island (Chafee) Ohio (Voinovich, DeWine) and the other haunts of 'moderate' Republicans are made aware of the fact that Bush's nominee believes husbands have a vested property right in their wives' uteruses." --Billmon, <a href="http://billmon.org/archives/002320.html" class="external text" title="http://billmon.org/archives/002320.html" rel="nofollow">Whiskey Bar</a>, October 31, 2005.

<h3>Religiosity</h3>

"If confirmed, Samuel Alito would be the <a href="http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html" class="external text" title="http://www.adherents.com/adh_sc.html" rel="nofollow">fifth Roman Catholic on the current Supreme Court</a> and the 11th Catholic to serve in the court's history." The others currently on the Supreme Court are: Antonin Scalia, 1986-present; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Kennedy&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anthony Kennedy (page does not exist)">Anthony Kennedy</a>, 1988-present; <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clarence_Thomas" title="Clarence Thomas" class="mw-redirect">Clarence Thomas</a>, 1991-present (converted after joining SC); and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Roberts" title="John Roberts" class="mw-redirect">John Roberts</a>, chief justice, 2005-present. <a href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3427390" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3427390" rel="nofollow">[6]</a>

"The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Opus_Dei" title="Opus Dei">Opus Dei</a> Crowd appears to be firmly entrenched in our power structure." --Buck Batard, <a href="http://badattitudes.com/MT/" class="external text" title="http://badattitudes.com/MT/" rel="nofollow">Bad Attitudes</a>, October 31, 2005.

<h3>Cronyism</h3>

"It's interesting to note that when Sam became U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, and needed to appoint his First Assistant U.S. Attorney (his top deputy), he looked outside the office and brought on board a highly experienced prosecutor from the Southern District of New York by the name of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Chertoff" title="Michael Chertoff">Michael Chertoff</a>. --Eric, <a href="http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2005/10/its_alito.html" class="external text" title="http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2005/10/its_alito.html" rel="nofollow">Is That Legal?</a>, October 31, 2005.

<h3>Career Prosecutor</h3>

"After a clerkship with 3rd Circuit Judge Leonard I. Garth, Alito worked as a front-line federal prosecutor in New Jersey for four years. But soon after President <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan">Ronald Reagan</a> was elected, Alito joined the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Office_of_the_Solicitor_General&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Office of the Solicitor General (page does not exist)">Office of the Solicitor General</a>, staying for four years and helping to decide what position the administration would take in cases up for review by the Supreme Court.

"That was followed by a three-year stint at Main Justice as a deputy assistant attorney general. In 1987, at the age of 37, Alito was appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, a post he held until he was tapped in 1990 by the first President Bush to join the 3rd Circuit." --Shannon P. Duffy, <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1130499501705" class="external text" title="http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1130499501705" rel="nofollow">The Legal Intelligencer</a>, October 31, 2005.

"Before becoming a judge, after a short stint as a law clerk for a federal judge, Alito's entire career -- <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/politicsspecial1/31cnd-court.html?pagewanted=2" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/politicsspecial1/31cnd-court.html?pagewanted=2" rel="nofollow">from 1977 to 1990</a> -- was as a prosecutor or attorney for the Government." --<a href="http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012950.html" class="external text" title="http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012950.html" rel="nofollow">Talk Left</a>, October 31, 2005.

<h3>Conflict of Interest</h3>

"Three years ago Alito drew conflict-of-interest accusations after he upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vanguard_Group&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Vanguard Group (page does not exist)">Vanguard Group</a>. Alito had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested with the mutual fund company at the time. He denied doing anything improper but recused himself from further involvement in the case." --Christopher Lee, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700813.html" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700813.html" rel="nofollow">Washington Post</a>, October 28, 2005.

When Alito "appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee 15 years ago as a nominee for the appellate bench, he promised in writing to disqualify himself from 'any cases involving the Vanguard companies,' a stock and mutual fund firm in which he had substantial personal investments.

"That is why several Senate aides said they were wondering yesterday why Alito agreed to participate in 2002 with two other judges in an appellate case in which he ruled in Vanguard's favor, dismissing a complaint that the company had improperly seized some private accounts and blocked the owner's widow from obtaining the funds they contained.

"Alito's ruling, issued on April 12, 2002, was withdrawn the following year by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Joseph_Scirica&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anthony Joseph Scirica (page does not exist)">Anthony Joseph Scirica</a>, the chief administrative judge for the 3rd Circuit where Alito worked. Scirica acted after the widow complained in a court motion that Alito's participation was 'unlawful' under judicial ethics rules." --R. Jeffrey Smith, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101686.html?nav=hcmodule" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101686.html?nav=hcmodule" rel="nofollow">Washington Post</a>, November 1, 2005.

<h3>Another "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chickenhawk" title="Chickenhawk">Chickenhawk</a>"?</h3>

"Well, here's one portion of his resume we hope gets some very, very close scrutiny over the next few weeks, before his confirmation hearings.

"Where were you in '72?

"Specifically, what were the circumstances of Alito getting a coveted slot in the Army Reserves that year, while the Vietnam War was still raging? Is Alito yet another 'chickenhawk' who avoided the war and now will be deciding on life-or-death cases involving our young men and women <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Operation_Iraqi_Freedom:Year_Three:Quagmire" title="Operation Iraqi Freedom: Year Three: Quagmire" class="mw-redirect">fighting in Iraq</a> and elsewhere today?" --<a href="http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002449.html" class="external text" title="http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002449.html" rel="nofollow">Attytood</a>, October 31, 2005.

"Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito joined the Army Reserve while he was a college student because his lottery number had made it likely he would be drafted for the Vietnam War, college roommates said," <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/alito_joined_army_reserves_during_college/" class="external text" title="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/alito_joined_army_reserves_during_college/" rel="nofollow">November 2, 2005</a>.

<h3>Photo-Opportunist</h3>

"Wasting no time, Alito went to the Capitol shortly after the announcement to meet with lawmakers. Accompanied by two of his children and Sen. Majority Leader <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Frist" title="Bill Frist">Bill Frist</a>, Alito paused first to pay his respects at the coffin of the late civil rights pioneer <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rosa_Parks&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rosa Parks (page does not exist)">Rosa Parks</a> in the Capitol rotunda." --Ron Fournier, <a href="http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_SCOTUS?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-10-31-08-32-36" class="external text" title="http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_SCOTUS?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-10-31-08-32-36" rel="nofollow">Associated Press</a>, October 31, 2005.

<h2>Notable Rulings & Views</h2>

"Alito, 55, has been dubbed 'Scalito' or 'Scalia-lite' by some lawyers and political pundits because of a reputation as a strong, conservative jurist that often brings comparisons to conservative Supreme Court Justice <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Antonin_Scalia" title="Antonin Scalia">Antonin Scalia</a>. But Alito, 55, also has a reputation as being scholarly and quiet, rarely asking questions during oral arguments," the Associated Press's Donna De La Cruz <a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09072005-537504.html" class="external text" title="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09072005-537504.html" rel="nofollow">wrote</a> September 7, 2005.

<dl>

<dd>"Among Alito's noteworthy opinions was his sole dissent in the 1991 case that struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring women seeking <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Abortion" title="Abortion" class="mw-redirect">abortions</a> to tell their husbands. The Supreme Court later struck down the spousal notification.</dd>

</dl>

<dl>

<dd>"But in 2000, Alito joined the majority in ruling that a New Jersey law banning late-term abortions was unconstitutional.</dd>

</dl>

<dl>

<dd>"In a 1997 ruling, Alito said that Jersey City officials did not violate the Constitution with a holiday display that included a creche, a menorah and other secular symbols," De La Cruz wrote.</dd>

</dl>

In a 2004 ruling, <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/3rd/024532p.pdf" class="external text" title="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/3rd/024532p.pdf" rel="nofollow">Doe v Groody(pdf)</a>, Alito dissented in a case which involved the strip-search of a mother and daughter during a drug raid. The court's opinion, as written by then Third Circuit Judge <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Chertoff" title="Michael Chertoff">Michael Chertoff</a>, noted the officer's warrant did not include the authority to search, much less strip search, the mother and daughter. Alito disagreed, stating that the warrant did indeed include anyone on the premises, but even if conceding the warrant did not grant the authority, Alito stated the authority could be broadened by the officers on the scene.

<h3>Related Links</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.law.umich.edu/library/news/topics/alito/alitoindex.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.law.umich.edu/library/news/topics/alito/alitoindex.htm" rel="nofollow">Information on Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Nominee for Justice of the Supreme Court</a>, University of Michigan Law Library, updated October 31, 2005. Includes pdf links to: "Majority Opinions (3rd Circuit Court of Appeals)" and "Concurring and Dissenting Opinions (3rd. Circuit)."</li>

<li><a href="http://media.pfaw.org/stc/AlitoPreliminary.pdf" class="external text" title="http://media.pfaw.org/stc/AlitoPreliminary.pdf" rel="nofollow">"The Record of Samuel Alito: A Preliminary Review,"</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=People_for_the_American_Way" title="People for the American Way">People for the American Way</a>, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/campaignforthecourt/2005/10/bushalito_text.html" class="external text" title="http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/campaignforthecourt/2005/10/bushalito_text.html" rel="nofollow">"Campaign for the Supreme Court,"</a> Washington Post. Includes "links to some Alito dissents and opinions. (This will be updated regularly.)"</li>

<li><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4982737" class="external text" title="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4982737" rel="nofollow">"Notable Rulings from Alito,"</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=NPR" title="NPR" class="mw-redirect">NPR</a>, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/31/alioto.profile.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest" class="external text" title="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/31/alioto.profile.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest" rel="nofollow">"Alito brings long trail of opinions,"</a> Associated Press (CNN), October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051031-083921-5111r" class="external text" title="http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051031-083921-5111r" rel="nofollow">"Long paper trail goes with Alito,"</a> UPI, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/samuel-alitos-america/" class="external text" title="http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/31/samuel-alitos-america/" rel="nofollow">"Samuel Alito’s America,"</a> Think Progress, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li>Rude One, <a href="http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/10/samuel-alito-another-motherfucker-for.html" class="external text" title="http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/10/samuel-alito-another-motherfucker-for.html" rel="nofollow">"Samuel Alito, Another Motherfker For America,"</a> The Rude Pundit, October 31, 2005. WARNING: Offensive language; however, always on target.</li>

<li>Peter Baker, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103100180.html?nav=hcmodule" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103100180.html?nav=hcmodule" rel="nofollow">"Alito Nomination Sets Stage for Ideological Battle. Bush's Court Pick Is Appeals Judge With Record of Conservative Rulings,"</a> Washington Post, November 1, 2005.</li>

<li>Charles Lane, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101865.html?nav=hcmodule" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101865.html?nav=hcmodule" rel="nofollow">"Alito Leans Right Where O'Connor Swung Left,"</a> Washington Post, November 1, 2005.</li>

<li>Bill Sammon, <a href="http://washingtontimes.com/national/20051114-015136-2101r.htm" class="external text" title="http://washingtontimes.com/national/20051114-015136-2101r.htm" rel="nofollow">"Alito rejected abortion as a right,"</a> Washington Times, November 14, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Specific to Women's Issues</h4>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://womensissues.about.com/b/a/214884.htm" class="external text" title="http://womensissues.about.com/b/a/214884.htm" rel="nofollow">"Samuel Alito Jr. - Abortion Views,"</a> Women's Issues Blog at About.com, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li>Gina Holland, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/SupremeCourt/wireStory?id=1266483&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312" class="external text" title="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/SupremeCourt/wireStory?id=1266483&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312" rel="nofollow">"Alito Has Endorsed Abortion Restrictions,"</a> Associated Press (CBS News), October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/31/1532203" class="external text" title="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/31/1532203" rel="nofollow">"Bush Picks Conservative Judge Samuel Alito Who Endorsed Abortion Restrictions for Supreme Court,"</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Democracy_Now%21" title="Democracy Now!">Democracy Now!</a>, October 31, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Specific to Crime</h4>

<ul>

<li>Jeffrey Gold, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-alito-legal,1,7117461.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines" class="external text" title="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-alito-legal,1,7117461.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines" rel="nofollow">"Alito Pushed Organized Crime, Drug Cases,"</a> Associated Press (Los Angeles Times), October 31, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Specific to Privacy & Gay Rights Issues</h4>

<ul>

<li>Christian R. Burset and Alan Wirzbicki, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/alito_writing_backed_privacy_gay_rights/" class="external text" title="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/alito_writing_backed_privacy_gay_rights/" rel="nofollow">"Alito writing backed privacy, gay rights,"</a> Boston Globe, November 2, 2005.</li>

<li>Calvin Woodward, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/young_alito_defended_privacy_gay_rights/" class="external text" title="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/young_alito_defended_privacy_gay_rights/" rel="nofollow">"Young Alito defended privacy, gay rights,"</a> Associated Press (Boston Globe), November 2, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<dl>

<dd>

<ul>

<li>Samuel A. Alito, Jr., <a href="http://www.campusprogress.org/uploads/alito_report.pdf" class="external text" title="http://www.campusprogress.org/uploads/alito_report.pdf" rel="nofollow">Conference on The Boundaries of Privacy in American Society,"</a> Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs, Princeton University, Fall Term 1971.</li>

</ul>

</dd>

</dl>

<h4>Specific to Civil Rights</h4>

<ul>

<li>Amy Golstein and Jo Becker, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202724.html?nav=hcmodule" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202724.html?nav=hcmodule" rel="nofollow">"Critics See Ammunition In Alito's Rights Record,"</a> November 3, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Specific to Workers' Rights</h4>

<ul>

<li>Pete Ross, <a href="http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001320.php" class="external text" title="http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001320.php" rel="nofollow">"Dems' Best Focus: Alito's Anti-worker Record,"</a> Donkey Rising, November 1, 2005.</li>

<li>Nathan Newman, <a href="http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/1/9033/66077" class="external text" title="http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/1/9033/66077" rel="nofollow">"Scalito on Workers Rights,"</a> TPM Cafe, November 1, 2005. Links to rulings provided.</li>

<li>Molly Selvin, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fi-bizjudge1nov01,1,716527.story?coll=la-headlines-politics&ctrack=1&cset=true" class="external text" title="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fi-bizjudge1nov01,1,716527.story?coll=la-headlines-politics&ctrack=1&cset=true" rel="nofollow">"Court Nominee Has Free-Market Bent. Bush's choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has a pro-business record,"</a> Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Specific to Conflict of Interest</h4>

<ul>

<li>R. Jeffrey Smith, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101686.html?nav=hcmodule" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103101686.html?nav=hcmodule" rel="nofollow">"Judge Participated in 2002 Vanguard Case Despite Promise to Recuse,"</a> Washington Post, November 1, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h2><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.:_Reactions_to_the_Nomination" title="Samuel A. Alito, Jr.: Reactions to the Nomination">Reactions to the Nomination</a></h2>

<h2>Profiles</h2>

Alito was born April 1, 1950, in Trenton, New Jersey. "Alito's deceased father, Samuel Alito Sr., was the director of the New Jersey's Office of Legislative Services from 1952 to 1984. Alito's sister, Rosemary Alito, is a partner with the law firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham in Newark, and is regarded as one of New Jersey's top employment lawyers." <a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09072005-537504.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09072005-537504.html" rel="nofollow">[7]</a>

<h2>Appointments</h2>

Alito was appointed February 20, 1990, by President <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_H.W._Bush" title="George H.W. Bush" class="mw-redirect">George H.W. Bush</a> to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, "to a seat vacated by John Joseph Gibbons." He was confirmed by the Senate April 27, 1990, and received commission on April 30, 1990. <a href="http://air.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=26" class="external autonumber" title="http://air.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=26" rel="nofollow">[8]</a>

<h2>Professional Career</h2>

<ul>

<li>Law clerk, Hon. Leonard I. Garth, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, 1976-1977</li>

<li>Assistant U.S. attorney, District of New Jersey, 1977-1981</li>

<li>Assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 1981-1985</li>

<li>Deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 1985-1987</li>

<li>U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, 1987-1990</li>

</ul>

<h2>Education</h2>

<ul>

<li>Princeton University, A.B., 1972</li>

<li>Yale Law School, J.D., 1975</li>

</ul>

<h2>Corporate Holdings</h2>

The Associated Press <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103100733.html?nav=rss_nation/special" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/31/AR2005103100733.html?nav=rss_nation/special" rel="nofollow">reported</a> October 31, 2005, that "Court Nominee Alito Holdings Top $615,000" ... "including stock in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Exxon_Mobil" title="Exxon Mobil">Exxon Mobil</a> Corp. worth more than $100,000 [received as a bequest in May 2004], according to his 2004 financial disclosure statement ... stock worth $15,000 and $50,000 each in fast-food giant McDonalds and Intel, the computer chip maker; and stock worth less than $15,000 each in drug-maker Bristol Myers Sqibb and Disney." Both the Bristol Myers Squibb and McDonalds stocks were listed as gifts in 2003.

<h2>SourceWatch Resources</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence" title="Bush administration cronyism and incompetence">Bush administration cronyism and incompetence</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush%27s_judicial_nominees" title="Bush's judicial nominees">Bush's judicial nominees</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Creative_Response_Concepts" title="Creative Response Concepts">Creative Response Concepts</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_W._Bush%27s_domestic_spying" title="George W. Bush's domestic spying">George W. Bush's domestic spying</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nuclear_option" title="Nuclear option">nuclear option</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>External links</h2>

<h3>Ongoing Coverage: Blogs & Websites</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sctnomination.com/blog/archives/candidates/alito" class="external text" title="http://www.sctnomination.com/blog/archives/candidates/alito" rel="nofollow">The Supreme Court Nomination Blog</a>, sister to <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/" class="external text" title="http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/" rel="nofollow">SCOTUSblog</a>.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.supremecourtwatch.org/" class="external text" title="http://www.supremecourtwatch.org/" rel="nofollow">Supreme Court Watch</a> website.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.1144731/k.AF81/Quick_Facts_on_Samuel_Alito.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.savethecourt.org/site/c.mwK0JbNTJrF/b.1144731/k.AF81/Quick_Facts_on_Samuel_Alito.htm" rel="nofollow">Save the Court.org</a>, People for the American Way website.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michelle_Malkin" title="Michelle Malkin">Michelle Malkin</a>, <a href="http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003809.htm" class="external text" title="http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003809.htm" rel="nofollow">"It's Samuel Alito,"</a> michellemalkin.com.</li>

</ul>

<h3>Supreme Court Nomination</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051031.html" class="external text" title="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/20051031.html" rel="nofollow">White House News Release: "President Nominates Judge Samuel A. Alito as Supreme Court Justice,"</a> The Cross Hall, October 31, 2005. Video link to President's remarks on page; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/images/20051031_p103105pm-0080ajpg-717v.html" class="external text" title="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/10/images/20051031_p103105pm-0080ajpg-717v.html" rel="nofollow">White House photo ops</a>; and <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/judicialnominees/alito.html" class="external text" title="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/judicialnominees/alito.html" rel="nofollow">White House Profile: Samuel A. Alito, Jr.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/politicsspecial1/31text-alito.html" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politics/politicsspecial1/31text-alito.html" rel="nofollow">Transcript: "Judge Alito's Statement,"</a> New York Times, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.earnedmedia.org/doj1031.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.earnedmedia.org/doj1031.htm" rel="nofollow">"Statement of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on the Nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr.,"</a> Christian News Wire/<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Communication_Network" title="Christian Communication Network">Christian Communication Network</a>, October 31, 2005. Note <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Department_of_Justice" title="Department of Justice" class="mw-redirect">Department of Justice</a> banner at top of page.</li>

</ul>

<h3>Profiles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://air.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=26" class="external text" title="http://air.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=26" rel="nofollow">Judges of the United States: Alito, Samuel A., Jr.</a>, air.fjc.gov, undated.</li>

<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A.Alito,Jr." class="external text" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A.Alito,Jr." rel="nofollow">Samuel A. Alito, Jr.</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito_Supreme_Court_nomination" class="external text" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito_Supreme_Court_nomination" rel="nofollow">Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination</a> in the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wikipedia" title="Wikipedia">Wikipedia</a>.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.movingideas.org/content/en/supreme_court_action.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.movingideas.org/content/en/supreme_court_action.htm" rel="nofollow">Progressives' Guide to the Samuel Alito Nomination</a>, Moving Ideas.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070100756.html" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070100756.html" rel="nofollow">"Possible Nominees to the Supreme Court: Samuel A. Alito, Jr.,"</a> Washington Post, July 1, 2005.</li>

<li>Christopher Lee, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700813.html" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700813.html" rel="nofollow">"Possible Supreme Court Nominees: Samuel A. Alito, Jr.,"</a> Washington Post, October 28, 2005.</li>

<li>Bret Shulte, <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051031/31alito.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051031/31alito.htm" rel="nofollow">"Samuel Alito Jr.,"</a> US News & World Report Online, October 31, 2005 (originally published July 19, 2005).</li>

<li><a href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3427390" class="external text" title="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3427390" rel="nofollow">"Alito would be fifth Catholic justice on Supreme Court,"</a> Associated Press (Houston Chronicle), October 31, 2005.</li>

<li>Darlene Superville, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/alito_a_meticulous_lawyer_in_reagan_years/" class="external text" title="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/02/alito_a_meticulous_lawyer_in_reagan_years/" rel="nofollow">"Alito a meticulous lawyer in Reagan years,"</a> Associated Press (Boston Globe), November 2, 2005.</li>

</ul>

<h3>Articles & Commentary</h3>

<ul>

<li>Donna De La Cruz, <a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09072005-537504.html" class="external text" title="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-09072005-537504.html" rel="nofollow">"Judge Alito again mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee,"</a> Associated Press (Philly Burbs), September 7, 2005.</li>

<li>Erick, <a href="http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/10/28/113113/33" class="external text" title="http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/10/28/113113/33" rel="nofollow">"Alito It Is -- Or So It Seems,"</a> RedState.org, October 28, 2005.</li>

<li>Jesse J. Holland, <a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--alito-firstconfir1031oct31,0,2859586.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey" class="external text" title="http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--alito-firstconfir1031oct31,0,2859586.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey" rel="nofollow">"15 years ago, Alito provoked no controversy at confirmation,"</a> Associated Press (Newsday), October 31, 2005.</li>

<li>Donna Cassata, <a href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3427273" class="external text" title="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3427273" rel="nofollow">"Samuel Alito's conservative views earned him nickname 'Scalito',"</a> Associated Press (Houston Chronicle), October 31, 2005.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aPwuoDmZFzsc" class="external text" title="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aPwuoDmZFzsc" rel="nofollow">"Judge Samuel Alito Chosen by Bush for Supreme Court (Update9),"</a> Bloomberg.com, October 31, 2005.</li>

<li>Susan Jones, <a href="http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1360019.html" class="external text" title="http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1360019.html" rel="nofollow">"Alito 'Mindful' of Federal Judges' Responsibilities,"</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cybercast_News_Service" title="Cybercast News Service">Cybercast News Service</a> (Crosswalk), October 31, 2005.</li>

<li>Mark Hand, "<a href="http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/526230/white-house-expanding-pr-roles-alito-nomination" class="external text" title="http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/article/526230/white-house-expanding-pr-roles-alito-nomination" rel="nofollow">White House expanding PR roles for Alito nomination</a>", PR Week, November 3, 2005. (Sub req'd).</li>

<li>Mike Allen, "<a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1148113,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1148113,00.html" rel="nofollow">GOP Confident as Alito Hearings Wrap: Despite frustrating Democrats with his answers, the nominee has made no major slip-ups</a>," Time, January 11, 2006.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edward_M._Kennedy" title="Edward M. Kennedy">Edward M. Kennedy</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072801489.html" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072801489.html" rel="nofollow">"Roberts and Alito Misled Us,"</a> Washington Post, July 30, 2006.</li>

</ul>

<div class="printfooter">Retrieved from "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_A.Alito,Jr.</a>"</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Judiciary" title="Category:Judiciary">Judiciary</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Civil_liberties_%28U.S.%29" title="Category:Civil liberties (U.S.)">Civil liberties (U.S.)</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Needs_review" title="Category:Needs review">Needs review</a></div>

</div>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito</a>

While a sophomore at Princeton, Alito received the low lottery number 32, in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service" title="Selective Service" class="mw-redirect">Selective Service</a> drawing on December 1, 1969.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito#cite_note-reserves-7">[8]</a> In 1970, he became a member of the school's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army" title="United States Army">Army</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROTC" title="ROTC" class="mw-redirect">ROTC</a> program, attending a six-week basic summer camp that year at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Knox" title="Fort Knox">Fort Knox</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky" title="Kentucky">Kentucky</a>, in lieu of having been in ROTC during his first two years in college. Alito was a member of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerned_Alumni_of_Princeton" title="Concerned Alumni of Princeton">Concerned Alumni of Princeton</a>, which was formed in October 1972 at least in part to oppose Princeton's decisions regarding <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action" title="Affirmative action">affirmative action</a>. Apart from Alito's written 1985 statement of membership of CAP on a job application, which Alito says was truthful, there is no other documentation of Alito's involvement with or contributions in the group. Alito has cited the banning and subsequent treatment of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROTC" title="ROTC" class="mw-redirect">ROTC</a> by the university as his reason for belonging to CAP.

</div>

==

<div class="articleHeadline">Samuel Alito Jr.</div>

<div class="articleIssueDate">Posted 7/19/05</div>

<div class="articleByline">By Bret Schulte</div>

Nicknamed "Scalito" for views resembling those of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito Jr. is a favorite son of the political right. Appointed in 1990 by George H.W. Bush to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito has earned a reputation for intellectual rigor and polite but frequent dissent in a court that has been historically liberal. His mettle, as well as a personable demeanor and ties to former Republican administrations, has long had observers buzzing about his potential rise to the high court. "Sam Alito is in my mind the strongest candidate on the list," says Pepperdine law Prof. Douglas Kmiec. "I know them all . . . but I think Sam is a standout because he's a judge's judge. He approaches cases with impartiality and open-mindedness."

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A New Jersey native, the 55-year-old Alito received a bachelor's degree from Princeton and graduated from Yale Law School. He worked in the solicitor general's office during the Reagan administration and was a U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey when George H.W. Bush nominated him to the Third Circuit. His 15 years on the bench have been marked by strong conservatism on a case-by-case basis that avoids sweeping opinions on constitutionality.

In 1997, Alito authored the majority opinion upholding a city's right to stage a holiday display that included a Nativity scene and a menorah because the city also included secular symbols and a banner emphasizing the importance of diversity. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito was the sole dissenter on the Third Circuit, which struck a Pennsylvania law that required women seeking abortions to consult their husbands. He argued that many of the potential reasons for an abortion, such as "economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition . . . may be obviated by discussion prior to abortion." The case went on to the Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decision 6 to 3.

Alito's conservative stripes are equally evident in criminal law. Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer who has known Alito since 1981 and tried cases before him on the Third Circuit, describes him as "an activist conservatist judge" who is tough on crime and narrowly construes prisoners' and criminals' rights. "He's very prosecutorial from the bench. He has looked to be creative in his conservatism, which is, I think, as much a Rehnquist as a Scalia trait," Lustberg says.

Some observers say that Alito cannot be easily pigeon-holed. In Saxe v. State College Area School District, Alito, writing for the panel, argued that the school does not have the right to punish students for vulgar language or harassment when it doesn't disrupt the school day. "Sam struck that down as a violation of free speech," Kmiec says. "That's not a conservative outcome."

Off the bench, friends and colleagues describe Alito as quiet and self-effacing with a wry sense of humor. He is a voracious reader with a particular love for biographies and history. With his wife, Martha, he has a son in college and a daughter in high school. "He's mild mannered and generous and family oriented," Lustberg says. "I don't agree with him on many issues, but I have the utmost respect for him. No one can question his intelligence or integrity." usnews

=

<h1>Justice Alito Owns $100,000+ of Exxon Stock</h1>

<h2>How a Recusal Can Still Be a Miscarriage of Justice</h2>

...http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/shapley/alito-exxon-stock-47022803#comments"..With a precedent-setting case before the Supreme Court about whether and how much Exxon Mobil should pay in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill that ruined lives, careers and wildlife in Alaska nearly two decades ago, the Supreme Court is hamstrung by one justice's financial ties to the world's largest and most profitable company.

Justice Samuel Alito, appointed by President Bush, owns "thousands" of shares of Exxon Mobil stock, according to the PBS NewsHour, at a value CBS News estimated between $100,000 and $250,000.

He rightly recused himself to avoid the appearance that having a quarter of a million dollars riding on a case might sway his decision. The plaintiffs, Alaskan residents (20% of whom have died since the lawsuit was first filed), seek $2.5 billion in damages for the loss of property value, ability to fish and other factors.

Oddly, his recusal may help the plaintiffs by splitting the remaining justices evenly. Because it is Exxon's appeal of a lower court's ruling, a tie goes to the Alaskans.

But such an outcome would fail to actually decide the matter, legally. How liable is a corporation, whose profits make it richer than many nations, for the damage it does in the name of profit? How much — Exxon has already paid upwards of $3 billion to state and local governments, and on the cleanup itself — is enough? To what degree is a company responsible for the conduct of its managers, and does a tanker captain count as a corporate manager?

A deadlock would leave those questions unanswered, which could mean the next case of this magnitude will take another 20 years to be resolved. Exxon Mobil can bank some of its record $40 billion profits from last year and use the interest to pay off its legal bills and any far-off settlements. For the aggrieved, a 20-year wait is not justice.

</div>

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/shapley/alito-exxon-stock-47022803

</div>

</div>