Today, in one of the closest partisan votes for a Supreme court nominee, Judge Samuel Alito became the 110th Supreme court justice taking over the vacancy left by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The vote was 52-48--all but one Republican voted for Alito while four Democrats broke from the party and gave their stamp of approval.
The Alito nomination was hotly contested by the Democrats mostly because the social conservative for the former Regan administration was seen as a tipping vote on many issues that are guaranteed to come before the court such as abortion, executive power and affirmative action. However, during the nomination process the Democrats had a hard time pinning down Alito's convictions. Many of his answers were vague, and he refused to give any concrete response on whether he would overturn Roe V. Wade, vouching that he would have to rule on a case by case basis.
Yet was there really any doubt that Alito wasn't going to be confirmed? Alito has a nearly spotless record, with the exception for his short stint as a member of the Conservative Alumni of Princeton, an organization known for anti-feminist and anti-gay views. He also comes on the heels of the Harriet Miers nomination that frightened both parties with its obvious croneyism, and I think that every one was happy to have at least a competent nominee. Ultimately though Alito is a man who was in the right place at the right time. In this election year the Democrats know they need to chose their battles wisely, and though they tried their best even the most liberal among them know attacking Alito was a fool's errand. He was about as flammable as water, and quickly the whole circus was taken out of the limelight by the wiretapping scandal. It's sort of sad to me that this whole thing was pushed aside by the press since the Alito confirmation could quite possibly be the pivotal vote on so many important issues, the most important being Executive powers (Alito believes in a strong executive by the way), but no matter how you look at it this has been yet another whopping defeat for the Democrats who still have not been able to mount a front anywhere.
3 comments:
This is worrisome, but Roberts seems more reasonable than Rehnquist, so hopefully he'll keep the court from making too many terrible decisions. As long as Stevens can hang around for a few more years, nothing terrible should happen. But another Bush nomination would be disastrous.
Indeed. It might be time to get these guys those mobile health monitors just so Rove and Carvell can keep themselves prepped.
What's really making my head swoon is my prediction that one of Alito's first big cases might just be the People vs. Bush on these wiretapping charges, and if that's the case than I think Alito's vote would be no different then if Harriet Miers was in the same seat.
That could be the first major case, and that probably will be very close. Alito will almost definitely side with Bush, as will Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas. Then the four who voted against Bush in Bush v. Gore, Stevens and Souter and Breyer and Ginsberg, will probably find against Bush. Anthony Kennedy is the swing vote here, and I don't know his voting record well enough to predict his decision. However, there is the possibility that at least one consservative judge - most likely Roberts - will rule against the president in order to support limited government.
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