civil liberties (original) (raw)
I got an email from the Kerry campaign today. He is of course voting against Alito. But he offers a couple of reasons that go well beyond partisan concerns. Well, anything withing MY definition of "partisan."
In a speech in 2000, Judge Alito even endorsed a theory suggesting that independent agencies like the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which holds companies responsible for making products safe for kids, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which stands up to corporate abusers like Enron, are unconstitutional infringements on the President's power.
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Judge Alito's record on civil rights is no better. He saw no legitimate question of discrimination in allowing an all-white jury to sentence a black man to death for killing a white man. His own colleagues have criticized him for ignoring employees' rights to be free from job discrimination. Judge Alito's clear bias is to keep victims of discrimination out of the court system - and to rule in favor of corporate interests.
Judge Alito's record on privacy rights is worst of all. In 1985, Judge Alito actually wrote a memo outlining a strategy to undermine Roe v. Wade by slowly chipping away at its protections. That same year, Judge Alito wrote in a job application that he did not believe in the constitutionality of the right to privacy. Judge Alito's views on privacy rights are not ambiguous; they are openly hostile.
I cannot see how this man can be on any bench, much less the Supreme Court. Even when I put on my Republican Emulation Glasses, I can't see any defensable reason for thinking him an addition to the court. He's a radical, activist idiologue. Please remind your Congressperson that a vote for the Constitution is a vote for political survival.