SENATE, AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE TO KNOW WHERE JUDGE ALITO STANDS, AND HIS STANDARDS FOR JUDICIAL SCRUTINY

Senate Judiciary Committee needs to hear from you now! Our lawmakers must ask “tough questions” of Supreme Court Nominee Samuel Alito at upcoming hearings!

Judge Samuel Alito is President Bush’s latest nominee for a post on the Supreme Court of the United States.

There are growing concerns about where Alito stands on important constitutional issues. Documents released by the National Archives and other sources portray Alito as a jurist very much at odds with civil liberties, reproductive rights for women and other constitutional protections. His record on the First Amendment separation of church and state is especially troublesome.

* Alito, 55, is a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. He was nominated to the court by George H.W. Bush in 1990. He was educated at Princeton University and Yale Law School, and served as assistant to the Solicitor General and deputy assistant to the Attorney General during the Reagan Administration, and was United State Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

* His ideological agreement with Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has earned him the nickname “Scalito.” Along with Justice Clarence Thomas, Alito – if approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Senate – could drastically alter the current ideological direction of the high court. Legal observers and advocacy groups warn that many civil rights protections could be in jeopardy. Alito is a staunch advocate of “judicial restraint” and “states’ rights”, and has already voiced his disagreement with many of the important decisions rendered by SCOTUS, especially with those made during the years of the Warren court.

Under this veneer of “judicial restraint” and deference to state courts, Alito would be at odds with important decisions that upheld the separation of church and state. These include:

– MURRAY v. CURLETT (combined with ABINGTON TOWNSHIP v. SCHEMPP) which helped to end mandatory prayer and Bible verse recitation in public schools, as well as cases like ENGEL v. VITALE – struck down government-composed prayer.

– LEE v. WEISMAN – struck down clergy-led prayer at high school graduation ceremonies.

– BOERNE v. FLORES – Found that Congress exceeded its authority in enacting the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act which provided discriminatory legal “carve-outs” for religious groups.

– LEMON v. KURTZMAN – Established an important set of guidelines for courts to use when deciding First Amendment cases.

Where do Alito and other nominees stand?

To date, President Bush has nominated three individuals to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. John Roberts was chosen to fill the post of Chief Justice that had been held by the late Justice William Rehnquist. White House counsel Harriett Miers withdrew from the nomination process, mostly under pressure from the religious right and other conservative groups that questioned her ideological reliability. The selection of Judge Samuel Alito shows that Bush remains committed to drastically altering the ideological balance on the Supreme Court. For those of us concerned with the First Amendment, this means that if confirmed Alito would steer the court away from separation of church and state, and much more in the direction of allowing government to “accommodate” and even actively promote religion and religious institutions.

* News media, Congress and the American people have the right to know where nominees stand on constitutional issues! Supporters of Roberts, Miers and Alito have engaged in a “disinformation” and distortion campaign, claiming that asking questions of how nominees may vote in hypothetical cases is “unfair.” And there are now revelations that the Bush Administration has been “coaching” nominees to deny that earlier statements and writings (like ones made by Alito while serving in the Office of the Attorney General) had nothing to do with legal/philosophical views but were merely an effort to curry favors with superiors.

* We can and should ask what standards, legal guidelines and other criteria nominees like Judge Alito will use in deciding cases! On December 13, 2005, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA.) informed Judge Alito that he would be asked important questions pertinent to a number of legal areas.

“(1) What is your understanding of the scope of the Free Exercise Clause?

(2) Do you believe the Court should approach free exercise claims made by adherents of small minority faiths differently than it approaches claims made by adherents of more broadly subscribed to faiths?

(3) The above quoted language from your opinion in FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE seems to suggest that, when deciding if a rule violates the Free Exercise Clause, a court should consider the subjective intent of the government agents who adopted the rule. Is that, in fact, your view? If so, how should a court identify this intent, and how much weight should a government actor's subjective intent be given? If there were evidence of discriminatory intent in SMITH, do you believe that the case should have been decided differently?”

Urge members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to thoroughly question Judge Alito and ascertain what guidelines he will use to protect the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment!

• Contact the members of the Committee. Let them know that you expect the Committee to undertake a thorough, complete probe into where Samuel Alito stands on the First Amendment separation of church and state. Tell them that Congress and the American people deserve to know what legal guidelines Judge Alito will use in rendering his legal judgments!
• Share your letters, faxes and e-mails with us! We’ll post them on this web site
• Spread this action alert!
• Act promptly! Hearings on the Alito nomination will begin on or around January 8, 2006. A vote on to confirm Alito is expected on or about January 20. Senators need to hear from you now!

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